“You're way off, friend,” he said to the Man-Who-Knew-It-All. “There ain't nothin' the matter with the Line, nor the ship, nor the Captain. This is my sixth trip aboard of her, and I know! They had a strike among the stevedores the day we sailed, and then, too, we've got a scrub lot of stokers below, and the Captain's got to handle 'em just so. That kind gets ugly when anything happens. I had sixty head of cattle aboard here on my last trip over, and some of 'em got loose in a storm, and there was hell to pay with the crew till things got straightened out. I ain't much on shootin' irons, but they came handy that time. I helped and I know. Got a couple in my cabin now. Needn't tell me nothin' about the Captain. He's all there when he's wanted, and it don't take him more'n a minute, either, to get busy.” The door of the smoking-room opened and the object of his eulogy strolled in. He was evidently just off the bridge, for the thrash of the spray still glistened on his oilskins and on his gray, half-moon whiskers. That his word was law aboard ship, and that he enforced it in the fewest words possible, was evident in every line of his face and every tone of his voice. If he deserved an overhauling it certainly would not come from any one on board--least of all from Carhart--the Man-Who-Knew-It-All. Loosening the thong that bound his so'wester to his chin, he slapped it twice across a chair back, the water flying in every direction, and then faced the room. “Mr. Bonner.” “Yes, sir,” answered the big-shouldered Texan, rising to his feet. “I'd like to see you for a minute,” and without another word the two men left the room and made their way in silence down the wet deck to where the Chief Engineer stood. “Mike, this is Mr. Bonner; you remember him, don't you? You can rely on his carrying out any orders you give him. If you need another man let him pick him out--” and he continued on to his cabin. Once there the Captain closed the door behind him, shutting out the pound and swash of the sea; took from a rack over his bunk a roll of charts, spread one on a table and with his head in his hands studied it carefully. The door opened and the Chief Engineer again stood beside him. The Captain raised his head. “Will Bonner serve?” he asked. “Yes, glad to, and he thinks he's got another man. He's what he calls out his way a 'tenderfoot,' he says, but he's game and can be depended on. Have you made up your mind where she'll cross?”--and he bent over the chart. The Captain picked up a pair of compasses, balanced them for a moment in his fingers, and with the precision of a seamstress threading a needle, dropped the points astride a wavy line known as the steamer track. The engineer nodded: “That will give us about twenty-two hours leeway,” he said gravely, “if we make twelve knots.” “Yes, if you make twelve knots: can you do it?”