"Well, for a man that can guess at the number of passengers and their destination as you can--making your cigars off of innocent, trusting, unsophisticated damsels, you certainly are at times most astonishingly dull." "Do you mean to say that Philip was--" "Why, of course, tied down snugly under the blue check apron." "Well, by George, he was game! And that stewardess! I hope she will get her reward in heaven." "She's getting a part of it on earth. When Margaret found that the woman wouldn't take money for her help she took off her watch and gave it to her, telling her that she must wear it because it was hers, and Miss Brannigan is now shut up in a stateroom, pinning and unpinning in a most ecstatic state of mind, and saying, probably as she was when I left her, 'And sure, mem, what will Michael Callahan think of me now wid me gould watch and pin?'" "Did she leave a letter or anything?" "Yes, just a note for me. Most of it was taken up with telling me how sorry she was to leave me in such a position, but how she couldn't help it--that it was her one chance and she must take it--that Norah would tell me all the details--and that I would know by the time the letter reached me whether it had failed. Mercy! if she only gets off with him she needn't think of me! Anyway, it isn't as if I were left by myself. Of course grandma will be uneasy about me--she is so afraid of water--but she will be glad I am with you. I know that because I heard her tell Margaret one day that she knew you were a man that could be trusted." "_You bet I am!_" thought Harcourt, looking down into the innocent girlish face. Aloud he said, "What do you think we'd better do?" The aspect of the case that troubled Margaret had already appealed to him. "Why, there isn't anything we can do but go on, is there?" "Nothing that I can see--unless I put you in another basket and chuck you off at Sailor's Encampment. That's the only stop between Detour and the Soo.... Say!" "What?" "Oh, nothing." It was not worth while to alarm her, but a startling thought had struck him. Suppose Smeltzer, finding out that she had escaped him, should get off at Sailor's Encampment, wait for the down boat, and be on it waiting for her when she took it at Detour.... Then he felt sure that the quick wit that had thought of a way of escape in the first place would have thought of that. The stewardess was acquainted with the time schedule if he was not. Still, the fear haunted him until they had left Sailor's Encampment behind them, and looking down he saw Smeltzer below at the gangway. It was funny the way Smeltzer hugged the gangway when they made a landing.