But he was swallowed in the crowd. She made a tour of the deck. But no, one couldn’t stay long, and anyhow Cheviot wasn’t there. Not even the Blumpittys seemed to be there. Curlyhead was refusing to come and be put to bed, refusing in terms incredibly sulphurous for one of such tender years. It turned you sick to hear such language from baby lips. “Where you off to?” said one man to another just in front of Hildegarde. “Goin’ to report to the authorities.” “Report what?” “The rat hole they’re askin’ me to sleep in.” “Plenty o’ time. We ain’t goin’ to get off till to-morrer, anyway.” “_What!_ Why, we’re a week late a’ready.” “Some of us’ll be later’n that. The authorities are goin’ to hold back a couple of hundred fur the next ship.” “Who says so? _I_ ain’t goin’ to wait.” “Well”—he lowered his voice—“there’s inconvenient questions about over-crowdin’.” The raging malcontent of the moment before was straightway tamed. You saw in his face that he would do his share in hushing up the conditions under which he was to make the voyage. As Hildegarde sped along the last stretch of the deck before going below, her astonished eyes fell upon the giant. Then he hadn’t got off by the _Congress_! She was about to ask him if he’d seen the Blumpittys, but some one else was surprised to find the giant on board the _Los Angeles_—a puffing, excited individual, with a red beard, in the act of pushing past, stopped, stared, and then clapped the giant on the back. “Gawd A’mighty! Is that you!” “No,” says the giant calmly. “I’m Ford O’Gorman.” Again Hildegarde hurried down the companionway, and very much as an agitated tabby seeks refuge in the attic, she clambered into the top berth furthest from the door. And Cheviot had never come! CHAPTER XVII When she waked the next morning it was to a sensation of strange silence and gentle motion. Why, they had got off, then, after all! She was on her way to Nome. She sat up and looked about at the wreck of wardrobe and the prostrate bodies of women. One made a noise like a half-suppressed moan. After a moment the owner of the little sound of misery got up and tried to put on a pink flannel jacket. For some reason that simple operation appeared to be painful. She was about to abandon it. Hildegarde, half-way down from her berth, said, “I’ll help you.” But the other shrank away. “No, no.” She leaned her forehead against the upper berth. “You aren’t sick already, are you?” “No, it’s only—they nearly broke my arm in the crush last night.” “Oh-h!” “I think it’s just strained, that’s all.” As she turned round to sit on the edge of her berth, there, hanging outside the nightgown’s split sleeve, was the injured arm, bare to the shoulder, swollen, discolored. “Oh! What have you been doing for it?” “I was thinking of going out to get some cold water.” “Is the water here hot?” Hildegarde asked, bewildered. The woman didn’t trouble to answer. Hildegarde was investigating. “Why, there’s no water at all!”