"I? No! I admire him. The way he runs this cabin----" "Makes her keep up with the boat," they admitted. "I never saw his like," laughed the statesman. "Wouldn't want to, would you?" "N-no, he makes big mistakes. But--he's got a future!" "So mind his heels," said one of the pair. They were enjoying their politician. He saw that by their gravity. In their world men looked gravest when amused, and saved their smiles for emergencies. While he offered, and they accepted, cigars he spoke absently: "The young gentleman's making a mistake right now that he ought to be saved from." "Another?" they dryly asked as they used his cigar for a light. So far had he fallen in the general esteem. He chose not to hear. "I wish," he insisted, "we could save him from it." "Why, yes!--wish you could. But 'we' ain't us. We sporting men, we're mighty bashful, you know." "Naturally," admitted the senator. "Yes, glass, with care. But there's another mistake maker we wish you wished you could save. We ev'm might help." "Aha!" thought the senator. He was right, after all. He had felt confident that these men, treated by Hugh as they had been, would privately "have it in for him"; that they would be glad of any safe chance to "get away with him"--not so utterly as to imperil their necks, yet not too lightly for their spiritual comfort the rest of their days--and that they saw their chance just where he saw his. "Ye-es?" He mused. They let him muse. The exhorter, he reflected, having picked up the trail and opened the cry--trail which the headlong twins had so witlessly overrun--these older dogs were on it hot; trail of the Gilmores and "Harriet." Somewhere on that trail the captain's son would show up, and when the game should be treed they would be able, in the general mix-up, to "go and see Hugh" and "cook his goose." The musing ceased. "You mean the actor?" The pair warmed up. "Yes, sir-ee, him. _That_ fellow's making a mistake we might help you to handle. God! sir, he's a nigger-stealer. His wife has got a stolen nigger wench with her now. Had her these ten years. Save _him_. Save _them_." "Our friend John the Baptist suggests that," began the senator. "Adzac'ly!" was the facetious affirmation. "Smelt 'em out at the show. That's how come the mate has locked him up." The senator stiffened. "Oh, you must be mistaken!" "Want to bet? Pull out. Go you a thousand they've jugged him and them two Arkansas killers. Yes, sir, to stay jugged till they leave us, at Helena." "Who!--have done that?" "Same as you're thinking; they; them; him; that believes he's bossing the boat--which maybe he is." "Where is he?" "Up on the roof, with a select few, both sexes." "Gentlemen, he must let them go at once!" "Senator, not with money, but just on your word, you sort o' bail 'em out. If they cut up, nobody'll blame you." "I'll do it! We don't want an owner of the finest boat on Southern waters to have any part in _that sort_ of mistake, whatever his youth."