The second day was a repetition of the first. He began with scrubbing down the bridge. The suds, strong with lye, ate shrewdly at his raw hands. Still he hummed as he worked and watched McTee's frown grow dark. When he was ordered below to the fireroom, he wrapped his hands in the soft waste again. That helped him for a time, but after the first two hours the waste matted and grew hard with perspiration and blood. He had to throw it away and take the shovel handle against his bare skin. He told himself that it was only a matter of time before calluses would form, but what chance was there for a formation of calluses when the water and suds softened his hands every morning? On the third day he was a little more used to the torture. His hands were hopelessly raw now, but still he made no complaint and stuck with his task. That night he secured a rag and retreated to the stretch of deck between the wheelhouse and the after-cabin, where he squatted beside a bucket of water and washed his hands carefully. Both hands were puffed and red; one of the creases in the left palm bled a steady trickle. He washed them slowly, with infinite relish of the cool water, until he felt that peculiar sensation which warns us that we are watched by another eye. He looked up to see a young woman standing above him at the rail of the after-cabin. She had been watching him by the light from the window of the wheelhouse. CHAPTER 4 "Let me bandage your hands," she said. "I have some salve in my room." Her voice was a balm to the troubled heart of Harrigan. His knotted forehead relaxed. "Are you coming up?" "Aye." He ran up the ladder and followed her to a cabin. She rummaged through a suitcase and finally brought out a little tin box of salve and a roll of gauze. As she stooped with her back to him, he saw that her hair was red--not fiery red like his, but a deep dull bronze, with points of gold where the light struck it. When she straightened and turned, her eyes went wide, looking up to him, for he bulked huge in the tiny cabin. "What a big fellow you are!" He did not answer for a moment; he was too busy watching her eyes, which were sea-green, and strangely pleasant and restful. "Do you know me?" she asked with a slight frown. "'Scuse me," muttered Harrigan. "I thought at first I did." He abased his glance while she took one of his hands and turned it palm up. "Ugh!" she muttered. "How did this happen?" "Work." "Do you mean to say they make you work with your hands in this condition?" "Sure." "Poor fellow! That black captain!" Her voice had changed from a peculiarly soft, low accent to a shrill tone that made Harrigan start. "Poor fellow!" she repeated. "Sit down." The campstool creaked under the burden of his weight. She pulled up the chair in front of him and placed his left hand on her knees. "This is peroxide. Tell me if it hurts too much." She spilled some of the liquid across his palm; it frothed.