The sullen glow of a sunset was smoldering dully over the Jersey shore; and New York was piled up to face it, a Gibraltar of brick and stone, twinkling with its lighted windows and gay with the blown plumes of steam from its roofs. A stiff breeze from the north drove the waves against the bow of the _Hudson_ and hummed in the guys of her funnel. Keighley and the Chief, facing the bow with their backs to the wheelhouse, their chins sunken in their collars, were bent against the rush of air like a pair of old and deaf cronies, their hands behind them, their heads together as they talked. “It was about a man named Doherty,” Keighley was explaining reluctantly. “_You_ remember him, I guess. Some o’ the men didn’t like it when I got him broke. An’ they made a little trouble fer me--off an’ on.” “He was a ‘Jigger,’ wasn’t he?” “Yes.” “How about that fire on the _Sachsen_? Didn’t Doherty figure in that?” “Well, I saw him there. He was doin’ ’longshore-work on her. He might’ve been in it. I don’t know.” “Didn’t they stack the deal on you there?” “I think they did. I don’t know. They got foolin’ with a pierhouse blaze while I was down in her hold.... I tell yuh how it is, chief: it’s all over. They’re attendin’ to bus’ness. Yuh needn’t be a-scared of any of ’em in this comp’ny.” Keighley’s tone was apologetic and conciliatory. It seemed traitorously so to the chief. “A-scared be damned!” he said. “I got to make _them_ a-scared of _me._ Who was at the head of the game here? Moore?” Keighley answered, “The man that was at the head of it--he’s lef’ the comp’ny.” The chief darted a black look at Keighley under the peak of his cap. “No one’s left this boat since that fire. I looked her up.” “No,” Keighley admitted, unabashed. “But he’s left off makin trouble.” “Now listen to me, Dan,” Borden broke out. “I’ve come back to the department and I’m counting up my friends. Those that ain’t with me are against me. That’s the way I look at it.... You know as well as I do that if I don’t pound these men, they’ll think I’m afraid of them--and they’ll get to work and knife me.” “Well--that’s true, too,” Keighley reflected. He glanced up at the Jersey shore and down at the deck again. “I wish yuh’d leave them be, though, chief. I got the best crew in the department, now.” The chief shook his head. “They didn’t leave _me_ be. I can’t let up on _them._ You know what they’d think.” “Well,” Keighley said, looking out over the river, “I’ll tell yuh. The man that was at the head of it--” He blinked the water from his eyes and peered into the wind--“in this crew--” He raised his arm slowly and pointed. “What’s that?” Through the traffic of ferries, car-floats and lighters that crowded the shore, he could see a big freighter drifting down the piers with a flotilla of tugs about her. “What’s the matter? Is she afire?” The chief watched her. “Looks like it, don’t she?”