The young man continued his way. The young girl lingered for a moment looking seaward, with her small brown hand lifted to shade her eyes,--a precaution which her heavy eyebrows and long lashes seemed to render utterly gratuitous. "Come along, Mag. What are ye waitin' for?" said the young man impatiently. "Nothin'. Lookin' at that boat from the Fort." Her clear eyes were watching a small skiff, invisible to less keen-sighted observers, aground upon a flat near the mouth of the channel. "Them chaps will have a high ole time gunnin' thar, stuck in the mud, and the tide goin' out like sixty!" "Never you mind the sodgers," returned her companion, aggressively, "they kin take care o' their own precious skins, or Uncle Sam will do it for 'em, I reckon. Anyhow the people--that's you and me, Mag--is expected to pay for their foolishness. That's what they're sent yer for. Ye oughter to be satisfied with that," he added with deep sarcasm. "I reckon they ain't expected to do much off o' dry land, and they can't help bein' queer on the water," returned the young girl with a reflecting sense of justice. "Then they ain't no call to go gunnin', and wastin' Guv'nment powder on ducks instead o' Injins." "Thet's so," said the girl thoughtfully. "Wonder ef Guv'nment pays for them frocks the Kernel's girls went cavortin' round Logport in last Sunday--they looked like a cirkis." "Like ez not the old Kernel gets it outer contracts--one way or another. WE pay for it all the same," he added gloomily. "Jest the same ez if they were MY clothes," said the girl, with a quick, fiery, little laugh, "ain't it? Wonder how they'd like my sayin' that to 'em when they was prancin' round, eh, Jim?" But her companion was evidently unprepared for this sweeping feminine deduction, and stopped it with masculine promptitude. "Look yer--instead o' botherin' your head about what the Fort girls wear, you'd better trot along a little more lively. It's late enough now." "But these darned boots hurt like pizen," said the girl, limping. "They swallowed a lot o' water over the tops while I was wadin' down there, and my feet go swashin' around like in a churn every step." "Lean on me, baby," he returned, passing his arm around her waist, and dropping her head smartly on his shoulder. "Thar!" The act was brotherly and slightly contemptuous, but it was sufficient to at once establish their kinship.