"I'll watch it, sir," was the prompt response, as he stooped to start his wheel. "And Niels!" Stuart called again. "If it should be blowing a gale you'd better bring the cook along to steer while you watch your engine. Have him fix a light supper before he starts. "Aye, aye, sir!" he cried, as the little craft shot away, leaving a streak of white foam in her wake. Bivens was vastly amused at Stuart's orders. "Jim, you're as fussy as an old maid. You ought to marry and join the human race." Stuart scanned the horizon, watching a flock of ducks working their way northward. The sign was ominous. Birds know which way the wind is going to blow before it comes, and if a gale is on the way they always work into the teeth of it. They are all equipped with barometers somewhere inside their little brain-cells. It was useless to tell this to Bivens. He didn't have sense enough to understand it. But he quietly made up his mind to take up the decoys and row in as soon as the tide ebbed down to two feet of water. In the meantime he would make the best of the situation. The ducks began to come in and decoy like chickens. He killed half a dozen and in the excitement began to forget the foolhardiness of the trip. Bivens shot a dozen times, missed, got disgusted and began to fret and complain. At first Stuart made no answer to his nagging suggestions until Bivens got to the one thing that had evidently been rankling in his heart. "Jim, you're the biggest puzzle I ever struck. Every time I look at you I have to rub my eyes to see if I'm awake. Would you mind telling me the mental process by which you rejected my offer?" "What's the use to discuss it, I've made up my mind--and that's the end of it." "But I want to know," Bivens persisted. "Your silence on the subject makes me furious every time I think of it. How any human being outside of an insane asylum could be so foolish is beyond my ken." "I know it is, so let's drop it," Stuart interrupted. "I won't drop it. You rile me. You're the only man I've struck on this earth that didn't have his price." "Perhaps we have different ways of fixing values. To me value is a thing which gives life. If it brings death is it valuable? You are not yet fifty years old and a wreck. What's the use? What can you do with your money now?" "It brings luxury, ease, indulgence, power, admiration, wonder, and the envy of the world." "What's the good of luxury if you can't enjoy it; ease if you never take it; indulgence when you have lost the capacity to play; power if you're too busy getting more to stop and wield it?" "Jim, you're the biggest fool I ever knew, without a single exception," Bivens said, petulantly. Stuart glanced anxiously toward the yacht. It was three o'clock. The tide had ebbed half out and there was barely enough water on the flats now for the tender to cross. It was snowing harder and the wind had begun to inch in toward the north.