A wrinkle gathered at the corners of the stranger's eyes; her face showed a flicker of amusement. "I thought that was Mr. Emerson's cannery," she said. "Oh, the idea! He only runs it for me. I put up the money. You know him, eh?" The girl nodded. "Yes; I know Mr. Clyde also." "Who--Alton?" he queried, with reassuring warmth. "Why, you and I have got mutual friends. Alton and me is pals." He shook his head solemnly. "Ain't he a scourge?" "I beg your pardon." "I say, ain't he an awful thing? He ain't anything like Emerson. There's a ring-tailed swallow, all right, all right! I like him." "Are you very intimate with him?" "Am I? I'm closer to him than a porous plaster. When Boyd ain't around, I'm him, that's all." From her look Fraser judged that he was progressing finely. He hastened to add: "I always like to help out young fellows like him. I like to give 'em a chance. That's my name, you know, Chancy De Benville--always game to take a chance. Is that your yacht?" "No. My father and I are merely passengers." "So you trailed the old skeezicks along with you? Well, that's right. Make the most of your father while you've got him. If I'd paid more attention to mine I'd have been better off now. But I was wild." Fraser winked in a manner to inform his listener that all worldly wisdom was his. "I wanted to be a jockey, and the old party cut me off. What I've got now, I made all by myself, but if I'd stayed in Bloomington I might have been president of the bank by this time." "Bloomington! I understood you to say New Orleans." "My old man had a whole string of banks," Fraser averred, hastily. "Tell me--is Mr. Emerson ill?" asked the girl. "Ill enough to lick a den of wildcats." "He intended coming out to the yacht last night, but he disappointed us." "He's as busy as an ant-hill. I met him turning in just as I came out for my constitutional." "Where had he been all night?" Her voice betrayed an interest that Fraser was quick to detect. He answered, cannily: "You can search me! I don't keep cases on him. As long as he does his work, I don't care where he goes at quitting time." He resolved that this girl should learn nothing from him. "There seem to be very few white women in this place," she said, after a pause. "Only one, till you people came. Maybe you've crossed her trail?" "Hardly!" "Oh, she's all right. Take it on the word of a fire-man, she's an ace." "Mr. Emerson told me about her. He seems quite fond of her." "I've always said they'd make a swell-looking pair." "One can hardly blame her for trying to catch him." "Oh, you can make book that she didn't start no love-making. She ain't the kind to curl up in a man's ear and whisper. She don't have to. All she needs to do is look natural; the men will fall like ripe persimmons." "They have been together a great deal, I suppose."