Once, when a squatly huge, red-headed, red-shirted riverman with a week's red stubble upon his cheeks, lurched out of a doorway ahead of them and stood snarling malevolently at O'Mara, the girl shrank against her companion and clutched his arm. The red-shirted one fell to singing after they had passed. A maudlin rendition of "Harrigan, That's Me," followed them long after they had rounded a corner. Steve looked down and smiled casually into Barbara's wide and startled eyes. "That's a river-boss," he explained, "enjoying what he considers a roaring good time. His name is Harrigan. He works on the Reserve Company's cut, which we are to move in the spring, and whenever he has had a trifle more than enough he always sings that song. He's willing to fight, too, to prove that it was written especially for him!" The girl continued to gaze up at him. His short laugh failed entirely to clear her face of apprehension. "He's not exactly a friend of yours, is he?" she said. "Well, not exactly," Steve admitted. "Not when he is in that frame of mind!" "Nor in any other," the girl persisted, and she glanced down at her hand, still lying upon the blue-flannel sleeve. "Did you know that your arm grew as hard as iron for an instant? I never knew that anyone's arm could grow as hard as that. And is that the way you always prepare to receive your--friends?" Steve colored a little. "Perhaps I'm overcautious," he replied. "But it has to be hard. It constitutes what one of my men, Joe Morgan, calls 'accident insurance.'" Then her face lighted up again. The delighted bob of her head with which she greeted that name astonished the man. "Do you--why, you must have heard of Joe," he exclaimed. Mischief danced again in the dark eyes. "Joe Morgan," she laughed. "'Fat Joe,' isn't it? And of course I have heard of him. You don't realize it, but I know more about this East Coast work and--and the men who are doing it, than I had any idea myself. Why, I'll wager that you never knew, yourself, that he once wrote in to the officials insisting that the entry of his name on the files be changed from 'Joe Morgan, cook,' to 'Joseph Morgan, assistant to Chief O'Mara'!" Steve's chuckle of appreciation was answer enough. "I didn't know," he admitted, "but it's like him. And it was no more than reasonable, either--that request--even if it is funny. He has been cook for me; but he's been doctor and nurse and countless other things in as many crises. He's the most trustworthy and capable adviser, too, that any man ever had." She scanned his face closely at the timbre of those words. Then, with face averted, "Didn't he embroider you a--a sofa-cushion, too, once?" she inquired, quite demurely. Steve grew very red. "Who told you that?" he blurted, and Barbara giggled again. "Mr. Ainnesley, I think. Then it is true? I--I never believed it before."