"If the rain would only stop," said Marion, "everybody would cheer up. They haven't seen the sun at the ranch for ten days." "This rain doesn't count so far as the high water is concerned," said McCloud. "It is the weather two hundred and fifty miles above here that is of more consequence to us, and there it is clear to-night. As long as the tent doesn't leak I rather like it. Sing your song about fair weather, Gordon." "But can the men work in such a downpour?" ventured Dicksie. The two men looked serious and Marion laughed. "In the morning you will see a hundred of them marching forward with umbrellas, Mr. McCloud leading. The Japs carry fans, of course." "I wish I could forget we are in trouble at home," said Dicksie, taking the badinage gracefully. "Worrying people are such a nuisance. Don't protest, for every one knows they are." "But we are all in trouble," insisted Whispering Smith. "Trouble! Why, bless you, it really is a blessing; pretty successfully disguised, I admit, sometimes, but still a blessing. I'm in trouble all the time, right now, up to my neck in trouble, and the water rising this minute. Look at this man," he nodded toward McCloud. "He is in trouble, and the five hundred under him, they are in all kinds of trouble. I shouldn't know how to sleep without trouble," continued Whispering Smith, warming to the contention. "Without trouble I lose my appetite. McCloud, don't be tight; pass the bread." "Never heard him do so well," declared McCloud, looking at Marion. "Seriously, now," Whispering Smith went on, "don't you know people who, if they were thoroughly prosperous, would be intolerable--simply intolerable? I know several such. All thoroughly prosperous people are a nuisance. That is a general proposition, and I stand by it. Go over your list of acquaintances and you will admit it is true. Here's to trouble! May it always chasten and never overwhelm us: our greatest bugbear and our best friend! It sifts our friends and unmasks our enemies. Like a lovely woman, it woos us----" "Oh, never!" exclaimed Marion. "A lovely woman doesn't woo, she is wooed!" "What are you looking for, perfection in rhetorical figure? This is extemporaneous." "But it won't do!" "And asks to be conquered," suggested Whispering Smith. "Asks! Oh, scandalous, Mr. Smith!" "It is easy to see why _he_ never could get any one to marry him," declared McCloud over the bacon. "Hold on, then! Like lovely woman, it does not seek us, we seek it," persisted the orator, "_That_ at least is so, isn't it?" "It is better," assented Marion. "And it waits to be conquered. How is that?" Marion turned to Dicksie. "You are not helping a bit. What do you think?" "I don't think woman and trouble ought to be associated even in figure; and I think 'waits' is horrid," and Dicksie looked gravely at Whispering Smith. McCloud, too, looked at him. "You're in trouble now yourself."