Alone in the wide light of a harvest-moon that wrapped all shores in deep shadow and turned the mid-channel to silver, Hugh and Ramsey stood at the low front rail of the texas roof.

There were but few to see them, but every eye in range was aware of her and of a refined simplicity of dress adorning a figure whose pliant grace was the finishing touch to her joyous erectness. Hugh's gaze was frankly on her, and his mind on the first night he had ever seen her, when, with her hair wind-tossed in loose curls, she had stood at this spot on the Votaress and in carelessness of a whole world had sung "The Lone Starry Hours."

Equally distant from them were the pilot-house behind and above and the bell down forward on the skylight. To right and left on a thwartship line just back of them towered the chimneys softly giving out their titanic respirations. Watson, though off watch, was up at the wheel beside his partner, pretending not to see the two beneath. In other words, he was still, after eight and a half years, "in the game." The Gilmores were with him, both in body and spirit.

Out forward of the bell, below it on the main roof, one of the boat's builders, responsible for her till she should reach New Orleans, sat in the captain's chair.

"After eight years and a half," Hugh himself had gravely begun to say to Ramsey, when two men, "California" and a fellow smoker, sauntered across the skylight roof close below. Gilmore, up in the pilot-house, was annoyed.

"Our poet," he murmured to his wife, "will spill the fat into the fire yet, if we don't stop him."

But the Californian had purposely encumbered himself with this stranger to make it plain that, hover as he might, he waived all claim to her attention. What better could a man do? And now he forbore even to look her way. The abstention was as marked as any look could have been. As they passed, Hugh was silent, but Ramsey spoke, her speech a light blend of response and evasion.

"On the Votaress," she said, "the front of the texas didn't stand out forward of the chimneys, like this."

"Doesn't this make a handsomer boat," the lover asked, "seen either aboard or from the shore?"

Ramsey said yes, she had noticed the improvement from the Memphis wharf-boat. "She was a splendid sight; yes, out in the stream, just before her wheels first stopped. At least she was to any one loving boats and the river."

"Then you haven't changed?" asked Hugh, not for information but in the tone that always meant so much beneath the speech.

Her answer was merely to meet his gaze with a gentle steadfastness, each knowing that the other's mind was overcircling all the years that had divided them. Through those years they had exchanged no spoken or written word. Yet according to Watson true love finds ways, large love large ways, pure love pure ways. Sometimes love's friends really help; help find ways, or keep ways found; even make chutes and cut-offs. Gilmore, Watson, and the Vicksburg merchant happened to be Odd Fellows, and the Gilmores, to whom letter-writing was, next to their profession, their main pleasure, had been a sort of clearing-house for Friendship, Love, and Truth—and especially for social news—to all the Votaress's old coterie; Hugh, the pairs of Milliken's Bend, Vicksburg, and Carthage, the boat's family, Phyllis, Madame Hayle, even old Joy—with madame for amanuensis—and Ramsey herself. She and Hugh, had followed every step in each other's course, upheld by a simplicity of faith in friendship, love, and truth, which hardly needed to ask the one question abundantly answered by this steadfastness of eye.

Now she looked away to the moon's path on the river, and the question of change came back from her: "Have you?"

"Only to grow."

"You have grown," she said, "every way."

"And you," he replied, "every beautiful way. I have just said so to your father."

Her response came instantly: "How did that happen?"

"We made it happen."

She looked at him again. "We," of course, meant "I." Truly she had grown every beautiful way, but it was yet as wonderful as ever to stand, saying what she had said, hearing what she was hearing, eye to eye, open soul to open soul, with one who could make words—words at any rate—happen between himself and Gideon Hayle. She looked this time not alone into his eyes but on all his unhandsome countenance, and in a surviving upflare of her younger days' extravagance thought whether, among all time's heroes of the world's waters, there had ever been one too great for Hugh Courteney's face. So looking she thrilled with the belief that there was nothing such men had ever done which this one might not some day, the right day, equal or surpass.

Again she looked away and as she looked the hovering Californian murmured to his new-found confidant:

"You can't see the glory of her in this light nohow, unless you'd seen her already in the full blaze of the cabin, or of broad day, with the light in that red hair. If you had you wouldn't need even the moonlight now. You'd only need to know she was there and you'd see her without looking. I seen her in her first long dress, jest a-learning to fly and some folks showing no more poetic vision than to call her 'almost plain.' I saw the loveliness a-coming, like daybreak in the mountains. And he saw it. I saw he saw it. And now? I tell you, sir, her brow is like the snowdrift, her throat is like the swan, and her face it is the fairest—I never seen Annie Laurie, but if she's better looking or sweeter behaving—I'd rather not. Anyhow they're enough alike to be sisters. I've writ a poem on this one. Like to show—hmm? Hold on. It don't quite suit me yet but—what's your hurry? When it does, I Joe! it'll be a ripsnorter. I've worked eight year and a half on it and they say genius is jest a trick o' takin' infinitessimal pains.... No, I'm not sleepy. Reckon I'll go up to the pilot-house. So long. Pleasant dreams."

While he so spoke Ramsey had said: "Here comes another boat, down in the next bend. Or is she in the chute?"

"The chute," replied Hugh. "That's the old Antelope."

"Ah, up and running again! I know all about you and the Votaress saving her people that awful night she sank."

"Who told you?"

"Oh, a dozen, at a dozen times; but the best was Phyllis, writing to us."

"Phyllis behaved heroically that night; made up for all the past—though really she'd done that before."

"I'm glad you feel that way," murmured Ramsey and suddenly asked: "Why did you take my father to your room just now?"

"To show him the plans for another boat."

"Humph!" What crystalline honesty was in his answers, she pondered. They were as prompt as a mirror's.

"Rivals," she remarked, "don't ordinarily show plans."

"Your father and I are not ordinary rivals."

What did that mean? Her, and not mere boats' plans? She did not look at him this time. Like "California" she could see without looking. "Think I'll rejoin the Gilmores," she sighed, as certain couples came up to see the Antelope go by. She feared a recurrence of "'Lindy Lowe." On the way to the pilot-house she leisurely inquired:

"Do you think you'll ever build a finer boat than this?"

"Yes, and larger, and faster."

"Not this season?"

"No, I should hope not for many. Yet——"

"Boats' lives," she prompted, "are so uncertain."

"Yes, grandfather thinks——"

"Oh, if only he were here!" She paused to let Hugh notice that she had "were" and "was" in hand at last. Then:

"How long will that boat be?"

"Three hundred and thirty feet. She'll have ten boilers. Her cylinders will be forty-three inches, her stroke eleven feet. She'll carry eighty-five hundred bales of cotton."

"Goodness! How wide will she be?"

"In the beam fifty. Over all, at the wheelhouses, ninety. Her wheels will be forty-five feet in diameter and their buckets nineteen feet span. You still like figures, boats' figures, I hope?"

She still liked, for second choice, to make him, to herself, ridiculous; liked it even now while inwardly laughing and weeping at him for not coming to personal matters infinitely more important. "Go on," she said, "I like cabin figures. How long, wide, and high will the cabin be?"

"Two hundred and sixty-three by nineteen by sixteen."

"What'll her name be? Another e-double-s, of course?"

"No, I've just been telling your father—here comes the Antelope. I was telling him that grandfather——"

An overhead roar of reply to the signal of the approaching boat drowned all words, but Ramsey had learned on coming aboard that the grandfather was still sound though beyond four score, and her one vivid wish now was to know more not of him but of Hugh and her father. Yet she had to let Hugh hand her up the pilot-house stair, and without him rejoined the Gilmores while Watson spoke down to the man in the captain's chair as to the light-draught Antelope having come up through the chute of Island So-and-so. She was just in time to accept her share in the splendor and gayety of the two boats' meeting and passing. As the picture dissolved, Mrs. Gilmore slyly pinched Ramsey's finger while asking Watson:

"Why don't our men sing? I want some more 'Lindy!"

Had she not heard the signal for the lead? No, in the excitement she had not, though both Ramsey and "California" had, there being to them an unfailing poetry in the casting of the lead, whether by day or, as now, by the glare of a torch basket let down close to the water under the starboard freight guards. At one end of the breast-board the two ladies, at the other the actor and the Californian, looked out and down. The boat's builder had left his seat and stood with Hugh at the forward rail. From the freight guards, far below, the leadsman, unseen up here except to experienced "poetic vision," sent up a long-drawn chant telling the fathoms of depth shown on the sounding-line that flew forward from his skilled hand into the boat's moonlight shadow, plunged to the river's bed, vibrated past his feet in the glare of the pine torch, stretched aft while he chanted, and was recovered in dripping coils and hove again.

"Mark under wa-ater, twai-ai-ain."

As the notes resounded Hugh looked up to the pilots and in his quietest speaking voice repeated:

"Mark under water, twain."

But our concern here is mainly with those for whom the scene, the calls, veiled two private conversations. Three or four times the one melodious cry, following as many casts, rose from below, and each time, with all its swing and melody left out, Hugh passed it on up to the pilots. Between the strains Gilmore said softly to "California":

"My dear fellow, no. Every time we show ourselves their partisans we make heavier hauling for them. They'd tell us so, only that—don't you see?—they can't even do that. It would be infra dig." But in fact Ramsey was just then telling something much like that to his wife.

"Yes," admitted the Californian, full of a new scheme, yet always generous, "and that was a ten-strike, your wife, after supper, taking Miss Hayle away from Hugh and Gideon in such gay style. Did you see how't sort o' eased the old man's mind?"

The leadsman's cry changed and so came twice or thrice, Hugh as often repeating it to the pilots, while Ramsey and Mrs. Gilmore, though hearkening, whispered busily.

"Shoaling," commented Mrs. Gilmore to Ramsey.

"Not seriously," said the river-wise Ramsey. "Go on. What did you get out of him at last?" She had a merry sparkle.

Once more the far-below cry rose to them and was restated by Hugh without color or thrill. Ramsey well knew that so it was always sung and spoken, yet she remarked:

"Hear that absurd difference—in those two voices."

"That's the difference between him and other men, Ramsey; even between him and your father."

She liked that, though now she felt bitter toward him for not being more like ordinary mortals.

"Go on," she lightly repeated. "If he won't make words happen with me I must take him second-hand."

"You naughty girl! He'll tell you all you'll let him."

"Oh, I'll let him, all he'll tell me. What did he say?"

"He said the very best was, that under all your mantle of new charms——"

Ramsey's soft laugh interrupted. "He didn't. He never said that, my lady. He wouldn't know how. You said it."

"Well, he did say that under it all there's nothing lost of the Ramsey we began with."

"The slanderer!" They laughed together. The calls of the lead were passing unnoticed. "Mark above water, twain; mark, twain; quarter less, twain; half, twain; nine and a half; by the mark, nine; nine feet."

"The slanderer! Why, that's actionable! I'll have the law on him!" The speaker's mirth was overdone. As the leadsman sang another cry and Hugh sedately spoke it she tinkled as of old and said: "Don't get excited, captain. Keep cool."

Mrs. Gilmore sobered. "You may laugh, but I believe he's talked with your father conclusively and will to you to-night, if you'll allow it."

"Humph! you don't know that he'll come near me. Aboard his own boat, on her trial trip, he's got other fish to fry. But even if he should, don't you see how absolute the deadlock is? Oh, you must have seen it these eight years and more!—in spite of everybody's silence."

"We didn't. We don't see it even now, Gilmore and I. We don't believe Captain Hugh sees any deadlock whatever. He merely knows you think you do. You think to accept him would condemn him to death?"

"Mrs. Gilmore, I know it would. My brothers—may have broken promises but they—keep—their—threats. You know that's the fashion of all this country, from Cairo down."

"Ma-a-ark, twai-ai-ain," chanted the leadsman for his final call, and not only Hugh but an echo from the land repeated it. To many an ear, poetic ear, that echo is there yet, in all that country, from Cairo down. But that is aside. Watson and his partner threw the wheel over and the Enchantress swept round for the chute.

In the bright moonlight Hugh and the boat's builder turned back toward the solitary chair, placidly conversing. Gilmore talked on with "California." His wife and Ramsey drew back into the corner behind them.

"Your brothers," murmured Mrs. Gilmore, "threatened Hugh's life just the same before you came into the issue at all."

"Yes," said Ramsey, "and they're watching their chance yet. Julian told me so this summer and Lucian berated him for 'showing his hand.' Oh, that isn't the deadlock, by itself. The deadlock is that as long as Hugh Courteney holds off the feud will keep, but when he doesn't I come in and it won't; everything's precipitated. And so, you see?...

"Hmm! Hugh Courteney won't put himself, or me, or mom-a, where, in a fight for his life, no matter who's killed the killing would be in the family, and the killed would be ours, mom-a's—and—and mine. The twins see that. Jule says it, and, what's worse, Luce says nothing. That's why they are entirely satisfied with the deadlock.... Look."

The boat's contractor was leaving the deck. Hugh had started toward the pilot-house. But when Mrs. Gilmore looked she looked beyond him in meditation.

"I know what you're thinking," said Ramsey. "But it'll never happen. They've settled down to the ordinary term of a decent life, thank God!... Here he comes. Think he'll talk to me? Yes, he will. He'll begin where he left off." She laughed. "He's going to tell me the name of his next boat, if he ever builds another. Anything 'conclusive' in that?"

Mrs. Gilmore was grave a moment longer and then brightly said: "There might be! There may be! I can see—I can see how he—" She could not finish. Hugh had entered.

His coming broke in upon another conversation, that of Gilmore and "California."

"Old boy, no. Suppose it should work out as you plan. You leave us at Natchez; that's easy. You live there a week, a month, free with your gold and making friends—of the sort gold makes. You get into a political quarrel with the twins—nothing easier—and in a clear case of your own self-defence the two are:—

"Wouldn't that be poetic justice? and ain't I a poet?"

"Undoubtedly. Then by miracle you come off scot-free."

"Not essential. I take my chances."

"Still, you have that hope; freedom is sweet. More-over, miracle of miracles, what you did it for is never guessed. But, my dear fellow, there are two who'd never need to guess. Like us they'd know and that knowledge would sunder them forever. They'd never willingly look into each other's faces again."

"Nnn-o. No, course they wouldn't. I seen that from the jump but I sort o' hoped you'd maybe know some way to get round that; it being the only real difficulty."

"Sorry, but I don't. Odd how narrow-minded one's friends can be, but when they are—what can we do?"

"Yes, that's so.... Mr. Gilmore, you're not narrow-minded; I've got a poem——"

It was there Hugh entered. But it was there, too, that Watson made a move in his modest part of the game.

With his eyes out ahead down the chute they were entering—"If any one," he drawled, "wants to see a scandalous fine moonlight picture of this river, one they'll never forget, the best place from whence to behold it is the texas roof, down here, out for'ard o' the chimneys."

"If Captain Hugh would go with us," pensively said Mrs. Gilmore, "we'd all go." And soon the pilots were alone.

"Now," growled the younger, with his gaze down there on Ramsey, "don't that beat you? Her making California stay so's Cap'n Hugh can't pair off with her!"

"Be easy," said Watson; "that's according to Hoyle. Don't shoot till they settle.... There. Now I'll go down and take care of California. By cracky! run smooth or run rough, I believe it's going to go this time."