Part 15

Gerard dropped his hand on the other's shoulder, his laughing eyes very kind.

"Corrie Rose, how many times a year do you throw your offenders overboard, and give them your own lunch to make up for it?" he challenged.

There was no lack of perception in Corrie; he recognized both the innuendo and its truth.

"About every day," he confessed. "My temper slips. Everyone expects it of me, so it's all right. At least, it has been all right; I guess I've got to stop."

"Corrie, you did not believe me in earnest?"

"No, it isn't that." He shook his head as if to shake off a vexing thought. "I--it makes me feel like a brute to think I've been knocking out a half-starved man and throwing him into that water because he crawled under an old blanket in my boat for shelter. Why didn't I question him decently? I must put on the brake, or I'll spoil something without intending it."

Gerard opened his lips to deny the danger and recall the provocation received, but for some reason he did not analyze, closed them without speaking. The two stood together in silence for many moments, looking out at the gray-green expanse of tumbling water.

"I'll be goin'," the hoarse voice of the involuntary guest said, behind them. "Obliged for your feed."

There was a tentative quality in the statement, an attempt to carry off easily a situation capable of unpleasant developments, a studied ignoring of his captor's possible right to detain him. But Corrie swung around with a face of open sunniness that shamed suspicion, his hands in the pockets of his long overcoat.

"Good enough! Did you find what you liked, or rather, like what you found?" he responded.

The hard face relaxed into a reluctant humor, the man looked again to assure himself of the inquirer's seriousness.

"The best ever," he essayed social graciousness. "I ain't left much. Your little caramels were fine."

"Caramels? Who on earth put in caramels? Armand must have lost his mind! What kind of caramels?"

"Wrapped in tin paper, they were, in a little tin box."

"Wrapped----Holy cats, Gerard, he has eaten the concentrated bouillon squares! They were not to eat, man; they were to be dissolved in a cup of boiling water, to drink."

"They tasted all right. I guess they'll go. I'll be movin'."

"Go? Well, I hope so; you must have enough concentrated beef in you to nourish an army. You are going, you say. Where to?"

"The big town."

"What are you going to do when you get there?"

The man's dissipation-dulled eyes searched the candid face of the questioner scarcely ten years his junior, then he looked to Gerard with a confused and reluctant unease, as he might have looked had Corrie been a young girl whose innocence he feared to offend.

"Aw, lots of things," he evaded, with a short, embarrassed laugh. "You don't want to hear me talk, mister. I'll get there, now I'm fed up."

"Do you want me to find work for you around here? I can."

"My jobs are a different kind, mister. I couldn't stay in yours."

Corrie brought his hand from his pocket.

"All right, as you like. Take this for good luck and we'll call ourselves even. Square, is it?"

The man took the bill awkwardly, his embarrassment deepened.

"You're square, sure," he signified.

As his slouching, bulky figure went out the door opposite, it crossed the small erect form of Jack Rupert, who entered.