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 definite direction. As Pete watched it there came again feet on the stairs and a voice said guardedly:

“Ed.”

An indistinguishable response from the captain’s room and the voice added mysteriously: “Come up on deck a minute.”

Then the footsteps withdrew, accompanied.

The tender evinced a maddening inclination to progress in any fashion save that for which it was built. Fairchild turned his head and glanced comprehensively about his small congested island enclosed with an unrhythmic clashing of blades. The oars clashed against each other, jabbing and scuttering at the tortured water until the tender resembled an ancient stiffjointed horse in a state of mad unreasoning alarm.

“Weve got too many rowers,” Fairchild decided. Mark Frost drew in his oar immediately, striking the Semitic man across the knuckles with it. “No, no: not you,” Fairchild said. “Julius, you quit: you ain’t doing any good, anyhow; you're the one that’s holding us back. Gordon, and Mark, and Talliaferro and me—”

“I want to row,” Mrs. Wiseman said. “Let me have Julius’ oar. Ernest will have to help Jenny watch the rope.”

“Take mine,” Mark Frost offered quickly, extending his oar and clashing it against some one else’s. The boat rocked alarmingly. Jenny squealed.

“Look out,” Fairchild exclaimed. “Do you want to have us all in the water? Julius, pass your oar along—that’s it. Now, you folks sit still back there. Dammit, Mark, if you hit anybody else with that thing, we’ll throw you out. Shelley could swim, too, you know.”

Mrs. Wiseman got fixed at last with her oar, and at last the tender became comparatively docile. Jenny and Mr. Talliaferro sat in the stern, paying out the line. “Now,” Fairchild