Page:Ralph Paine--The praying skipper.djvu/319

Rh in the face of the boyish captain. Then he said aloud as if it were a verdict:

"A man who can't take his medicine is a pretty tough spectacle, isn't he? And it was all a dream, yes, all a dream—of money I didn't earn, and—and of a girl I can't marry."

He looked through the doorway, saw Jim Conklin slip over to the captain's cot and stroke the hot forehead, and heard him say:

"I know what it is, old man. I've been there myself." The touch of Conklin's hand seemed to bring the skipper to himself. His slackened mouth closed with the snap of a steel trap, and into his face came the alert and aggressive look of an unbeaten man. He smiled up at Conklin and said weakly:

"I must have been a little upset in my top story. Was I talkin' foolishness? Thank God, we're still alive an' kickin' strong. I'm all right. How are my men? No use crying over spilt milk, is there, shipmate? How's the kid that yanked me ashore?"