Gideons Band | Page 8

to study the handling of a steamboat, one large part of which,
of course, was handling the people aboard. Both pilots, up yonder,
knew this was his rôle. Already he had tried his unskill--or let
"Ramsey" try it--and had learned a point or two. She had shown him, at
least twice, what value there might be in a well-timed, unmanageable
laugh. But a well-timed, unmanageable laugh is purely a natural gift. If

it was to come to his aid, it would have to come of itself. Lucian, the
twin who had asked the last question, turned upon him.
Hugh smilingly lifted a pacifying hand. "You're entirely mistaken," he
said. "Nobody's tried to scrape acquaintance." In the midst of the last
two words, sure enough, there broke from him a laugh which to him
seemed so honest, friendly, well justified, and unmanageable that he
stood astounded when his accuser blazed with wrath.
"You lie, damn you!" was the answering cry. "And then you laugh in
my face! We saw you--all three of you--just now!" The note was so
high that one of the pilots began to loiter down from the pilot-house.
Hugh crimsoned. "I see," he said, advancing step by step as the frenzied
boy drew back. "You really don't want a peaceable explanation, at all,
do you?"
The other twin, Julian, arrested his brother's back step by a touch and
spoke for him: "No, sir, we don't. You can't 'peaceably explain' foul
treatment, you damned fool, and that's all we Hayles have had of you
Courteneys this day. We want satisfaction! We don't ask it, we'll take it!
And we'll get it"--here a ripping oath--"if we have to wait for it ten
years!"
This time Hugh paled. "It needn't take ten minutes," he said. "Come
down to the freight deck, into the engine room, and I'll give both of you
so much of it that you won't know yourselves apart."
"One more insult!" cried Lucian, the boy who so often widened his
eyes, while Julian, narrowing his lids, said in a tone suddenly icy:
"That classes you, sir, on the freight deck."
"We don't fight deck hands," said Lucian.
"Nor emigrants!" sneered his brother. "And when we fight gentlemen
we fight with weapons, sir, as gentlemen should."

Hugh's awkward laugh came again, and the pilot who had come down
from beside his fellow at the wheel inquired:
"What's the fraction here?"
"Oh, nothing," said Hugh.
"Everything!" cried Julian. "And you'll find it so the first time we get a
fair chance at you--any of you!"
The pilot was amiable. "Hold on," he suggested. "See here, my young
friend, what do you reckon your father'd do to this young
man"--touching Hugh--"if he should rip around on a Hayle boat as
you're doing here?"
"That's a totally different matter, sir!"
The pilot smiled. "Don't you know Gideon Hayle would put him ashore
at the first wood-yard?"
"He'd be wrong if he didn't," gravely said Hugh.
"Do you mean that for a threat?--either of you?" snapped Lucian.
"No," said the pilot, "I was merely trying to reason with you. Come,
now, go down to supper. It's a roaring good one: crawfish gumbo, riz
biscuits, fresh butter, fried oysters, and coffee to make your hair curl.
Go on, both of you. You've had--naturally enough--last day in the
city--a few juleps too many, but that's all right. A square meal, a night's
rest, and you'll wake up in the morning with Baton Rouge and all the
sugar lands astern, the big cotton plantations on both sides of us, you
feeling at home with everybody, everybody at home with you."
"Many thanks," sneered Julian. "We'll go to our meals self-invited.
Good evening."
Hugh granted the pair a slight nod. As they went, Lucian, looking back
over Julian's shoulder with eyes bigger than ever, said: "We'll wake up
in the morning without the least change of feeling for this boat's owners,

their relatives, or their hirelings."
The relative and the hireling glanced sharply at each other. But then
Hugh said quietly: "A man can't quarrel with boys, Mr. Watson."
"No," mused the pilot aloud as he watched the pair go below, "but he
can wait. They'll soon be men."
"And this be all forgotten," said Hugh.
"Not by them!" rejoined Mr. Watson. "They'll remember it ef they have
to tattoo it--on their stomachs."
"I should have managed them better," said Hugh.
"Lord, boy, nobody's ever managed them sence they was born." The
speaker sauntered back toward the pilot-house, coining rhetoric in his
mind to relieve his rage. "It's only the long-looked-for come at last," he
thought, "and come toe last." As he resumed the bench behind his
partner his wrath at length burst out:
"Well, of all the hell-fry I ever come across----!"
"And they 'llow to keep things fryin',"