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That he was a brave man even Billy Byrne had to admit, and those above who

knew nothing of the relations existing between the second mate and the sailor,

who had so recently felled him, thought that his courage was little short of

marvelous. Theriere's stock went up by leaps and bounds in the estimation of the

sailors of the Halfmoon, for degraded though they were they could understand

and appreciate physical courage of this sort, while to Barbara Harding the man's

act seemed unparalleled in its utter disregard of the consequences of life and

death to himself that it entailed. She suddenly was sorry that she had entertained

any suspicions against Theriere--so brave a man could not be other than the soul

of honor, she argued.

Once below Theriere found himself covered by his own revolver in the hands of a

very desperate and a very unprincipled man. He smiled at Byrne as the latter

eyed him suspiciously.

"See here, Byrne," said Theriere. "It would be foolish for me to say that I am doing

this for love of you. The fact is that I need you. We cannot succeed, either one of

us, alone. I think you made a fool play when you hit me today. You know that our

understanding was that I was to be even a little rougher with you than usual, in

order to avoid suspicion being attached to any seeming familiarity between us,

should we be caught conferring together. I had the chance to bawl you out today,

and I thought that you would understand that I was but taking advantage of the

opportunity which it afforded to make it plain to Miss Harding that there could be

nothing other than hatred between us--it might have come in pretty handy later

to have her believe that.

"If I'd had any idea that you really intended hitting me you'd have been a dead

man before your fist reached me, Byrne. You took me entirely by surprise; but

that's all in the past--I'm willing to let bygones be bygones, and help you out of

the pretty pickle you've got yourself into. Then we can go ahead with our work as

though nothing had happened. What do you say?"

I didn't know yeh was kiddin," replied the mucker, "or I wouldn't have hit yeh.

Yeh acted like yeh meant it."

"Very well, that part's understood," said Theriere. "Now will you come out if I can

square the thing with the skipper so's you won't get more than a day or so in

irons--he'll have to give you something to save his own face; but I promise that

you'll get your food regularly and that you won't be beaten up the way you were

before when he had you below. If he won't agree to what I propose I give you my

word to tell you so."

The Mucker