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Updated: June 24, 2025
The ex-pilot deduced there would be little cooperation in exploration from that client until he was satisfied in his own quest. Rovald, Wass' man, lingered by the fire until the three civs were safe in their bubbles. "River range tomorrow?" he asked. "Yes. We can't rush the deal." "Agreed." Rovald spoke with a curtness he did not use when the civs were present. "Only don't delay too long.
His wife shook her head, but in a strangely quiet fashion, and, sitting down, took up her knitting again. For some time the click of the needles and the tick of the clock were the only sounds audible, and the ex-pilot had just arrived at the conclusion that his friend had abandoned him to his fate, when there came a low tapping at the door. "Come in!" cried Pepper, starting.
The entrance of their victim with the tea-tray stopped the conversation; but the captain nodded acceptance behind her back, and then, with a forced gaiety, sat down to tea. For the first time since his successful appearance he became loquacious, and spoke so freely of incidents in the life of the man he was impersonating that the ex-pilot sat in a perfect fever lest he should blunder.
She stood holding the captain's hand and stroking it, and whenever his feelings became too much for her put her head down on his waistcoat. At such times the captain glared fiercely at the ex-pilot, who, being of a weak nature, was unable, despite his anxiety, to give his risible faculties that control which the solemnity of the occasion demanded. The afternoon wore slowly away.
The captain was an ex-pilot of the lower river, taciturn and surly of disposition. Our pilot had been drunk for a week at the levee of St. Louis and I misdoubt that all snags and sandbars looked alike to him. Among the skin-clad trappers, hunters and long-haired plainsmen, I saw but one woman, and she certainly was fit to bear them company.
"I never loved him, but he used to follow me about and propose. Was it twelve or thirteen times you proposed to me, Pepper?" "I forget," said the ex-pilot shortly. "But I never loved him," she continued. "I never loved you a bit, did I, Pepper?" "Not a bit," said Pepper warmly. "No man could ever have a harder or more unfeeling wife than you was. I'll say that for you, willing."
Pepper says," said the lady, turning to the captain again. "Surely if he doesn't mind, you ought not to." "I'll talk to him by-and-bye," said the captain, very grimly. "P'raps it would be better if we kept this affair to ourselves for the present," said the ex-pilot, taking alarm at his friend's manner. "Well, I won't intrude on you any longer," said Miss Winthrop. "Oh! Look there!
You'll kill me before you have done with me!" The ex-pilot shifted on his chair. "You're not fit to have a wife," continued Mrs. Pepper, "aggravating them and upsetting them! Any other woman would have left you long ago!" "We've only been married three months," Pepper reminded her. "Don't talk to me!" said his wife; "it seems more like a lifetime!"
As she left the door open, however, and took the captain's hat with her, he built no hopes on her absence, but turned furiously to the ex-pilot. "What's to be done?" he inquired in a fierce whisper. "This can't go on." "It'll have to," whispered the other. "Now, look here," said Crippen menacingly, "I'm going into the kitchen to make a clean breast of it.
"Act Cap'n Budd!" gasped the astonished Crippen, putting down his glass and staring at his friend. "The part is written here," said the ex-pilot, producing a note-book from his breast pocket and holding it out to his friend. "I've been keeping a log day by day of all the things she said about him, in the hopes of catching her tripping, but I never did.
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