He edged himself into his desk chair, looking up slyly. “That Whitcomb!” he said. He chuckled and chuckled, slapping his hands softly against his desk. “Now we’ll learn something! Now we’ll learn what they’re up to!”

XXXII

IT WAS late that night before Steven Nason came to the officers’ quarters beside the crew’s barracks; but he could have delayed until daybreak and still found Cap Huff awake and waiting.

In spite of his reckless and blustering ways, that great ox of a man had such a regard for Nason that he behaved, in Nason’s absence, like a dog deprived of his master: he was forever wandering to the door to sniff the outer air, or growling to himself uneasily, or scratching himself out of pure fretfulness.

He practiced dice-throwing with Doc Means, for both had worked interminably to perfect themselves in the finger-twists Zelph had taught them: twists that, if properly executed, caused the dice to fall as the thrower wished them to fall; but he put no heart in his throwing—not even enough to curse when Doc beat him, which he seemed to do almost by accident, especially at such times as large sums of money were supposedly at stake. Since the day Cap had given Doc the pair of dice, Cap had become indebted to Doc in the sum of eight thousand dollars (Continental).

When Nason at last arrived, Cap was more than ever like an enormous clumsy dog, wagging himself before Nason, patting him with his huge paws, and almost panting with joy. Unknown to any of us, he had (to use his own words) picked up four flasks of rum: and these he produced when Nason joined us.

“Stevie,” he said, his big face glistening with apprehension, “I hope to God you’re through running around with this feller Whitcomb! He ain’t a safe feller for you to be with! I ain’t had a minute’s peace since you went north the second time, knowing the risks he takes.”

Nason laughed. “Risks! I suppose you weren’t taking risks when you and Verrieul paid a visit to the British and came away with a keg of rum!”

Cap was scornful. “That’s different! We had to have that rum. Nobody has to have British generals. Whitcomb thinks he has to have British generals; but that ain’t no regular human need, like rum or shirts, or getting your feet warm. It’s just his imagination. Anyway, besides, we wasn’t hiding nothing, and we walked right up to ’em in the daytime. That’s different from getting around behind ’em and hiding in the bushes, the way Whitcomb does. That’s something I just can’t stand, Stevie—somebody hiding in the bushes and watching what I do—and I ain’t the only feller that feels that way! Hiding in the bushes is plumb risky, Steven, no matter where it’s done!”