"Do you know," said Bill Hayden one day, some five weeks later, when we
were aloft side by side, "they don't like you any better than they do me."

It was true; both Kipping and Mr. Falk showed it constantly.

"And there's others that don't like us, too," Bill added. "I told 'em,
though, that if they got funny with me or you, I'd show 'em what was what."

"Who are they?" I asked, suddenly remembering Roger Hamlin's warning.

"Davie Paine is one."

"But I thought he didn't like Kipping or Mr. Falk!"

"He didn't for a while; but there was something happened that turned his
mind about them."

I worked away with the tar-bucket and reflected on this unexpected change
in the attitude of the deep-voiced seaman who, on our first day aboard
ship, had seen Kipping wink at the second mate. It was all so trivial that
I was ready to laugh at myself for thinking of it twice, and yet stupid
old Bill Hayden had noticed it. A new suspicion startled me. "Bill, did
any one say anything to you about any plan or scheme that Kipping is
concerned in?" I asked.

"Why, yes. Didn't they speak to you about it?"

"About what?"

"Why, about a voyage that all the men was to have a venture in. I thought