“Oh, that’s the game, is it?  Scuttling you off to sea to make you forget.  Deuced interesting!  I don’t mind telling you I’m in something of the same sort of a hole myself.”

“Really?” Her interest was roused instantly.

A mysterious change was taking place in their acquaintance.  Bobby’s tears had in some unaccountable manner taken all the starch out of Percival’s manner.

“You mean,” she went on, “that they are sending you off to keep you from marrying some one they don’t like?”

“Not exactly.  I shouldn’t put up with that for a moment, you know.”

“Of course you wouldn’t, because you are a man.  But suppose you were a girl, and your father was perfectly unreasonable.  What would you do then?”

“I’d drop the matter for a bit,” advised Percival, at a venture.  “Let him think you didn’t care a tuppeny.  Pretend to be awfully keen about something else, and, likely as not, he’ll come round.  Not a bad idea that, by Jove!  I’ve tried it.”

“Do you think it would work?” asked Bobby, scanning his finely chiseled profile as eagerly as if she were consulting the Delphic oracle.

“No harm in trying.  Keep him on tenter-hooks, at any rate.”

“Ship ahoy!” came in joyous tones from Andy Black as he rounded the corner of the saloon, clinging to his cap.  “Been looking for you all over.  Say, did you all know we were passing Bird Island?”

“If we don’t,” said Percival, with his most deliberate stare, “it is not because we have failed to be informed of the uninteresting fact every five minutes for the last half-hour.”

“Consider me the third stanza,” said Andy; “please omit me!”

Bobby laughed as he disappeared, and pushed back her tumbled hair.

“I love to hear you say ‘hawf,’” she said; then she added impetuously, “You aren’t a bit like anybody I ever saw before.”

“I dare say,” said Percival, returning her smile.

“Not only your talk, but your walk, and the way you wear your clothes.”

“I suppose my tailor does rather understand my figure,” said Percival; “but what puzzles you about my speech?”

“I don’t know.  It’s different.  And then I never can tell what you are thinking about.”

“Do you wish to know what I’m thinking about just now?”

“Yes.”

“I am wondering why you wear high-heeled, gold-beaded slippers in the morning.”

Bobby thrust forth two dainty feet and contemplated them in surprise.

“What’s wrong with them?” she asked.

“Rather dressy for the morning, aren’t they?” he gently suggested.

“I don’t know,” she said good-humoredly.  “I’ve got a trunkful of clothes down in my state-room, but I never know which ones to put on.  You see, we never dike up like this on the ranch.  When the captain brought me to San Francisco, he handed me over to a woman at the hotel and told her to rig me out for the trip.”