"There, now, I shouldn't talk about it if it made me cry," advised Percival, patting her shoulder.
"But I've got to talk to somebody," she said almost savagely. "What did he give me to the Fords for if he didn't think they were good enough? Pa Joe's as good as he is any day in the week."
"Who is Pa Joe?" asked Percival, groping in the dark.
"He's the darlingest old man in the world, and he owns the best cattle ranch in Wyoming. Anybody'll tell you so. He's been a real father to me, and the boys are real brothers—at least three of them are. They are just as good as anybody that ever lived, I don't care what the captain says."
There was another passionate burst of tears, and Percival had just succeeded in stemming the tide when the Scotchman bore down upon them.
"I beg your pardon, but did you know we were passing Bird Island?" he asked them.
"Yes," said Percival, hastily getting up and piloting him safely past. "As a matter of fact, some one was just asking for you in the smoking-room."
"I told the captain," sobbed Bobby, beating her hands together and apparently oblivious of interruptions, "that I'd come on this trip with him, but that it wouldn't make a bit of difference, and it hasn't."
"No, of course it hasn't," agreed Percival, soothingly, not in the least comprehending the drift of her remarks, but pleasantly aware that he was being confided in and that something very limp and lovely was under his protection.
"Isn't there a—a—Mrs. Ford on the ranch?" he asked by way of prolonging the interview.