"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.