“Because it's impossible to set 'em sideways. If it was possible, the blamed printers could do it, you bet. When I was writing leaders on the Saxville Citizen years ago there was a ruffian up in the composing-room who used to set whole paragraphs of my best editorials in em quads, and when I kicked,—Hello, isn't that a lantern, A. A.?”
They all scrambled to their feet and peered intently in the direction of the wooded strip that lined the channel. This whilom conversation came to an abrupt end. Ghostly forms suddenly took shape in front of other huts, figures of men that were until then as logs in the shadows. Far off in the road through the wood, a light bobbed, flashed and disappeared intermittently, and finally emerged into the open and came steadily forward. Detached knots of men down the line of huts, twos and threes and fours, swiftly welded themselves into groups, and, hurrying forward, swelled the crowd that congregated at the end of the “street.” Two hundred of them, tired but eager, awaited the arrival of the man with the lantern.
These were the men who slept on shore, the unmarried men, those who had no “feminine hearth,” as Snipe put it dolefully one dark and windy night. Since supper-time these men had been waiting and watching. But few of them had gone to bed. Gentleman and roustabout, one and all, were linked together by a common anxiety. News of the greatest import was expected during the night.
A child was coming to the pathetic little widow of Cruise, the radio-man.
Two messengers had gone down to the landing to wait for the report to be shouted from the afterdeck of the Doraine,—Soapy Shay and Buck Chizler, the jockey. Now they were returning,—and it was nearing midnight.
They drew near, the lantern buffeting the legs of the one-time diamond thief as he swung along in the rear of the more active jockey.
“It's a girl,” called out Buck to the silent mob. Not a sound, not a word from the eager crowd. “Mother and kid both doing well,” went on the jockey, a thrilling note of triumph in his voice.
And then a roar of voices went up to the moonlit sky. The shackles of doubt and anxiety fell away, and every heart swelled with joy and relief. Men began to dance and laugh. Out in front of the crowd leaped Percival.
“Come on now, fellows! Everybody up! Three cheers for the Trigger Island baby! One—two—three!”
And while the last wild cheer was echoing back from, the mountainside: “Now, three good ones for the baby's mother, God bless her!”