The girl would have flown to her arms but the doctor forbade, and for second choice she set up a dainty tripping to and fro athwartships; dipping, rising, skipping, swaying, bridling, like a mocking-bird on a garden wall. It made Ned and Watson themselves worth seeing. Professional dignity set their faces like granite though every vein seethed with a riot of laughter. But the laughter's chief cause was not Ramsey.
"Look at Hugh," muttered Watson, gently drawing down the wheel for the Votaress to sweep round into a northward reach at whose head Natchez Island would presently show itself. To look at Hugh took nerve, but in a moment——
"Look at her," said Ned.... "There! she tipped her nose at him!"
"She didn't!"
"She did. Wats', yo' game ain't never goin' to work."
"Ned, y'ain't got the sense of a loon."
"Well, I swear I've got more'n Hugh—or her."