When her eye lighted on the stuff in the boat that Satan had wangled out of Sellers, she laughed in a dreary fashion.
“What you laughin’ at?” demanded Satan.
“Nothing,” said Jude.
She sat down on an upturned keg while they brought the truck on board. Then, nursing her knee and wiggling her bare toes to the warmth of the sun, she sat without a word, waiting for explanations.
It seemed to Ratcliffe all at once that a critic had come on the scene. He had forgotten Jude in relation to the deal over the wreck, and he was wondering now how she would take it. The female does not always see eye to eye with the male, as many a business man has discovered on revealing a transaction to the wife of his bosom.
Leaning against the rail, he filled his pipe and awaited the revelation with interest; but Satan, the revealer, seemed in no hurry for the business. He was bustling about disposing of the new-gotten “stores,”—the turpentine and pitch forward in the hole where paints were kept, the galvanized wire in a locker, and the little barrel behind the canvas boat.
Then he came aft again and, lighting a pipe, stood beside Ratcliffe.
“Well, what you been doing, anyway?” asked Jude, suddenly opening her batteries.
“Doing—which?” asked Satan. “Oh, you mean with Cark. Well, I’ve settled things with him, fixed it up so’s he’s goin’ to help.”
“Which way?” asked Jude.