Captain Tom’s eyes gleamed resolutely.
“Will you go below, sir, or shall I have to call the steward to help me put you below? I mean it, Mr. Dixon. I’m captain here!”
Gripping at the lines, Dixon sullenly made his way to the motor room hatch. Halstead swung it open, gently but firmly aiding his passenger below.
“Did he trip you?” asked Joe, when the hatch had been closed and his chum stood beside him.
“It’s an awful thing to say, and I guess he didn’t, but I almost thought so,” Halstead shouted back.
“He’s bad, I think,” growled Joe, which was a good deal for that quiet young engineer to say. “Yet I can’t see any earthly reason for his treating you like that.”
“Nor I, either,” admitted the youthful sailing master. “Oh, of course he didn’t mean to. The whole thing is too absurd!”
Ten minutes later, feeling that it would be better to go below and see how the hull was standing the severe strain, Halstead called to Ham to stand by Joe on deck. Then Tom went below.
Once down there, it struck him to step through the passageway. There was a peep-hole slide in the door opening into the cabin. Halstead stood there, shifting the slide so that he could look beyond.