“My carelessness, sir!”
The man’s voice held an aggrieved tone. He tried to slip into his coat and cover the life jacket he wore.
“I said ‘your carelessness.’ I don’t care to use a harsher word. How did it happen, Malvin, that you wore a life jacket to-night?”
“A life jacket, sir?”
“Yes; the one you put on under your coat. Surely you did not have an intuition that we were going to be wrecked?”
Ordinarily a bright, lively lad, Ralph could be stern enough when he chose. His experiences out west and in old Mexico had broadened and developed the youth whom we first encountered on a visit to Jack Merrill’s ranch in search of the health he had almost lost by overstudy at Stonefell College.
Ralph was not that boy now. He was the stern questioner of a man whose recent actions had surely justified him in entertaining black suspicions of the fellow. For the first time Malvin hesitated as Ralph shot out the question about the life jacket.
“Oh, yes, sir. The life jacket, sir. Yes, you see——”
His voice trailed off. But Ralph pressed him harder.
“Come, I am waiting for an explanation. If one is not forthcoming I shall inform my father of your conduct.”