“I mean just that. You didn't think out this scheme all by yourself. Somebody's been talkin' to you and puttin' you up to it. Haven't they?”
“Why—why, Grandfather, I—”
“Haven't they?”
“Why—Well, yes, someone has been talking to me, but the whole idea isn't theirs. I WAS sorry for speaking to you as I did and sorry to think of leaving you and grandmother. I—I was sitting up there in my room and feeling blue and mean enough and—and—”
“And then Rachel came aboard and gave you your sailin' orders; eh?”
Albert gasped. “For heaven's sake how did you know that?” he demanded. “She—Why, she must have told you, after all! But she said—”
“Hold on, boy, hold on!” Captain Lote chuckled quietly. “No,” he said, “Rachel didn't tell me; I guessed she was the one. And it didn't take a Solomon in all his glory to guess it, neither. Labe Keeler's been talkin' to ME, and when you come down here and began proposin' the same scheme that I was just about headin' up to your room with to propose to you, then—well, then the average whole-witted person wouldn't need more'n one guess. It couldn't be Labe, 'cause he'd been whisperin' in MY ear, so it must have been the other partner in the firm. That's all the miracle there is to it.”
Albert's brain struggled with the situation. “I see,” he said, after a moment. “She hinted that someone had been talking to you along the same line. Yes, and she was so sure you would agree. I might have known it was Laban.”
“Um-hm, so you might. . . . Well, there have been times when if a man had talked to me as Labe did to-night I'd have knocked him down, or told him to go to—um—well, the tropics—told him to mind his own business, at least. But Labe is Labe, and besides MY conscience was plaguin' me a little mite, maybe . . . maybe.”
The young man shook his head. “They must have talked it over, those two, and agreed that one should talk to you and the other to me. By George, I wonder they had the nerve. It wasn't their business, really.”