“Yes, sir.”
“Good! Shall we shake hands on it?”
They shook, solemnly. Captain Lote was the first to speak after ratification of the contract.
“There, now I cal'late I'll go aloft and turn in,” he observed. Then he added, with a little hesitation, “Say, Al, maybe we'd better not trouble your grandma about all this fool business—the row this afternoon and all. 'Twould only worry her and—” he paused, looked embarrassed, cleared his throat, and said, “to tell you the truth, I'm kind of ashamed of my part—-er—er—that is, some of it.”
His grandson was very much astonished. It was not often that Captain Zelotes Snow admitted having been in the wrong. He blurted out the question he had been dying to ask.
“Grandfather,” he queried, “had you—did you really mean what you said about starting to come to my room and—and propose this scheme of ours—I mean of Rachel's and Labe's—to me?”
“Eh? . . . Ye-es—yes. I was on my way up there when I met you just now.”
“Well, Grandfather, I—I—”
“That's all right, boy, that's all right. Don't let's talk any more about it.”
“We won't. And—and—But, Grandfather, I just want you to know that I guess I understand things a little better than I did, and—and when my father—”