“Walking in her sleep,” Johnny thought, with a touch of alarm. But she wasn’t.
“Hello!” She poked a hand from beneath her midnight-blue dressing gown. “It’s too swell a night to sleep.”
“Yes,” Johnny agreed.
“You’re not a regular watch, are you?” she asked.
“That—er—” Johnny hesitated. “That’s not my regular job. Nothing is. Does that matter?”
“No, I suppose not. Anyhow nothing could happen, here.”
“Plenty could happen,” he contradicted, quietly.
“How do you know?”
“I’ve been in the Tropics before. Natives get ugly sometimes. They imagine white men are getting the best of them—which, for the most part, they are!” Johnny laughed. “Then there are storms,” he went on. “Wildest place for storms you’ve ever seen. Once I drifted before a storm for thirty-six hours in a boat just about like this, only—” he hesitated, “it was different.”
“Yes,” the girl laughed, “it must have been, as there’s not another boat quite like this in all the world, I guess. It—