The Chief came and found the Red Un in agony, holding his jaw.  Owing to the fact that he lay far back in an upper bunk, it took time to drag him into the light.  It took more time to get his mouth open; once open, the Red Un pointed to a snag that should have given him trouble if it didn’t, and set up a fresh outcry.

Not until long after could the Red Un recall without shame his share in that night’s work—­recall the Chief, stubby hair erect, kind blue eyes searching anxiously for the offending tooth.  Recall it?  Would he ever forget the arm the Chief put about him, and him:  “Ou-ay! laddie; it’s a weeked snag!”

The Chief, to whom God had denied a son of his flesh, had taken Red Un to his heart, you see—­fatherless wharf-rat and childless engineer; the man acting on the dour Scot principle of chastening whomsoever he loveth, and the boy cherishing a hate that was really only hurt love.

And as the Chief, who had dragged the Red Un out of eternity and was not minded to see him die of a toothache, took him back to his cabin the pain grew better, ceased, turned to fright.  The ten minutes or so were over and what would they find?  The Chief opened the door; he had in mind a drop of whisky out of the flask he never touched on a trip—­whisky might help the tooth.

On the threshold he seemed to scent something amiss.  He glanced at the ceiling over his bunk, where the airtrunk lay, and then—­he looked at the boy.  He stooped down and put a hand on the boy’s head, turning it to the light.

“Tell me now, lad,” he said quietly, “did ye or did ye no ha’ the toothache?”

“It’s better now,” sullenly.

“Did ye or did ye no?”

“No.”

The Chief turned the boy about and pushed him through the doorway into outer darkness.  He said nothing.  Down to his very depths he was hurt.  To have lost the game was something; but it was more than that.  Had he been a man of words he might have said that once again a creature he loved had turned on him to his injury.  Being a Scot and a man of few words he merely said he was damned, and crawled back into bed.

The game?  Well, that was simple enough.  Directly over his pillow, in the white-painted airtrunk, was a brass plate, fastened with four screws.  In case of anything wrong with the ventilator the plate could be taken off for purposes of investigation.

The Chief’s scheme had been simplicity itself—­so easy that the Seconds, searching for concealed wires and hidden alarm bells, had never thought of it.  On nights when the air must be pumped, and officious Seconds were only waiting the Chief’s first sleep to shut off steam and turn it back to the main engines, the Chief unlocked the bolted drawer in his desk.  First he took out the woman’s picture and gazed at it; quite frequently he read the words on the back—­written out of a sore heart, be sure.  And then he took out the cigar-box lid.