anything else, Leonard worked them steadily. The day's work was divided into morning and evening watches, because during the midday the iron barge reached a temperature where labor was impossible. During the cooler watches, the men painted desperately to cover the black expanse of the dock with red in order to reflect part of the palpitating heat rays.
Through the idle noon periods, the crew lay about on gunny sacks under improvised awnings, with a man posted on the forward bridge as lookout.
The colorful mazes of the Sargasso were as irritating as flowered wall paper in a sickroom. Even Hogan's and Deschaillon's spirits sagged under the brilliant sweltering sameness. The navvies moved about half naked, and burned brown as nuts. The men fought over trifles. Caradoc became a raw mass of nerves. Once or twice Madden attempted to make things pleasanter for his former friend, but was repulsed rabidly.
Near sunset one day, the American was in the mate's cabin trying to work out his daily reckoning. According to the lad's inexpert cal-
