She said, "That's Richmond."

    He lifted his head, which had been hanging over the rail. He had a look. "It would be," he said and let his head droop again.

    The boat eased up against the rickety pier. Its every shift was echoed by a muffled groan from the dude draped on the rail. Finally the boat stopped, and the dude made a dash for the pier.

    She went along with him. "Don't you ever get used to it?"

    "To tell you the truth," he said glumly, "I haven't gone out of my way to try."

    The mid-afternoon sun was warm on deck. She waited for him to come up from the rail to the nearly vertical. He kept hold on the rail, but it was one of his respite periods between relapses. She was learning to time his cycles and she didn't bother to talk to him except during the respites.

    "Maybe we ought to introduce ourselves," she said. "What do you call yourself?"

    "Unless I want me, I don't call."

    "Well, my name's Evangeline."

    "Evangeline," he said in a flat tone of voice, looking at her with an expression that implied he didn't believe a bit of it but that it didn't surprise him because it wasn't the first time he'd been lied to.

    "That's the truth. Evangeline Kemp."

    "Sure."

    "No, really."

    He looked her over. "Your parents sure didn't know much when they named you."

    "You bite your tongue!"

    "I only speak as a gent whose pocket you picked. What do folks call you? Vangie?"

    "Not if they care whether I speak to them or not. My name is Evangeline. E-van-ge-line."

    "Well, I'll tell you, Vangie," he said weakly. "Right now four syllables is more than I can handle all at once."

    "I'd rather be called Hey-You."

    "In your line of work you probably are, most of the time."

    "That was the first time in my life I ever did anything like that," she said.

    He just looked at her.

    She shifted around a bit, looking defensive. "That's the truth," she said.

    "Fine," he said. "Now tell me a lie. I want to see the difference."

    "No, really." She leaned toward him, her expression earnest and brave but tragic. "My folks are down in San Francisco," she said, "and all my money was stolen from me, and…"

    "Vangie," he said. "Just pretend you told me the whole story, all right?"

    Innocent bewilderment spread across her face. "Story?"

    "Let's just say," he suggested, "that I'm not quite as gullible as some of these acorn-crackers you're used to around here."

    She would have had a comment on that, but he'd hardly got the statement out before he was into another relapse. Evangeline left him in disgust and took a turn around the deck. When she returned he was still draped over the rail with one eye on the big toughs who stood in a circle around the stack of gold boxes.

    He looked like a consumptive with the wadded handkerchief pressed against his mouth, but she knew that wasn't it. She'd never seen such a persistent case of seasickness before.

    It was a terrible thing. She patted his shoulder. "I'm sorry. Really."

    He looked at her balefully, but when the relapse ended he straightened up and said, "It's supposed to be funny."

    "I don't think it's funny."

    "You don't, do you," he said. He was looking at her in a different way now.

    "Well it must be very painful. I mean I don't see anything to laugh about."

    "That's real sweet of you, Vangie."

    "You'll feel better when we get to dry land."

    "Yeah."

    Liking him, feeling a strange sort of comradeship, a kind of rapport, she said, "You still haven't told me your name."

    "Uh," he said. He looked pale, but alert. "It's, uh, John Lexington."

    So much for rapport. "What do people mostly call you?" she asked. "Mister Avenue?"

    It was his turn to display injured innocence. "What's that supposed to mean?"

    "I maybe never was in New York City," she said, "but I've heard of it. And I've heard of Lexington Avenue."

    "Well, it's a name," he said. "They called it after somebody, didn't they?"

    "Not after you. Come on, now, I told you my real name."

    "E-van-ge-line Kemp," he said slowly, working the name over like a tough steak. "Yeah, you probably did."

    "I did."

    "Mine's Gabe," he said.

    "Gabe what?"

    "Beauchamps."

    "Bo-champs?"

    "Right."

    "What's the Gabe stand for?"

    "Gabe," he said. "Excuse me."

    She watched him go into another relapse, sagging over the rail once more like a mattress hanging out a window to air. She studied him with a mixture of sympathy and awe. "Don't you ever empty?"

    "Uuuurrrrg."

CHAPTER FIVE

    Gabe watched the water go by. How could there be so much water in the world?

    "There it is," the girl said.

    He went on peering droop-lidded at the water. Whatever it was, he didn't see it. "Where?"

    "Not down there. Over there. San Francisco!" She made it sound like a fanfare of cornets.

    He lifted his head-it weighed a ton-and saw one of the world's biggest small towns. "Oh, that's fine," he said. "That's just dandy."

    "We've got tall buildings and everything," she said, on the defensive again.

    "You do not. You have short buildings on tall hills. There's a difference."

    "We've even got a cable car."

    "A what?"

    "Never mind. You'll see."

    If he lived that long. He collapsed over the rail, wishing he were dead.

    But he still had one eye on that gold shipment to the Mint.

    The riverboat docked, not without much wrenching and heaving. At long last, clutching Vangie's arm Gabe tottered ashore.

    "There now," she said. "Isn't it better to be on dry land?"

    Dry land. He lifted one foot and studied his shoe with disapproval. "In New York," he said, "we think of mud as something we like to get rid of."

    It made her angry again. "You should just have stayed in New York," she told him.

    Gabe looked around. "I know I should have."

    It was bleak to look at. From Chicago west the climate had at least been sunny. Sunny all the way to Sacramento and even sunny on the riverboat. But here the clouds seemed to be attached to the tops of the hills. Everything was grey and dreary. It matched Gabe's mood. Fifty-five cents in his pocket and nobody waiting to meet him except some "associate" of Twill's. You could bet there wouldn't be any help forthcoming from that quarter.

    The passengers had gathered their luggage and there was a stream of people moving past Gabe and the girl and on in toward town. Hansoms and victorias were drawn up to meet the more important arrivals. The waterfront streets were jammed with a traffic of pedestrians, horses and wagons. Narrow streets, he noted with approval. Almost narrow enough to qualify as city streets. At least they weren't like those half-mile-wide flats of rutted dust that passed for streets in the towns he'd passed through the past five days.