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Show 16 than the windows. I supposed that was the reason the captain was drinking. After one sleepless night in the crowded cabin, our group organized. The biggest man, a policeman from Denver, Colorado, wrote out a time schedule with a set of bylaws, and nailed it to the cabin door. Each of us would have a berth in the cabin for six hours a day. Only personal bags were to be left in the cabin-grubstakes and dogs were to be left in the hall or up on deck. Our schedule would rotate every four days. There were to be no complaints. We drew names from a derby hat for our cabin mates. I pulled out a snorer and an acrophobic con man. The con man may have snored also, but I never found that out. He spent all his time in the cabin going through the duffel bags. He was as smooth as his black oiled hair. During our first shift he confessed that he was afraid to sleep in the top bunk because of his fear of heights. Once as a child he had fallen from the roof of his house, he said, while doing some fool thing up there. It didn't matter to me. I slept in the top bunk in my clothes with my money stashed in the bottom of my stocking and the gold nugget deep in my pocket. Using ray duffel bag as a pillow, I lay on my stomach with one arm over my eyes, Mr. Con slept in the bottom bunk. He was always quiet until |