JACK DERRINGER

JACK DERRINGER

A TALE OF DEEP WATER

By BASIL LUBBOCK

AUTHOR OF "ROUND THE HORN BEFORE THE MAST"

LONDON

JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET, W.

1906

PRINTED BY
HAZELL, WATSON AND VINEY, LD.,
LONDON AND AYLESBURY.

PREFACE

I have endeavoured in this book to paint sea life as it really is, as it can be seen on any deep-water sailing-ship of the present day, without glossing over the hardships, the hard knocks, the hard words, and the continual struggle and strife of it all. At the same time I have tried to hint at the glamour and fascination which the sea breathes into such souls as respond to its mighty call.

As to the queer collection of flotsam which found itself in the down-easter's foc's'le, I can assure my readers that this mixed crowd is in no way unusual; in fact, I am quite certain that the greater number of sailing ships "bound deep water" at the present moment are manned by crews of an even worse mixture of nationalities, trades, and creeds than formed the complement of the Higgins, which, for a ship sailing out of San Francisco, when seamen were scarce, was singularly lucky in finding so many bona-fide sailormen amongst her crew.

My reader may ask if the brutality described still goes on on American ships. All I can say is that several of the Yankee Cape Horn fleet are still notorious for it, their officers excusing themselves on the plea that only by the harshest measures can they preserve discipline amongst the hard-cut citizens of all nations who form American crews.

Many of the episodes in this book, including the cowpuncher's frontier yarns, I have taken from fact, and the treatment of the knifing dago by the bucko mate in Chapter IV. actually occurred in every detail.

As regards the moon-blindness, I have no doubt I shall have to bear with many scoffers and unbelievers, but this I know, that few men who have been used to sleeping in the open, whether sailors or landsmen, will be amongst them. Many a time have I hauled a sleeping man out of the glare of the tropical moon for fear of its direful beams, and many a time have I had the like service done to me. Few old seamen but have some strange yarn to spin anent the strange effects of the moon upon the human countenance exposed to its sinister rays: in most cases it is some hours' or some days' moon-blindness; sometimes it is a queer contraction of the muscles on the side of the face exposed; and I have even heard of cases of idiocy put down to the same cause. Certain it is that the cold beams of our world's satellite are not to be trusted. Why, do they not even poison fish or meat if left exposed to the mercy of their baleful glitter?

I must apologise for the sentimental part of this book, but apparently in a work of fiction a certain amount of sentiment is considered necessary, even in a sea yarn. However, if my reader finds it not to his taste, he can skip. We've all learnt to do that, some time or other.

BASIL LUBBOCK.

CONTENTS

PART I

CHAPTER I

"THE YANKEE HELL-SHIP"

Bucking Broncho awoke to the familiar cry of "Roll out, roll out, show a leg!" and thinking it was the call of the Round Up Boss in the early morning, he opened his eyes and sat up.

The sight that met his gaze considerably astonished him, and the foc's'le, with its double row of bunks, its stuffy atmosphere, and its swinging oil-lamp, he mistook for some mining-camp shanty.

Slowly his half-shut eyes took in the details of the gloomy den, into which the grey light of dawn had as yet hardly penetrated.

Round him lay men in every condition of drunkenness, some prone upon the deck, others hanging half in and half out of their bunks, all apparently still in the stupors of a late carouse.

Stretched upon a chest right under his bunk lay a ghastly object clothed in greasy, blood-stained rags, which but for its hoarse rattling breathing he would have taken for a corpse.

From the bunk above him came a spasmodic grunt at intervals, sudden and unexpected, whilst opposite him a cadaverous-looking deadbeat in a miner's shirt whistled discordantly through a hawk-like, fiery-tinted nose.

As his eyes grew accustomed to the dim light he discovered other forms scattered in a variety of grotesque attitudes amongst the litter of chests and sea-bags on the deck, and through the open door he beheld a man, in a pair of overalls, sluicing himself with a bucket of water.

Then a gigantic form with a hairy face of kindly aspect blocked up the doorway, and in hurricane tones besought the snoring crowd to tumble up and man the capstan. Advancing into the foc's'le, this leather-lunged apparition coolly and methodically began to haul the insensible scarecrows out of their bunks, and to shake them until their teeth rattled.

"Say, stranger, whatever's the hock kyard to all this? What be you-alls aimin' for to do?" inquired Bucking Broncho in his soft Western drawl, as he watched the big man handling the drunks.

"Just you tumble out, my son, and get outside, or you'll reap a skinful of trouble. You'll get the hang o' things quick enough by-and-by," returned the other shortly.

"I'm clean stampeded in my intellec' complete," declared the cowboy; "but assuming you're the boss of this outfit, your word goes; I plays your hand, stranger, an' I rolls out."

The big, hairy-faced man was too busy pushing, pommelling, thumping, and hustling the rest of the inmates to take any more notice of Bucking Broncho, who, gaining the door, stared round in amazement as he found himself upon the deck of a large sailing-ship.

The cowpuncher, who had only seen "blue water" on two occasions in his life, had been shanghaied aboard the notorious Yankee skysail-yard clipper Silas K. Higgins, the hottest hell-ship under the Stars and Stripes.

The last of the wheat fleet, this vessel had been lying at anchor in San Francisco Bay for some weeks, delayed from sailing for want of a crew, which her bad name made impossible for her to get except by foul means.

With lavish hands her "old man" scattered his blood-money amongst the boarding-house runners and crimps, and then patiently awaited the result.

Slowly but surely his crew began to arrive, heels first to a man, some drugged, some sandbagged, some set upon and kidnapped along the water-front.

Night after night boats sneaked up to the gangway grating and deposited insensible bundles of rags, which the ghoulish traders in blood callously slung aboard.

But before signing the note, the experienced mate took care to ascertain if his new hand still breathed, for more than once in the past he had had dead men palmed off upon him. Then, if satisfied after his careful scrutiny, he ordered the watchman to drag the shanghaied man forward whilst he ticked off Able-bodied Seaman Jones or Smith, whichever name happened to come first on his list.

The Higgins had been waiting two days for her last man when Bucking Broncho fell a victim to the manhunters.

The cowpuncher, discovered in Chinatown busy celebrating his first night off the prairie, was pounced upon by these vultures as "an easy thing." Skilfully they drugged him, cheerfully they possessed themselves of his wad of notes, then, overcome by the humour of the idea, instead of substituting the trade rags for his clothes as usual in shanghai-ing men, they slung him aboard an hour after midnight in all the glory of chaps and spurs.

Thus, with her complement gained at last, the Higgins was about to get under weigh.

Wholly oblivious of the events of the past night, thanks to the strength of the dope, with buzzing head and half-fuddled senses the cowboy stood gazing stupidly at the scene before him.

"I'm shorely plumb locoed," he muttered. "What for of a play is this I'm into?"

Overhearing this, the man sluicing himself turned round.

"Bit muzzy still, mate——" he began, and then stopped in surprise.

This man formed a big contrast to the broken-looking crowd in the foc's'le.

As he stood there in the morning light, stripped as he was to the waist, he looked the beau ideal of health: the muscles on his arms and shoulders stretched the skin till it shone, and heightened the artistic effect of the beautiful Japanese tattooing which, in the shape of dragons, butterflies, Geisha girls, and other quaint designs, made a picture gallery of his body.

Six foot high at least, he stood lightly on his feet with the careless grace of one used to a heaving deck.

A peculiar look of devil-may-care good nature stamped his clean-cut, deeply tanned features, yet there was a keen glint of shrewdness in his blue eyes, decision in his firm chin and resolute lips, with just a touch of martial fierceness in the twirl of his small moustache.

No tenderfoot this man, though there was no mistaking his nationality. "A d——d Britisher" was written large all over him. Bare-footed though he was, in well-worn dungarees, with leather belt and sheath-knife, his birth was plain as his nationality.

In England they would use one word to describe him—the one word "rolling-stone"; but in the world not one but a dozen words would be required—frontiersman, sailor, soldier, gold-miner, cowboy, hunter, scout, prospector, explorer, and many more, all marked "dangerous" in the catalogue of professions, for the "rolling-stone" takes to dangers and hardships just as a city man does to dollars and comforts. And who shall lay the blame? It's all in the blood, whether you take your strain from Francis Drake the buccaneer or Shylock the Jew.

Such was the man who faced Broncho—just a British rolling-stone, a modern freelance, a sea rover.

As he spoke, Bucking Broncho gave him a keen look, and then cried out:

"I'm a coyote if it ain't Derringer Jack. Shake, old pard, you-alls ain't shorely forget Bucking Broncho?"

"Think I'd forget an old pal like that; no, Broncho, so sure as you remember me."

"Which I shorely does. I makes a bet I tells them brands o' yours on the skyline."

As they gripped hands Jack Derringer remarked:

"You've strayed a long way off your range, Broncho; shanghaied, I suppose? Well, you've run against bad luck here. It's a rough deal aboard this ship."

"What for of a game is it?"

"Quien sabe? Pretty tough, I expect, old man; you're a sailor outward bound——"

"The hell you say!"

"Yes; I'll watch your hand as well as I can, but, mind you, Broncho, no gun-play whatever happens, or you'll reap more lead than if you'd got the whole of the Tucson Stranglers on your trail."

"I shorely notes your play, Jack; I'm the last gent to go fosterin' idees of bloodshed. This here deadfall draws the cinch some tight an' painful, but you can gamble I ain't going to plunge none before the draw; I'll just watch the deal a whole lot."

"That's bueno! Roll a small loop and don't stir up the range more'n you can help; trouble comes a-hooping and don't need looking for. How are you feeling after that poisoned grog?"

"Pretty rocky," replied the cowpuncher.

"Stuff your head into that," said the rover, pointing to the bucket of water which he had drawn a short while before.

"I guess you had better get out of those buckskins," he went on gravely, as Broncho tried the saltwater cure. "Bit of boarding-house runner's wit sending you aboard in them; but I'll fit you out. I expect you've only got the usual rag-bag, like the rest."

"Seems to me I've got my horns locked in a re-ather tough proposition. I shore aims to be resigned. The ways of Providence is that various an' spreadeagle that as a man of savvy I comes in blind an' stands pat," remarked the cowboy, as they retired into the foc's'le.

Perhaps before he gets rid of his cowpuncher attire for the blue dungarees of the 'fore-mast Jack, a short description might be welcome.

He was arrayed in full cowboy get-up, just as he had ridden into Frisco. He wore a fringed and silk-ornamented buckskin shirt, deeply fringed leather chaparegos, and long-heeled cowpuncher boots, on which jingled great Mexican spurs. Round his neck he had the usual gay silk handkerchief, and on his head a brand new Stetson hat.

A loose belt full of cartridges swung a 45-calibre revolver low down upon his hip. This had evidently been overlooked by the crimps, and, at a glance from Jack Derringer, he hastily tucked it under his shirt out of sight.

In appearance Bucking Broncho was a man of medium height, with good shoulders, none too square, but broad enough.

He was lean and muscular, with the firm flesh of a man in perfect health and training. There was not an ounce of fat on his whole body. His skin was darkened and toughened by long contact with wind, sun, and alkali.

His eyes were of that blue-grey so often seen in men of cool nerve, who, though used to danger and ready to dare anything, are yet long-headed and full of resource. He kept them half-shut from long squinting in the bright sun of the south-west.

His rather heavy moustache had been sunburnt and bleached to a raw gold colour.

It took but a short time to convert the cowboy into the sailor in flannel shirt and overalls, with a belt, minus revolver and cartridges, but with a sailor's sheath-knife instead.

Whilst he was changing his attire, being lavishly supplied with clothes from Jack Derringer's big sea-chest, his head was fast clearing and the drugging was losing its stupefying effect.

Calmly he reviewed the situation, and, used to the vicissitudes of the West, treated his change of fortune with the stoical philosophy of a frontiersman.

By the time that Broncho was arrayed afresh, the last of the poor drunks had been dragged from the foc's'le. Then, as Jack and the cowboy emerged, they came face to face with a big square chunk of a man, with eyebrows so thick and bushy that they almost hid his fierce, bloodshot little eyes.

"Up onto the foc's'le-head," he cried angrily. "Git a move on, yew blasted farmers, or yew won't know what struck yew."

It was Black Davis, the mate of the Higgins, one of the most notorious of buckos.

Broncho opened his mouth to reply, but Jack Derringer shoved him up the topgallant ladder with a grip of iron, and, directly they were out of earshot, said:

"That man with the eyebrows is kind of sheriff of this outfit—mate, sailors call it. He's a bad 'un from away back, but he's got the drop on us, old son, and we've got to jump around lively without any tongue-wagging, or he's liable to make things red hot."

"Gaud blimy, but h'I should sye so," remarked a cockney, who was shipping a capstan-bar close to them. "'E's a bloomin' devil from the word go, is that blawsted swine. H'I done a passage with 'im afore, an' I knows 'im, h'I does, the black-'arted 'ound."

They had no time for further reminiscences of Black Davis, however, for he now appeared on the foc's'le head in company with the big hairy bosun.

"Never see'd sich a crowd o' hayseeds—not two sailormen among 'em, I don't expec'," said the bosun.

"Deadbeats and hoboes, every doggoned one of them," growled the mate; "not a chanty in 'em, neither."

All hands were now tramping steadily round the capstan.

"Heave an' bust her!" sang out the big bosun. "Heave an' she comes!"

Presently a slim young Englishman with curly hair struck up the well-known chanty, "Away, Rio."

As the hoarse voices echoed over the calm waters of the bay, the crews of two large British barques came to the rail, hooting and jeering at the notorious hell-ship.

"Cut his black liver out, boys!" came a stentorian voice across the water.

"H'I bloomin' well will, one o' these fine dyes," muttered the cockney under his breath, with a murderous glance at the bucko mate.

Jack Derringer, who was a great exponent of chanties, followed the lead of the curly-headed one, and in a clean, strong baritone broke out with:

"As I was walking out one day
Down by the Albert Docks."

There were evidently more sailormen aboard than either the bosun or Black Davis had calculated on, for the chorus came with a roar: "Heave a-way, my Johnnies, heave a-way!"
"I saw the charming maids so gay,
A-coming down in flocks,"

continued Jack.

Then again came the deep-sea roar of—

"Heave away, my bully boys,
We're all bound to go!"

The shanghaied cowpuncher watched everything the while with a keen eye, and the chantying greatly pleased him.

"This is shore most elegant music," he said to Jack. "What for of a play would it be if I gives them the 'Dying Ranger.'"

"Wouldn't go, Broncho," replied the other. "These are sailors' working songs; they're to help the capstan round."

"You shorely surprises me, Jack. This here ship business is some deep an' interestin' as a play, an' you'll excuse me for ropin' at you with questions an' a-pesterin', but I'm cutting kyards with myself desp'rate as to this here whirlygig concarn we-alls is a-pushin' round."

"Why, we're getting up the anchor, Broncho. Do you hear that 'klink, klink'? That's the cable coming in."

"Hove short!" suddenly sang out the mate.

"Pawl her!" cried the bosun.

The tugboat now backed fussily up and took the hawser; the anchor was hove up to the cat-head, and the fish-tackle hooked on.

Then, whilst the anchor was hove in-board, a hand was sent to the wheel, and with a screech from her whistle the tug went ahead.

With a snort she began to move: the hawser sprang from her eddying wake, dripping and snaking as it took the strain; a ripple appeared round the Higgins' cutwater, and her bowsprit slowly swung round until it headed for the Golden Gate.

The mate went aft, and the bosun called out:

"That'll do, men; get your breakfast. You'll be turned to in half-an-hour."

CHAPTER II

"THE RULE OF THE BELAYING-PIN"

A shock-headed and tattered ragamuffin of a ship's boy crept off to the galley, and returned with a steaming kid of wet hash.

"Got no pannikin or plate, I suppose, Broncho?" asked the rolling-stone.

"I shorely don't reckon I needs them heretofore. I makes this trip some abrupt, as you-alls knows, an' I overlooks the same complete. Mebbe though I can rustle some tin-ware from the 'old woman.'"[1]

At these words a heavily-built, red-shirted man who had been sitting silently in the next bunk, looked up with a keen glance at the cowboy and asked:

"Say, stranger, was you on the Cross-bar outfit last fall? I seems to recall them feachers o' yours some."

"So?" returned Broncho politely.

"I was a-ditching on Hunker Creek," went on the red-shirted man. "You hits my camp a-trailing some horses which you allows some doggoned greasers has gone an' lifted. My name's Ben Sluice—Bedrock Ben they calls me down Arizona way."

"My mem'ry's plumb onreliable an' scattered this maunin'," replied the cowpuncher; "but I shorely recalls them greasers, now you speaks."

"And I'm sliding out chips you catches 'em all right?"

"Which we shorely does, mebbe two days later, an' swings 'em up to two cottonwoods without any ondue delays," said the cattle-ranger indifferently.

Then, turning to the tattooed Britisher, who had just managed to procure him a plate, pannikin, and cutlery, he inquired with a sly twinkle in his eye:

"How's that 'ere sun lookin' to-day, Jack?"

Now the rolling-stone was a keen watcher of the heavens, and in his chest he kept a big star telescope which, from the care he took of it, seemed to be his chief joy in life.

Many an hour of a hard-earned night watch below had he spent with his eye glued to that glass, and he was a mine of queer information and out-of-the-way knowledge on the subject of sun, moon, and stars, and with a certain air of pride and self-satisfaction he was wont to describe himself as an "astronomical weather-prophet."

At Broncho's question he threw up his head like a war-horse scenting battle, and replied with the gravity befitting such a serious subject:

"The sun rose well this morning, and I expect calm weather with light variable airs before we take the trades."

Ben Sluice the miner looked up in surprise at Jack's professional weather-clerk air.

"I presumes the 'old gentleman's' healthy, and ain't been a-developin' of measles none lately?" ventured the cowboy meekly.

"Well, Broncho, I'm afraid there is a small spot beginning to show faintly on the lower disk," declared the Britisher.

"You don't say? That 'ere luminary is shore misfortunate that away. You-alls recalls how he suffers so bad from that malady when we're out on the Circle-dot outfit together. I allow his grub is too heatin'," drawled the cowpuncher with a faint smile.

Meanwhile, sundry black bottles had made their appearance and been passed round. Voices began to be raised, Hollins, the irrepressible cockney, especially being full of talk.

"Well, byes, stryke me, but we're h'all in the syme boat. This mykes the tenth bloody time h'I've been shanghaied, but—oh lor! Black Dyvis! My crymes, byes, wait till you see'd 'im use a belayin'-pin; h'I've sailed with 'im afore, an' h'I knows——"

"The divil, but if it's a bastin' the rascal wants, I'll be after tryin' to oblige him ivery time," cried a wild-looking Irishman.

"'E'll give you h'all you wants at turn-to time, Pat, I tells ye stroight."

At this moment a slight diversion was caused by Jack Derringer unearthing the occupant of the bunk below his own, so that the cowpuncher could have it.

"Now den, what de hell——" began a big German as he found himself seized by the scruff of his neck and yanked out on to the deck.

"You scout round for another berth, Dutchy; this man here"—pointing to Broncho—"is going to have that bunk," said the rolling-stone coolly, as he seated himself on his big chest and began to fill a well-smoked briar.

"You tink you am cock o' dis foc's'le. Wait, mine fine fellah, you see different bresently," growled the Dutchman, picking himself up slowly.

But he took care to keep his distance from the muscular Britisher, and retired to the other end of the foc's'le, frowning ferociously as a general laugh arose at his discomfiture.

Suddenly the deck seemed to lift slowly; then there was a sidelong lurch and a rattle of falling tin-ware, as plates and pannikins slid off chests and fell to leeward.

A slight swell was beginning to make itself felt as the Higgins neared the entrance of the Golden Gate.

"The divil take you, ye rowlin' hooker," yelled Pat, as he dived after his pannikin.

"Motion affect you, Broncho?" asked Jack.

"My innards ain't presumin' none so far," replied the shanghaied cattleman calmly. "Barrin' it's some like the heavin' of an earthquake I once was in down San Laredo way, I ain't takin' no account of it"; and he took out a corncob pipe, cut a plug, and was soon puffing away quite at his ease.

"That's bueno," went on Jack approvingly. "When we turn to you'll have to go aloft; it's a bit of a hard graft the first time, but it'll soon come as easy to you as branding calves."

"If you-alls has to go up them rope-ladders, it's a cinch[2] that this here shorthorn'll be in on the deal, an' I'm willing to bet a stack o' blues I ain't none behind before the draw, neither. I ain't gettin' tangled up in my rope none as to this here climbin' game. I surmise it ain't none plumb easy, but if my old wall-eyed pinto can't pitch me into the heavenly vaults, it's a hoss on me if this here ship can."

"I expect there'll be the usual trouble when we turn to," continued the Britisher. "Mind your luff, old son, and don't hit back, or they'll lay you out."

"Do you-alls assert as how I'm to let that big hoss-thief come man-handlin' me without puttin' up some kind o' bluff."

"That's about the size of it; you'll only get the worst of it if you do. Take my word for it. Watch my play and whirl a mighty small loop."

At this moment the bosun's deep voice was heard outside:

"Turn-to, men, an' get them moorin' wires rolled up and the big lines below."

Slowly they began to shuffle out of the foc's'le.

"Snakes!" roared the black-browed mate, coming forward in three springs; "is this a funeral procession, or what?"

Armed with a belaying-pin, he sprang to the door of the foc's'le and showered down blows upon the head and shoulders of each man in turn.

"Jump, you packet-rats, jump!" he bellowed.

"Is it jump ye want?" cried Pat, and came out flying with one mighty leap.

Down went the pair of them, and this was the signal for the fight to begin.

As Pat and Black Davis struggled in furious embrace on the deck, a big red-headed English man came charging to Pat's assistance.

"H'it's slaughter from the word go!" screeched the cockney, and with the fiery tanglefoot tingling through his veins he dashed madly upon the second mate, a short but tough-built block of a man called Barker.

The scene now grew wild and furious, and as Broncho remarked afterwards:

"It shore were a jimdandy fight!"

The mates were buckos with a reputation to keep up, and whilst many of the crew were rendered half mad by the bad liquor which had been passed round at breakfast, several of them—such as Pat, Red Bill, who had gone to his assistance, Hank, an American, and one or two others—had their names to uphold as bad men.

Curses, yells, groans, and the thud of falling men resounded over the ship.

The fierce brutal mates, like wolves amongst a herd of swine, gloried in this exhibition of their strength, their animal natures revelled in the cruelty, and the lust of spilt blood was upon them.

With ponderous fists and scrunching belaying-pins they smote the hapless ones, who, weak from their shore debauch, with splitting heads and unsteady feet, yet with the courage of rage and bad liquor, offered a desperate resistance.

It was a struggle of savages. Old Adam, with his coat of civilisation torn off, let his primitive passions have free sway.

It was the barbaric test of survival by bodily strength. The whole question turned upon whether the mates were strong enough to rule their crew, and glorying in their strength, they stepped into the realms of brutality to prove their fitness and superiority over the men.

The greater the resistance the more they were pleased; they took a keen delight in exhibiting their methods of Yankee discipline. These violent methods they had reduced to such a deep science that they could fell a man with a belaying-pin in such a way as to cause no permanent injury.

Black Davis jumped with his heavy sea-boots full upon the ribs of the gross German, who lay gasping in the scuppers, and, strange to say, the result was nothing worse than a bad bruise.

But the sea is a hard master, and its followers must needs be tough to a degree to survive. Life on a wind-jammer soon weeds out the weaklings, who leave the lists worn out, broken, and spent.

Jack and Broncho tried their best to avoid being drawn into the vortex of the battle, but were suddenly confronted by the bosun as they prowled cautiously round the midshiphouse.

"What the devil are you two doing? Skulking, hey? Jump forrard an' help overhaul that port chain."

So back they had to go into the midst of the fray, where the two mates, surrounded by a yelling crowd, were fairly making things hum.

"Reg'lar New Orleans style o' towin' out!" gasped the cockney to Jack, as he skipped round the fore-hatch windlass to avoid the boot of Black Davis, whose eyes gleamed like those of a wild beast through blood and matted hair.

"Ho! ye murtherin' baste, ye, I have ye now," cried Pat with a wild Irish yell, and he sprang full on the mate from the top of the house, whence he had climbed by the iron ladder.

Down went the pair of them for the second time, and when the mate gained his feet one eye was closed, whilst Pat was spitting blood and teeth out of his capacious mouth.

As Jack bent down to lay hold of the chain, Barker, the second mate, sprang upon him, screeching venomously.

"I'll teach yew, me loafin' beachcomber; yew don't come it over Jim Barker none so easy, me pretty chanty-man."

The Britisher gave a peculiar smile—the little bruiser had grievously misrated his man.

Jack's easy smile drove him to a frenzy. His burly fist shot out straight from the shoulder, a knock-out blow aimed at the point of the rover's chin.

Jack grinned broadly as he jerked his head to one side. Then, as the second mate's arm shot over his shoulder into space, he seized it by the wrist with one hand. There was a quick half-twist, a slight pull, and the amazed bucko found himself lying on his back, trying to realise that brute force was of little use against the science of a Japanese wrestler.

But it was the only point scored against the mates in the contest. Jack turned calmly back to his work under the superintendence of the bosun, and Barker, scrambling to his feet, wisely decided to leave the "durned Britisher" alone, turning to wreak vengeance instead upon an undersized dago.

Presently a tall lean man was seen approaching from aft. He had the long hooked beak of a hawk, thin firmly shut lips, and a goatee chin-tuft, whilst from under shaggy grey eyebrows his steely blue eyes gleamed forth with a very sinister glitter.

It was Captain Bob Riley, the "old man," one of the most notorious of down-east skippers, a hard nut in sea parlance, but, like all down-east deep-water men, a fine seaman.

He arrived just in time to hold off a dago, who, with uplifted knife and a wild cry of "Me keela you, me keela you!" was springing upon the second mate.

The latter had not noticed the dago's approach, being busily engaged in punching a Chilean, whose "carrajos" were getting fainter and fainter.

The old man's nickle-plated revolver had the effect of cooling matters down.

The mates had had a good enough fight even for their appetites. Red Bill had a broken arm. Bedrock Ben, who had been to sea before and was a regular hard case, lay senseless in the scuppers, from the effects partly of belaying-pins and partly of poisonous liquor. The faces of Pat and the cockney were hardly recognisable, and even Broncho was hugging a damaged wrist, though, as he explained:

"I shore never goes nearer than the outskirts of the fight."

The ship had now passed through the Golden Gate, and the deep blue of the Pacific lay before her, stretching away to the indigo of the horizon, behind which lay the languid islands of the South Seas.

The glorious azure of the Californian sky was covered with fleecy white clouds, and a freshening breeze from the norrard was rippling the water into flashes of snowy foam, upon which the sun's rays sparkled and glittered.

Ahead the tugboat puffed away serenely, whilst the tow-rope, stretching between the two vessels, glistened with dropping beads of crystal as it alternately sagged and dipped into the blue, then rose again dripping and tautened.

Away to windward a beautiful little schooner bobbed gracefully to the swell under fore-staysail and mainsail, as it waited ready to take the pilot aboard.

And now the stentorian voice of the huge bosun rang through the ship:

"All hands make sail!"

Mechanically the men climbed up the ratlines and wearily crept out on to the yards to cast loose the gaskets and overhaul the gear.

As soon as the topsails had been loosed, the capstans on the maindeck were manned, and the ship resounded with the tramp of the men at the bars.

The cowboy followed Jack Derringer aloft on the fore to loose the sails from the skysail down.

The cowpuncher, cool and collected, managed very well for his first trip aloft, and found no difficulty in following out Jack's instructions; but up on the main two new hands who had never been to sea before got into hopeless trouble.

One of them, but a youngster, who had given his name as Jimmy Green, seemed to have had what little sense he once possessed entirely knocked out of him by the rough treatment on deck, and could hardly hang on, so scared and nerveless was he; whilst the other, a much-befreckled man, whom the cattle-ranger had at once nicknamed Pinto, still suffered so much from the effects of the black bottle that giddiness almost sent him headlong to the deck.

In misery of mind the two poor wretches clambered out on to the footropes of the upper-topsail yard and clutched the jackstay with trembling fingers, and the stalwart presence of the British bosun was required before they could be induced to move.

"Let go thet clew-stopper, yew chunk-headed hayseed," roared the battered second mate to another poor imbecile up the mizzen. "Are yew sayin' y'r prayers, or d'ye think that t'gallant yard's your sweetheart?"

Slowly the great topsails rose and the gleaming cotton bellied out to the breeze.

And now the tug cast off, and, with a long toot of farewell, headed back for Frisco, whilst a small boat from the dainty schooner removed the pilot.

By noon all sail had been set, and the men were mustered aft for watch-picking. A sorry crew they looked after the battle towing out.

First of all their dunnage was overhauled by the mates for revolvers and knuckle-dusters. Broncho's weapon, however, they failed to discover, as his knowing friend, the rolling-stone, had carefully hidden it.

Whilst the watch-picking went on, the old man paced silently to windward on the poop, and the steward took the wheel.

The two mates stood scowling over the poop-rail at the mob of well-battered and singularly tattered men, who clustered in a sullen, silent group on the maindeck.

The mate, taking the first pick, slowly threw his eyes over the crowd in hesitation.

Then he called out Hank, a long, tough Yankee already mentioned, who lurched leisurely to the port side.

A whirling belaying-pin interrupted his meditations, and Black Davis roared like an angry lion.

"Snakes alive, d'yew think we're goin' ter idle 'round all day while y're takin' a pasear? Skip, ye great, long, whisky-soakin' swab."

Hank did skip with remarkable agility as the pin whistled past him.

Then came the second mate's turn.

"Hyeh, yew, what's your ugly name?" he cried, pointing to Jack.

"Derringer, sir," answered the rolling-stone.

"Git over to starboard, Mister Derringer, sir!" he growled, and there was vitriol in his voice.

He had not forgotten that throw of Jack's whilst towing out, and there was murder in his heart as he glared at the Britisher.

Muller, the big German, was the mate's next choice, whilst Pat was taken by Barker.

Thus the watch-picking proceeded, but not without one or two further enlivening incidents.

Pinto reaped a black eye for not saying "Sir" when answering the mate, and Sam, a big buck nigger, was rolled in the scuppers for spitting on the deck.

To his great satisfaction the cowpuncher found himself in the same watch as Jack Derringer, in which were also Pat, Hollins, the cockney, Curly, the singer of the chanty "Away, Rio," who was a runaway English apprentice, Bedrock Ben, and the disabled Red Bill, the watch being completed by a man who called himself Studpoker Bob.

This last was one of those characters peculiar to Western America, who gain a living by dealing faro and studhorse poker in mining camp saloons. He had, of course, been shanghaied, and being a fatalist, like all gamblers, accepted his unpleasant position with apparent resignation. He was a long, scraggy individual with a thin, cadaverous face, shifty yellow eyes, and a huge jutting moustache.

In the port watch were Hank, Muller, Pedro, the Chilian dago, and his side-partner, Angelino, a Portuguee, Pinto, the freckled hobo, Jimmy Green, Sam, and the wretched ship's-boy, who answered simply to the appellation of "the kid."

Of the idlers, the bosun has already received attention. Chips was a quiet, harmless Norwegian named Hansen. There was no sailmaker; the steward was a nonentity and a tool of the old man's; whilst Lung, the cook, was one of those unfathomable Chinamen.

The starboard watch were now sent below until 4 p.m., and were speedily at work bandaging their many wounds, and putting their side of the foc's'le shipshape.

Red Bill went aft, and Captain Riley, an adept in such matters from much practice, skilfully set his broken arm.

Curly, being the youngest man in the watch, was appointed to the post of "peggy," and went off to the galley to fetch the dinner forward.

It was not very appetising, but, such as it was, was consumed eagerly, for the events of the morning had produced a hunger which did not blink at bad food.

Bedrock Ben, who looked a weird object with a great red handkerchief tied over his head and under his chin, started the conversation rolling with the remark:

"This is shore a red-hot ship, pards!"

"I'm surmisin' it were a some violent outfit myself," said Broncho reflectively.

"Bedad, an' ye're right, mate; this ould baste of a Higgins is after being called the hottest craft under the flag," put in Pat, with a shake of his fist towards Black Davis, who could be seen through the open door busily at work on the greenhorns. "But I'll be aven with ye yet, Mister Black Davis, be sure I will," he hissed.

Pat was feeling dangerously vindictive, for, with half his teeth loosened, his meal had been a source of pain.

"I don't know that she's worse than the Frank N. Thayler," remarked Jack.

"Well, I should smile! My crikey! W'y, the Thayler's a byby to this bloomin' 'ooker," grunted the cockney.

"Ever sailed in her?" asked Jack.

"No, thank Gaud!"

"Well, I saw her in Manila. Her decks were one mass of bloodstains; you couldn't get them out, either—holystoning only showed them up brighter. Her old man shot six men off the main-topsail yard. Some of her crew laid for him one day, and cut him open; but he recovered. That's what I call a hot ship."[3]

"I callate she's got to be some swift to rake in the pool against this craft, bloodstains or no bloodstains," drawled the gambler.

At this moment the sharp report of a Winchester rifle echoed through the ship.

Half the watch sprang to their feet with various exclamations.

"Gun-play, by all that's holy!" ejaculated Bedrock Ben.

"Some locoed critter goin' against rope," hazarded Broncho coolly, as they crowded to the door.

But the cockney did not stir from his bunk.

"Old man a-shootin' o' gulls, I h'expec'," he remarked; "'e's blawsted fond o' killin' them pore 'armless birds, the slaughterin' swyne."

Again a report came, and a gull wheeling astern fell dead in the frothy wake.

"He's shore a crackerjack with his weepon," commented Broncho admiringly.

The old man, who was a magnificent shot, soon scared away the following gulls, but not before he had accounted for three of them.

Well knowing what an impression his fine shooting would make upon his crew, it had become a regular policy with him on starting a passage to exhibit his marksmanship.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] "Old woman," a cattle-ranging term for the cook.

[2] Cinch. The cinch corresponds in an American saddle to the English girth. To cinch a girth up is to draw it tight by means of several turns of strap or rope between the ring of the girth and a ring on the saddle, and from this the word has come to being used in a variety of ways; for instance, Cinch on to that—catch on to that; It's a cinch that—it's a certainty that; What a cinch!—what a good thing! what an easy thing!

[3] True.

CHAPTER III

"THE USE OF A SHEATH-KNIFE"

Contrary to the astronomical prophet's forecast, the Higgins was lucky in carrying the northerly breeze until she picked up the "trades," and the third day out all hands were turned to shifting sail.

By this time Broncho was beginning to feel his feet. He was fortunate in having such a useful friend as Jack Derringer, who showed him the right way to set about his work and saved him from many a trouble.

It is to be doubted if Broncho's untamed cowboy spirit would have put up with Barker's bullying and insulting tongue if it had not been for Jack's strong influence and keen common-sense way of viewing and explaining everything.

The rolling-stone, except for strange spells of melancholy, when he seemed to be lost in gloomy thoughts and was hard to get a word out of, had a way of looking at everything from a comic point of view, and his infectious smile and cool comments time and again turned Broncho's smouldering wrath into mirth.

The cowboy prided himself on his philosophical way of taking fate. His strong points were his virile manhood, his fortitude against misfortune, and his daredevil bravery, and in these traits he found an equal, if not a superior, in the cool, self-possessed Britisher.

Only once was the cowpuncher ever heard to discuss his friend, and that was in one of his queer outbursts of thought.

"This world is shore like a poker game. Some parties is mean an' no account, like an ace high or pair of deuces; some's middlin', an' has their good an' bad p'ints, like a pair o' bullets or two low pair in a Jack-pot; some gents outhold the rest as a general play, like three of a kind; but is likewise downed themselves by sech superior persons who, like flushes an' full houses, is bang full o' sand, sense, an' 'nitiative; but thar's only one sport I ever rounds up against who's got all the vartues of a four of a kind, an' that man's Derringer Jack—he's shore four aces an' the joker."

Shifting sail started off smoothly enough, chiefly owing to the bosun, who knew how to get work out of men without using a belaying-pin.

An old Blackwall rigger, he was the very beau ideal of what a bosun ought to be, and the sight of his spars and rigging was as good for the old man's liver as a ten-knot breeze astern.

One day the man at the wheel overheard Captain Bob commenting aloud to himself after a keen look round his ship.

"Me mates be all right as long as it's thumpin' men an' ship-cleaning as is the ticket; but when it comes to marlin-spike an' riggers work, that 'ere durned lime-juicer kin give 'em cards an' spades."

The bosun, however, was far from being popular with the bucko mates, as his methods of enforcing discipline were much too tame to gain their approval.

"Them doggoned lemon-pelters never could handle men; they coddles em an' spiles 'em. Human nature requires whippin', an' if them skulkin' 'possums don't get a sort o' warnin' pretty frequent, they're liable to get thinkin' they've got the bulge on us," remarked Black Davis to Barker one morning in disgust, as he watched the bosun, Jack, and Paddy chatting amiably together whilst they were at work patching a fair-weather topsail on the maindeck.

These two bullies spent their time looking for trouble. Their one delight seemed to be to haze the men and knock them about; they had already beaten every bit of spirit out of those two poor greenhorns, Pinto and Jimmy Green, whilst Sam, the great buck nigger, who topped Black Davis by at least half a foot, and Barker by more, fairly rolled his eyes in terror when either one of these worthies approached or spoke to him; they knocked the cowards about unmercifully, and even such gluttons for a fight as Pat and the cockney got their fair share of hard usage.

But neither Jack Derringer nor the cowboy had been touched since the towing out.

It was a mystery to all hands why Jack escaped so easily. It was not by reason of his muscle, which was not so apparent on the surface as that of the big nigger. It was not because they liked him, for any one could see with half an eye that the pair fairly detested him, and yet their mysterious fear of the rolling-stone seemed greater than their hate. It was not a ferocity of manner or a desperado air that caused this fear, for although Jack had a quiet way of taking the lead and ordering others about which had already made him cock of the foc's'le, his rule forward was far from being that of a despot; it was rather that of an easy-going, level-headed man, gentle but firm. Being also the only educated man forward except the young English apprentice, his advice and counsel were in constant demand.

Even he, however, could not understand his freedom from ill-treatment. Several times he complained in the foc's'le with a queer grin that he was not getting his fair share of belaying-pin soup. It actually seemed to annoy him, and he began to air his wit on the buckos in such an insolent, daring fashion that the men, hearing him, shook in their shoes at his temerity.

There was no mystery forward, however, about Broncho's escape from brutality.

It was known aft, of course, that he was a cowboy from the south-west, and Jack, with infinite cunning, had made Broncho out to the bosun a terrible desperado:

"One of the most noted 'bad men' of the West," he declared. "Known and feared from Arizona to the Kootenay, from Texas to the Pacific slope, with more notches on his six-shooter than years to his life."

This precious character, together with several blood-curdling episodes of his career, invented on the spur of the moment by the rover's fertile brain, was in due course passed on to the after gang, with the result that Broncho was treated with a strange deference by the buckos, much to the amusement of the hands forward who were in the know.

Barker took care that all the easiest work came the desperado's way, and often he would favour him in small ways, and even yarn with him, when the old man was below, in the hopes of hearing from his own lips one of his many deeds of blood. But all the time the bucko was nervous and ill at ease; his own gory record seemed mean and petty compared to the cowboy's wholesale butcheries. One night he buttonholed the cowpuncher whilst he was coiling up gear on the poop, and asked him to spin the yarn of how he killed the seven greasers at Tombstone, and Broncho had a chance of giving free rein to his inventive powers.

The nickname also of Bucking Broncho, which had long replaced the cowboy's real name, helped to promote the deception, which occasioned much unholy joy in the starboard foc's'le.

Thus it was that the buckos treated Broncho with almost servility, though they daily did their best to arouse every passion of hate, revenge, and murder in the rest of the ship's company.

But the sand in the time-glass of fate was nearly run out for one of them.

Whilst the bosun and some hands were busy bending the fore-topsails, the second mate went aloft on the main with Jack, Broncho, Ben Sluice, Pedro, and Sam.