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.

They had just hoisted up the main upper-topsail ready for bending. Barker took his post at the bunt, Jack going out to the weather earing, with Broncho next to him, and Pedro inside next to Barker; whilst Ben and Sam went out on to the lee yardarm, where they were in a short time joined by Curly, who had been waiting below to let go the spilling-lines.

The head of the sail was spread out along the yard, the earings passed, and they were all busy making it fast to the jackstay.

Suddenly Barker, who had been watching for an opportunity to raise trouble, noticed that Pedro had skipped a roving.

"Yew mongrel skunk——" he began, raising his fist to strike the dago; but the sentence was never finished and the blow never fell, for the hot southern blood, raised to boiling-point by long-pent-up passion, burst beyond Pedro's control.

With one flashing movement and a yell of fury, he plunged his knife up to the hilt in the mate's breast.

With a deep groan, Barker fell back against the mast, bleeding profusely.

Ben, catching the stricken man in his arms, vainly tried to staunch the wound; but it was all up with the second mate, who was too far gone even for speech.

As Ben held him there was a gurgle in his throat, and a stream of bright lung blood poured from his mouth.

"You've been an' gone an' done it this time," said the ex-miner to Pedro.

"Me keela lo gringo brute. Carrajo, esta bueno!" remarked the South American coolly, with a self-satisfied air.

"It's some obvious you've coppered his play," said Broncho.

"I allows he's done jumped this earthly game for good," he added, turning to Jack and indicating Barker, who already had the death-rattle in his throat.

"Yes, I'm afraid he's pelili[4]; these buckos are always looking for it, and they generally get it in the end," answered Jack quietly. "I heard him call Pedro by a name yesterday which it's suicidal to use to any of the Latin races, and one I've frequently seen cause gun-play in the West, as no doubt you have too."

There was a hush on the yard as they watched the dying man, who was already unconscious.

It was not a pleasant sight, but was viewed by Jack, Broncho, and Ben Sluice with calm eyes and level pulses. All three had been familiar with death in many strange and horrible forms, and their senses were blunted to the keenness of the horror.

But Curly, only a boy in years, hung over the yardarm white and sick and shaking, whilst Sam, the coloured man, drew back frightened and nerveless.

The dago, however, stared indifferently, as cool and unmoved as a Sioux Indian.

Suddenly death came! There was a spasmodic twitching of the limbs, a sudden gush of blood from the mouth, nose, and ears, the pupils of the eyes grew glassy, their whites showed, the head dropped back heavily on Ben's shoulder, and the complexion took on that strange appearance of wax as the bucko's spirit fled.

Shifting sail is a busy bit of work. The bosun and his men on the fore, with their backs turned, were busy stretching their sail to a chorus, all in ignorance of the tragedy which had just occurred; whilst Black Davis, with the rest of the hands, was in the sail-locker, putting away the unbent sails.

At this moment he appeared on deck, followed by a line of men shouldering a main course, which looked for all the world like a huge white serpent, coming along the deck on six pairs of legs.

It was a delicious day. The north-east trade wind was light, and the Higgins was sneaking along over the deep blue of the Pacific, doing hardly six knots.

The bright sun shone upon the gleaming cotton canvas, giving it the dazzling appearance of snow.

As the mate stepped forward of the mainmast, he glanced casually up at the men at work above.

The first thing to catch his eye was the red stain of blood on the bellying breast of the topsail, and then he noticed that the men on the yard seemed to be all crowded into the bunt.

"Brazen sarpints! What the tarnation hell air yew doin' up thar?" he roared.

"Second mate's got badly stuck, sir," replied Jack.

"Who stuck him?"

"Dat er dago, Pedro, sah," shouted Sam, who was not a special friend of the little Chilian.

Black Davis had seen many a fatality of this sort, and to his credit it may be said that, whatever the emergency, it always found him ready.

"Bosun!" he roared, "git down off thet yard an' fetch a pair er handcuffs!"

The whole ship was now awake to the fact that a tragedy had occurred.

The old man appeared through the companion-way with his Winchester crooked under his arm, and going to the rail of the poop, sang out to know if the second mate was badly hurt.

"He's done cashed in his checks, sir!" Ben Sluice roared back.

"Better send up a bosun's chair to get the body down on deck, sir," sang out Jack.

"All right, all right, not so durned full o' talk up thar," growled the old man.

An atmosphere of excitement began to pervade the ship, and all work was dropped. Those who were up the fore scrambled quickly to the deck, and began feverishly to discuss the matter with Black Davis's gang, in charge of the main course.

Black Davis, swinging himself on to the rail, slowly started the ascent of the main rigging.

"'Oo did they say stuck 'im?" asked the cockney.

"Yew bet it's thet dago cuss Pedro done carved him up. I see'd the devil stickin' out a foot outen them black eyes er his; I've just been waitin' ter see him get his claws into one of 'em," replied Hank, taking a mighty bite out of a plug of tobacco, which he proceeded to chew vigorously.

"Gee-up! gee-up! Pedro kill-um one piecee boss number two velly muchee chop-chop! Me heap flaid—no likee funee business; plenty muchee solly!" ejaculated Lung, looking out through his galley door.

"You thinks as 'ow it's goin' to raise trouble, does ye, ye bloomin' h'opium-slave?" remarked Hollins, with the insolent tone of one addressing an inferior being.

"And I ain't so sure the chink ain't right neither," put in Hank.

"Der teufel ish dode, und it serves him recht; he was lookin' for it," grunted Muller, the German.

"You're right, Dutchy. He were playing for a show-down an' the dago plumb euchred him," remarked the gambler, Studpoker Bob. "An' if thet other golderned bucko don't mind his little game some, he'll find himself up against the iron likewise," he continued in a lower tone, with an upward glance full of sinister meaning.

"I reckon he ain't easily gallied,[5]" said Hank. "It'll take a man with a mighty stiff backbone to heave that beggar to, an' you may lay to that."

"Begorr, but there's men in this foc's'le would be after batin' the eye-teeth out of him," burst in the eager Paddy.

"Not in the port foc's'le, son; yew bet he's got us all skeert."

"Be me sowl, but he ain't goin' to come it over us starbowlines none, or he'll get the divil's own larrupin'," said Pat fiercely.

"Who's goin' to do ther larrupin'?" inquired Hank scornfully.

"I'm due to get square with that ladybuck myself, bad luck to him."

"Holy Gee! but he'd fair eat yew, Pat, an' ask for more."

"Faith, an' would he thin. Well, he wouldn't be atin' of Jack Derringer none so aisy, anyhow. Be the Powers! but Jack could knock his d——d head off."

FOOTNOTES:

[4] Kaffir word meaning "finished," "done."

[5] Whaling term meaning "scared."

CHAPTER IV

"BARBARISM"

The bosun now appeared with the handcuffs, and they were speedily sent aloft with a bosun's chair. And now every eye was turned on the topsail yard to see Black Davis put the handcuffs on his prisoner.

To go up on to that yard, with a raging dago waiting to knife you as you stepped on to the footrope, required nerve, and the mate knew that he was in a ticklish position, and that he could expect no help from the other men on the yard.

Yet there was no hesitation about Black Davis; the man was so made constitutionally that he really did not know what fear was.

"Git the dago's knife an' sling it overboard," he sang out to Broncho, as he climbed out of the top.

At this Pedro bared his teeth like a tiger at bay, and turned upon the cowpuncher with knife ready.

"He shore has me treed," said Broncho to Jack. "I ain't organisin' to bluff that bowie o' his, or he has me p'inting out on the heavenly trail too prompt for words."

It was evident that Broncho was helpless against the desperate southerner, and was more than likely to get killed in his turn if he made the slightest attempt to wrest Pedro's knife from him.

"The dago has me out-held, sir; he's due to cut me open a whole lot if I makes a move," called Broncho to the mate.

At this, Black Davis, who was half-way up the topmast rigging, pulled out his gun, and pointing it at Pedro, sang out:

"Heave thet knife overboard, or I'll fill yew full of holes, yew dogasted West Coast beachcomber."

Quick as a flash Pedro turned and launched his knife full at the mate. It stuck quivering and shaking between the strands of the wire shroud, which, as Black Davis leant forward, was touching the top button of his waistcoat.

It was a close call!

Pedro, helpless without his weapon, snarled round like a wild beast; then, with wonderful agility, drew himself up on to the yard, and stepping on Broncho's hand, before any one could divine his intention, he sprang into the rigging on the opposite side to Black Davis, and in a moment was up over the crosstrees and running up the ratlines to the topgallant yard.

"Come de-own outer that!" roared the enraged and baffled mate. "Come down, or I'll perforate yew."

The Chilian gave a wild laugh as he reached over before swinging himself on to the topgallant yard.

The bosun sprang into the rigging and hurried aloft to support his superior officer.

Meanwhile, the old man looked on impatiently from the poop, fingering his rifle nervously, evidently debating what to do.

Then up went his Winchester. There was a heavy report, and the wretched Pedro, straddled with one foot on the ratlines and one on the footrope, spun suddenly round, threw up his hands, and dropped.

Just below him were the crosstrees, and on to these he fell, and, held there, lay senseless with head and feet dangling.

For a moment there was a deadly silence over the ship; then a low, menacing growl of rage rose from the crowd of men on the maindeck.

"Silence there, yew mutinous dogs! Silence, or, sure as my name's Bob Riley, I'll pump some lead into yew!" roared the old man, bringing the gun up to his shoulder again.

As he spoke the canvas began to shake; the helmsman had let the ship run up into the wind. Little wonder if, in the excitement of the moment, Angelino could find no time for glancing at the compass.

In a moment the ship was all aback.

"Darn my dogbasted skin!" raged the old man, turning upon the unfortunate Portuguee. "Hard up thet wheel! Quick, yew infernal lunkhead!"

Then, rushing to the rail, he roared:

"Down from aloft there. On ter the foc's'le head, some er yew. Don' stand gazin' round, yew moon-struck, mongrel crowd o' Bowery slush! Clap on to them weather jib sheets! Let go to loo'ard! Neow, then, round with them fore-yards—round with 'em!"

For a few minutes terrific confusion reigned. Excited men ran hither and thither, braces were thrown off the pins, and a medley of cries resounded over the ship, half drowned in the thunderous clatter of the flapping canvas.

Jack, Broncho, Sam, and Curly came sliding down backstays, leaving Bedrock Ben still with the dead man in his arms.

By this time the old man was half mad with fury, and dancing a regular war-jig aft. Words poured in a torrent from his mouth, cut off, distorted, and half senseless as they burst from his stuttering lips.

Certainly the facts of the case were enough to try the temper of any man as full of bile and ginger as a down-east skipper. His ship aback; a crew of lunatics running wildly about the deck, letting go sheets, lifts, spilling-lines, anything in their craziness; two dead men aloft, and with them his only remaining officers; last, but not least, two half-bent fair-weather topsails flogging angrily in the strengthening breeze, with every chance of splitting from top to bottom.

"Carpenter!" he yelled. "Carpenter, get them headsheets over! Sakes alive—bust me purple—what er mess! Hyeh, y' ravin' idiots, what y' doin'? Get on ter thet fore-brace. Come down, bosun. Jeerusalem, look at them t'p'sls! Hell an' damnation, who let go that sheet? Carpenter, ye mouldy wood-sawyer, can't yew thump 'em? Beat 'em, kill 'em, jump on 'em, man. Wal, I swow! What the blazin' flames o' hell d'yew think y' doin', yew bean-swillin', lop-eared Dutch swab——" and so he raged on.

What with the old man's scathing remarks and his own confused brain, the carpenter got in such a flurry that he hardly knew what he was doing.

Slowly things were straightened out, with the headsheets over to windward. On the advent of Jack and his gang from aloft, the foreyard was swung, and gradually the ship began to pay off under the influence of the backed headyards.

With the appearance of the huge bosun, calm and collected in the midst of the chaos, something like order began to prevail on deck. The Higgins was got on to her course, the yards trimmed, and whilst some of the hands were sent aloft to finish bending the two topsails, Ben Sluice and the body of the second mate were lowered to the deck in the bosun's chair.

The captain's bullet proved to have only grazed the forehead of the dago and stunned him, upon discovering which the mate had the senseless man roughly lowered down in a running bowline from the gantline block.

As Black Davis reached the deck, the old man, who was still fuming like a smouldering volcano, turned upon him with a withering glare.

"Hm, mister mate, an' a nice bunglin' yew made of it up aloft, lettin' a miserable little deck-swab of er Chilanean make a fool er yew like that. Ain't yew ever put the bracelets on a man before? Y'll have ter hustle round considerable mor'n this, or yew won't suit Cappen Bob Riley"; and with a final snort the irate skipper disappeared down the companion.

Mr. Bucko Davis turned back to his work in no very sweet frame of mind.

The body of the second mate had been placed on the main-hatch, and alongside it was laid the senseless form of Pedro.

"Hyeh, boy!" growled the mate to the kid, who was at work outside the galley, peeling potatoes for the cabin dinner. "Git er bucket er water an' see if yew can't wake thet dago up."

The boy drew a bucket over the side, and then, with shaking hands, tilted it gently over the face of the South American; but with his big brown eyes dilating with fright, the kid went very gingerly to work.

"Thet won't do, thet won't do," grunted Black Davis. "Give it ter me! Can't yew throw water yet?"

Seizing the bucket, with a true bosun's swing the mate hove the water over the unconscious man, with such skill that not one square inch of him from head to heel escaped the deluge.

"More water! more water! Neow then, jump around lively," called the angry demon impatiently.

With the sousing the mate gave him, Pedro could only do one of two things, either lie there and be drowned or come to his senses.

This latter he proceeded to do whilst the kid was drawing a fourth bucketful.

"Thought thet'd rouse the skunk," commented Black Davis; then, grabbing hold of the wretched man by the scruff of his neck, he dragged him off the hatch, and, dropping him on the deck, gave him three terrific kicks over the ribs.

"P'raps thet'll learn yew who's mate o' this ship, yew knifing beast; ther's one fer the second mate an' two fer me, 'count of all the trouble y've given me."

The miserable Pedro now broke out into low moans.

"Hm! Just like er dago! Cuts er man up an' then whines," went on the bucko, as he picked up the handcuffs off the hatch; then for a moment he stood hesitating, evidently turning something over in his mind.

Meanwhile the bosun had all hands busily engaged bending the main course. As the sail was stretched and the rovings passed, a subdued muttering went on, which in the present ugly humour of the men the bosun wisely took no notice of.

Presently there was a hail from the deck.

"Bosun, send me down er couple er them jailbirds o' yours."

A low, sibilant hiss of deadly venom ran along the yard at the sound of the mate's voice.

"Hm!" thought the bosun as he listened, "there's some of 'em pretty near ready for a word spelt with a big M."

He scanned the men on the yard for a moment in silence, and then carefully picked out two harmless ones.

"Pinto an' you, Green, get down on deck an' see what the mate wants."

With ludicrous haste these two worthies hurried down the ratlines, for they knew by experience what it meant to keep Black Davis waiting.

"Neow, yew two," said the mate, "skip forrard, an' if yew ain't got thet bosun's locker cleared out in two jiffs, thar'll be all-fired trouble."

They dashed off like a pair of frightened colts, and in record time reappeared with the statement that the locker was entirely bare.

"Left no blocks an' marlin-spikes behind, have yew?" asked the mate suspiciously.

"No, sir," came the reply in a hasty duet.

"Wall, I guess yew know what'll happen if yew have," he said with meaning.

"Neow, pick up the body of the second mate, take it forrard, an' lay it on the shelf," he went on.

"Aye, aye, sir!" came the hurried duet again.

As the two men rolled staggering off with the heavy form of the dead bucko, Black Davis turned to the dago on the deck.

"Know what I'm goin' ter do with yew, Mister Mate-killer? No? Wall, y'll soon find out. I reckon I'll have yew some tamed before I done with yew! Neow then, up yew git."

Except for a deep groan Pedro took no notice. At this the mate seized him by his shirt-collar and dragged him on to his feet.

For a moment the poor wretch swayed tottering, and then, with a great effort, collected his strength and retained his equilibrium.

"Oh, yew can stand, hey? Wall, neow, suppose yew walk forrard into thet bosun's locker."

Unsteadily Pedro lurched forward, dragging himself along slowly, followed by the bucko dangling the handcuffs.

The bosun's locker was small, and there was hardly room for the mate and his victim besides the dead man on the shelf; and as Black Davis entered, the miserable Chilian backed up against the bulkhead in doubt as to what was going to happen next.

"Hold out y'r hand," commanded the mate; and as Pedro obeyed, he snapped the handcuff on it; the other he slowly clasped upon the wrist of the dead bucko, whilst Pinto and Jimmy Green, standing hesitating what to do, watched him with eyes of horror from the doorway.

"I'll just see how yew like a night o' that, chained to a stiff of y'r own killing," said the demon, with a fiendish chuckle. "Wall, yew've got better company than yew ever had before. A pleasant night to yew!" and he retired, locking the door after him.

The bosun was now put at the head of the starboard watch, and the routine of the ship once more continued on its normal course.

Shifting sail was again in full swing, but the men worked listlessly in deadly silence; there was no chantying on the gantline, and they pulled and hauled without even the usual hee-hawing.

The bosun tried again and again to instil some life into the work, but in vain; all hands went at it steadily, but without a sound.

It is a very bad sign when a ship's crew work in silence, and even the mate ceased his hazing as he noticed the sullen humour of the men. You can bully and ill-treat a deep-sea crew as much as you like up to a certain point; but there is a limit mark, and if you step beyond that you begin playing pitch-and-toss with your own life.

The sea is not to blame for every missing ship. A steady-going, harmless man can be turned by continual brutality and ill-treatment into a desperate, iron-nerved assassin, and a good crew can be brought to such a condition that one accidental spark will set them afire; then, rendered half madmen, half fiends, they turn the ship into a shambles.

There is only one thing that protects the lives of American buckos, and that is that nowadays deep-water ships go to sea with such a mixed lot of nationalities in their foc's'les that they are totally unable to act together. The after-gang realise this fully, and work upon it, skilfully playing the men off against each other.

Whilst the ship's company were seething with passions which threatened to boil over at any moment, no sound came from the bosun's locker, where Pedro crouched alone with his victim.

At meal-times his food was passed in to him, in the presence of the mate; then the key was turned again, and he was left to brood anew with the blood-stained corpse attached to him like a Siamese twin.

At eight bells, 4 p.m., the decks were cleared up and the watches set once more.

At knock-off time all hands assembled on the foc's'le head, and a babble of wild, angry voices arose, in which the shrill squeal of Angelino, the Portuguee, Pedro's chum, mixed discordantly with the deep gutturals of the negro, the jerky sh's of the German, the twangy nasal accents of the Americans, and the misplaced h's of the cockney.

Grimy fists were waved and shaken furiously aft, and the venomous oratory of the long, vicious gambler, Studpoker Bob, was received with deep roars of approval.

Jack, Broncho, and Curly seated themselves apart from the wrangling crowd, and lit their pipes.

Curly, young, soft, and impressionable, was very indignant at the mate's callousness.

"It's enough to send Pedro off his head, chained in there all alone with that fearful corpse. It makes me creep to think of it. I shouldn't be surprised to hear screams from that bosun's locker before morning."

But Jack was not of his opinion.

"The dago's too near an animal for that. His nature's coarse-fibred, and though his blood is hot and excitable, his nerves are dull and only respond to the emotions of a brute."

"Which I concurs with them views entire," remarked Broncho. "I allows that dago's mighty familiar with corpses, an' no longer regyards them with respec'. That ain't no amature work, the way he uses his bowie; he weren't doin' no bluffin' on a four-card flush; the way he manip'lates his weepon shows he knows his game."

"Anyhow, it's a brutal shame, and from the way some of the men are talking I reckon Black Davis had better look out for squalls," cried Curly hotly.

"I don't think Davis is afraid of any man forrard; they talk too much. Listen to 'em now. He knows not one of them dare face him alone," said Jack.

"Still, I've seen marlin-spikes dropped from aloft, and on a dark night accidents easily happen," went on the ex-apprentice stubbornly.

"You bet, son, that ole pole-cat's got his ha'r-trigger fixed; he's plumb loaded with what you-alls call nerve, an' is due to make a mighty fervent play, however the kyards stacks up."

As Broncho spoke, the cockney's voice, loud and harsh, broke in upon them as he harangued his audience:

"H'it's a bloomin' shyme, byes, that's wot h'I calls it——" and the rest of his speech was drowned in the deep tones of the foc's'le bell, as the silent and suppressed kid, whose duty it was to keep time, sneaked up and struck eight bells.

CHAPTER V

"IN THE WATCHES OF THE NIGHT"

The starboard watch got slowly to their feet and tramped aft.

"Relieve the wheel and look-out!" called the mate.

It was Jack's wheel, and he was pleased, for he delighted in his night wheels, when, steering mechanically, like the born helmsman that he was, he allowed himself to get wrapped up in his thoughts.

The tropical nights always had the effect of stirring up half-forgotten memories in the breast of the rolling-stone, and after noting all his favourites gleaming above, he gradually lost himself in deep reverie.

The myriads of stars, studded like diamonds on the indigo robe of the heavens; the clear-cut moon, with its sparkling path of silver threads; the creamy wake, swirling astern in one blaze of phosphorus; the sharp outlines of spars, sails, and cordage, looking as if fashioned in ebony; the dreamy hum and soft caress of the gentle trade wind,—all these appealed intimately to the soul of the rover.

Forgotten were the stirring events of the day; he dreamed and dreamed in a paradise of his own, the beauty of the night recalling other such nights to him.

Once more he is mate of the rakish island schooner, lying lazily at anchor in some atoll lagoon, a bevy of flower-decked South Sea maidens dancing wildly on the maindeck to the soft tones of a guitar, the bright moon glistening on the swarthy faces of the Kanaka crew, seated round in squatting posture. The wild cries of the dancers are half-drowned in the deep boom of the distant surf and the rustling of the cocoa-palms rocked by the caressing breath of the steady-blowing zephyr.

Slowly the scene changes, the noise of wind and surf are hushed, the fairy dancers fade away, his luxurious hammock sinks to earth. He is alone, stretched at full length on the bare ground, a single blanket covering him; by his side is a trusty large-bore rifle, and at his feet a glowing camp-fire; whilst around him, blocking out all but the sky, there stretches a thick entanglement of mimosa thorn.

Suddenly the silence is broken.

A deep, echoing roar rises on the night, swells and ceases, then breaks forth again, evidently nearer. He clutches his weapon.

His quick ear notes the uneasy whinny of his horse and the restless movement of the cattle. The king of beasts is looking for his dinner.

As he listens, the guttural notes of his Kaffir boy under the waggon whisper anxiously:

"Hark, Baas! Lapa! lapa! (There! there!)"

Again the scene fades, and he finds himself crouching in the smoky entrance of a teepee. Before him stretches the prairie, like a great, still ocean. In the foreground twisting lines of bent, naked forms hop and spring in fantastic figures, the moonlight glancing on their painted bodies. A discordant tomtom-beating mingles with wild whoops.

Gradually the ghost-dance grows quicker and quicker, the whooping redoubles, the dreary chant of a group of squaws swells in volume; then——

Tink-tink! Tink-tink! Clear and sweet came the notes of the bell.

"'Ere, wake up, governor. You looks loike a bloke h'I once see'd a-walkin' in 'is sleep. Wot's the course?"

Jack started violently. It was the cockney come to relieve the wheel.

"South-a-half-west!" stammered the rover.

"South-a-'alf-west!" repeated Hollins, and Jack retreated forward.

And what were the thoughts of the murderer during that long night, as, hunched up with his back against the bulkhead and one nerveless hand held to the corpse, he crouched awaiting the dawn.

Was he thinking of life or of death, of the future or of the past?

Not he! His brain was vacant and his mind a blank; only his mouth was full, as he chewed steadily all through the long, long night.

Jack curled himself down under the lee of the main fife-rail, and, when the watch changed, returned there, preferring the open sky above him on such a perfect night to the frousy bad air of the foc's'le. Just as he was falling asleep, he noticed the small figure of the kid squeezing itself in behind the pump wheels.

The first hour of the middle watch passed without incident. Black Davis paced moodily to windward on the poop, the helmsman nodded sleepily over the wheel, and the look-out, trusting to luck in not being found out, was taking a nap on the foc's'le head.

Of the whole ship's company, perhaps the ragged urchin time-keeping was the only one thoroughly awake besides the mate.

But two bells had not been struck five minutes before every sleeper was aroused into wakefulness.

Suddenly a long, deep, wailing groan reverberated through the ship.

Dusky forms crouching under the lee of the bulwarks roused themselves, sat up, and looked round inquiringly.

The mate stopped in his walk and listened, the look-out sprang startled to his feet, and a hoarse murmur of gruff whispers broke out.

Again came the deep, mournful groan. It seemed to come from somewhere about the midshiphouse.

"What's thet noise forrard?" called the mate.

"Some one a-groanin' in the midshiphouse, sir!" hailed back the look-out.

The men nudged each other significantly.

"Poor Pedro!" came a loud voice from somewhere forward.

The mate frowned but said nothing, and the explanation evidently satisfied him, for he resumed his tramp.

Again the groan broke the stillness of the night.

There was something uncanny about the dismal sound. Full of superstition, like all deep-water Jacks, the men did not like it; several of the watch sprang to their feet, and there was a deep hissing of awe-filled voices amongst the dark groups of clustering men.

Suddenly a voice called from forward:

"It ain't the dago, sir; he says it weren't him."

"Who's that speaking?" roared the mate.

"Green, sir!"

"Come aft, yew; what yew doin' forrard in yer watch on deck?"

The man came running aft at a heavy, ungainly trot.

"Wall?" snapped the bucko venomously.

"Hearin' them groans, sir, I went an' listened at the door of the bosun's locker."

"Yes; wall? Go on, go on!" broke in the mate impatiently.

"I listens a while, sir, an' hears nothin'; then there comes a groan again, wery image o' Mister Barker's voice."

There was a renewed nudging and whispering amongst the group of men listening.

"Told ye so!" growled one. "Just wot I said!"

"By golly! dem is ghost groans, dis chile tell dat easy. No libing coon eber make dem noises, not on your life," grunted the coloured man, his voice shaking with fright.

"Silence there!" thundered the mate. "Go on, Green, spit it out 'fore y'r throat gits sore," he continued.

"Then I asks Pedro, sir, if it was 'im, an' he sez he ain't opened his mouth all night."

"All right, yew kin go," muttered Black Davis. "It's thet softy of a carpenter been eatin' too much!" he went on half to himself, half aloud.

Suddenly, right over his head called a voice:

"I'm comin' fer yew, Davis, I'm comin' fer yew!" Then, after a short interval, "I'm burning! I'm burning! I'm burning!"

The effect on the superstitious men was stupendous. The voice was the late second mate's to the life, and seemed to come from the mizzen-top.

Sam, the oracle on ghosts, threw himself to the deck, groaning in absurd terror.

"De ship am doomed! De ship am doomed!" he shrieked.

Angelino crossed himself nervously, and a shiver ran through the quaking crowd.

But there is not much superstition in a Yankee bucko, and Black Davis, tilting back his head, hailed the mizzen-top with a roar loud enough to wake the dead.

"Who's thet skylarkin' up thar? Come down, yew ratty hoodlum, or I'll break yew all ter pieces."

Dead silence!

"Up the mizzen riggin', some er yew swine, an' fetch him outer that!" roared the angry mate.

Not a man stirred.

Suddenly the tall form of the bosun appeared on the edge of the group of frightened men, awakened out of his light sleep by the commotion.

"What's up now?" he asked, as he shouldered his way through the men.

"Hell is up an' fizzlin'," burst out the exasperated mate. "Some d——d scowbanker monkeyin' aloft has got this crowd o' softies scared; but he ain't scared Black Davis—oh no! not by the Holy Pope—an' I pities him when he comes down."

"Jump aloft, bosun," he continued, "and see if yew kin rake him out by his eye-teeth; he's somewhere up the mizzen."

"Aye, aye, sir," replied the bosun in his deep voice, and turning, he swung himself over the rail into the rigging and went up the ratlines.

All heads turned upwards, anxiously watching him.

"He's a dead man," quavered one.

"Shut up, yew brayin' booby!" grunted the mate.

Up went the intrepid bosun. They watched him clamber out on the futtock shrouds and haul himself into the top; for a moment he disappeared behind the mast, and then reappeared, and with one hand on the topmast rigging, leant over the edge of the top and shouted down:

"There ain't nobody up here, sir. Are you sure you heard a voice?"

"Didn't I done tole you?" jerked Sam, his teeth rattling.

"Heard er voice!" howled the mate. "W'y, the swab called me by me name."

"It were Mister Barker's voice!" put in some one in an undertone.

"It were de voice ob de debble!" declared the darkey. "By gorry, dis bleedin' hooker am doomed!"

"Hell!" roared the mate. "If thet coffee-coloured Jamaica slush-bucket shoots off his bazoo again, I'll jump down an' whang his hide off."

This snuffed out any further assertions by Sam.

In vain the bosun searched aloft; he even shinned on to the skysail yard, and the fore and main were likewise searched, but without success.

There were no further utterances of the ghostly voice, and the matter remained an unexplained mystery.

Black Davis and the bosun did their best to thrash the matter out, but at last gave it up as hopeless.

"Must a' been some one foolin' on deck," suggested the bosun.

"But the voice came from aloft, man; the whole watch was hyeh with me. It weren't none er my crowd; I'll lay a hundred dollars thar's none o' them got the nerve to go monkeyin' with me like that," replied the mate impatiently.

"An' there ain't no parrot aboard. Well, it beats all my goin' to sea," muttered the other. "My crowd was all in the foc's'le 'cept Derringer, who was doin' a doss on deck, an' I see'd him standin' in your mob as I come along aft."

"Wall, then, if he was with my crowd o' hoodlums, it couldn't ha' been him, though if thar's any deadbeat aboard who's got the cheek ter do it, it's thet durned Britisher."

A curious grim smile appeared on Jack's face as his sharp ears caught the mate's remark.

Like the others, he had been awakened by the first groan.

As it ceased he heard a long-drawn breath, and looking round, spied the small white face of the ship's boy, outlined by the moonlight, as he crouched up against the mast behind the pump wheel.

Even as he watched he saw the small mouth open, at the same moment the groan broke out again, apparently by the midshiphouse.

Silently Jack gazed, marvelling. No sound seemed to come from the boy, but as the groan ceased his mouth closed, and he drew a long breath.

"Well, I'm jiggered," muttered Jack to himself. "The boy's a ventriloquist, and a wonderful one at that."

Then the kid threw his voice into the mizzen-top, and the words which had caused such consternation burst forth.

This time his mouth was nearly closed, and only a very keen observer could have detected any movement in his lips.

"Great Harry! If Black Davis were to catch the nipper at that game he'd kill him," mused Jack; and thinking that the performance had gone quite far enough, he drew himself under the fife-rail with the silence of a stalking Apache, and then suddenly pounced on the boy, clapping one hand over his mouth to prevent any cry of alarm.

"Hush, not a sound!" he hissed, as he took his hand from the kid's mouth.

"Don't split on me, Derringer, don't split on me. I'll never do it again, so help me bob," half blubbered the terrified urchin.

"Honest Injun?" inquired Jack.

"Honest Injun!" repeated the boy.

"Well, I'll pull you through this time; but don't breathe a word of this to another soul aboard," said Jack softly.

"Be sure I won't," whimpered the kid.

"Right! Now we've got to slip into that crowd there without them spotting that we've not been there the whole time; savvy, youngster? Keep your pecker up and mum's the word," whispered the rover.

"Hang me, but the lad's got nerve, and I like the look of him, too," he thought, as the pair of them stealthily joined the group of scared men.

"What's your name, kid?" asked Jack in an undertone, whilst the bosun was searching aloft.

"Jim," replied the boy; "I don't remember ever havin' no other."

"Where do you come from?"

"London. Fust thing I can remember was sleepin' in the parks; my, but it were cold sometimes."

"Got no father or mother?"

"No, I didn't have nobody; I wos just a street arab afore I went to sea."

"And how long have you been at sea, sonny?"

"Four year!"

"Pretty rough, eh?"

"Yes, mos' times, but I'm hard," replied the plucky boy.

"Well, see here, Jim," said the rover, gripping the boy's hand in his strong grasp. "I'm your friend from now on, and just you come to me when there's any trouble; savvy? Now you'd better skip along and strike 'one bell.'"

With tears in his eyes the boy stuttered his thanks before hurrying off to his time-keeping, and as he went he skipped along the deck for joy. His sad little heart had seldom known a kindness, and he had grown accustomed to bearing the hardships of his lot with a sullen apathy; but this offer of friendship and the protection of a strong right arm, coming as it did from the cock of the foc's'le, seemed almost too great a bit of luck to be true.

The boy felt a buoyancy within him which refused to be kept down, and his rising spirits, manifesting themselves in an attempted rendering of the hornpipe, all but brought him foul of the mate's heavy toe.

The excitement caused by the strange incidents of the middle watch sank all grievances for the time being. Like all deep-water men, the events which had put murder into their hearts one day were forgotten the next.

No longer did that sea-lawyer, Studpoker Bob, find an eager audience! Instead, authorities on ghosts and mysterious voices, such as Sam, gained the whole attention of the wildly superstitious crowd.

On coming on deck for the forenoon watch the mate made a visit to the bosun's locker.

He discovered the Chilian sullenly indifferent and serenely calm. The weird voices of the night did not seem to have troubled the man, or even aroused his curiosity, and he swallowed down hungrily the rough breakfast which the Chinese cook placed before him; after which he was released from the corpse, which was hastily sewn up in canvas, and, with half a dozen worn-out sheaves made fast to the feet, launched overboard.

No service was read over the body, for, as Captain Riley remarked to his second-in-command,

"In the fust place, I ain't got no doggoned prayer-book; an' in the second, I callate that Barker'll reach whatever port he's bound for quick enough, prayers or no prayers."

As the body took its dive, all hands rushed to the rail.

"So long, ye devil's spawn, a fair wind down under to ye. I guess they've their heatin' plant all fixed for ye," muttered Red Bill, of the broken arm.

"Solitary confinement on bread and water," was the old man's order re Pedro.

He was handcuffed, his donkey's breakfast and a blanket were tossed in to him, then the door was locked, and he was left to brood in semi-darkness, the only light being that which glinted through the ventilator in the door.

CHAPTER VI

"THE FATAL RED LEAD"

The trades failed close to the line, and all the troubles and trials of the doldrums began. They were a fine opportunity for Black Davis to take the steam out of his watch, for the wind, when there was any, came in short puffs from every quarter of the compass, and never blew for more than an hour or two in any given direction.

"Weather crossjack brace!" was the continual cry, and at night on the advent of each black squall there was a roar of:

"Stand by your skysail halliards!"

At one moment the rain would be coming down like a waterspout until the scuppers were full, and the next minute the wet ship would be glistening in the sunshine.

For five days the Higgins did not average twenty miles a day, and the whole of one baking Sunday she swung idly on her heel in the clutches of a Paddy's hurricane, whilst a stick of wood floating at her side would be sometimes ahead, sometimes astern.

Several of the men in their day watches below fished indefatigably from the jibboom, and Broncho soon had his first taste of albacore.

The flying-fish attracted him immensely, and he seemed never to tire of watching them as they flashed in and out of the water in glittering streaks of silver.

"I allows them fish has a high an' lavish time of it, a-pirootin' round permiscuous that-away. I shore wonders it don't exhaust them none, the way they hustles around," observed the cowboy to Jack Derringer, as they reclined lazily on the foc's'le head one afternoon watch below.

"A good time? Not much! Why, the albacore and bonita chase them out of the water, and the bosun-birds swoop down upon them in the air; they spend all their time flying from one enemy into the clutches of another."

"You don't say? It's shore some mean the way Providence cold-decks them fish that-away; yet they seem plenty numerous, notwithstandin' the way they're up agin the iron," drawled Broncho, as he slowly cut up some tobacco and refilled his corncob.

When within a few miles of the line the Higgins was put about for the first time.

This piece of seamanship was not executed without a vast amount of belaying-pin soup, even Broncho, the notorious desperado, getting his share in the heat of the moment.

The crew were raw and undrilled, and soon were worried into a hopeless tangle.

As the bosun had to attend to the crossjack and main braces in charge of the starboard watch, Jack was placed in command on the foc's'le, with Hank and Pat to aid him. This post is always reserved for the best men in the ship, for in a fresh breeze the men on the foc's'le have a most lively time.

From the moment that the helm was put down, the ship was in an indescribable uproar. The maindeck, littered with ropes'-ends, coils of braces, and handspikes, was soon in hopeless confusion. Braces jammed, tackles got foul, and the men ran aimlessly about, chased by Black Davis, who, like an avenging demon, was swearing as only a ship's mate can swear, whilst he fairly surpassed himself with his fist and boot work.

At the break of the poop the old man almost foamed at the mouth with fury. With clenched fists he raged up and down, roaring like a bull.

"Let go them royal an' skysail braces, yew mongrel rip thar, what in hell'r yew doin' of? Gol darn my etarnal skin if ever I see'd sech a inseck. Neow y've gone an' fouled thet brace! Snakes, yew ain't more use than a lot o' cawpses. Hyeh, bosun! Jump across an' thump thet hayseed, will yew?"

At the critical moment Sam, at the wheel, nearly had the ship in irons.

With one rush the old man was upon him.

"What in thunder air yew doin'? Y'll have her aback in a second, yew durned, sooty-faced heathen!"

And he gave the darkey a cuff on the side of the head which would have sent him to the deck if he had not clung to the wheel.

At last the yards were braced up on the other tack and the old man went below. Whilst the port watch cleared up the decks, the other retired to repair damages.

"I shore thinks I've been in some elegant skirmishes afore now," remarked Broncho, as he felt himself over for breakages in the foc's'le; "but I'm an Apache if I'm ever into a fight that's more stirrin' an' eventful, not to say toomultuous. At one time I'm that tangled up in my rope I allows it's a whirlwind."

"I believe you, my bye," said the cockney, as he limped painfully across to the water-barrel for a drink. "I drors h'it mild when h'I sez it's chucks ahead of a bloomin' 'urricane."

"And you calls the play kerrect, Hollins. What with that old he-wolf a-howlin' in a mighty unmelodious way on the poop, an' Black Davis a-swarmin' all over me like a wild-cat, I shore reckons it's a heap thrillin'. Them two sports throws no end of sperit into their play."

"And thet ain't fosterin' no delusions; they're hot stuff, pard, an' they earns their reputations," said Bedrock Ben. "That 'ere Black Davis jumps me offen my mental reservation complete every time."

"When he gets a ship he ought to make a most successful master, if his training goes for anything," put in Curly. "I notice all the American deep-water skippers have the reputation of having been regular Western Ocean buckos in their time."

"That bloomin' roustabout'll never live to command a ship," grunted Red Bill from the opposite bunk. "He's too successful with his fists to live long. He'll get cut up one o' these days, like that other New Jersey tough."

"Yes, success isn't all jam," remarked Jack slowly. "It's got a remarkable habit of turning sour in your mouth, just as you are beginning to put on frills and throw out your chest."

"Them remyarks o' yours is shore wisdom, Jack," drawled Broncho in his musical Texan, as he blew a cloud of tobacco-smoke slowly through his nose. "What you-alls calls success don't always pan out so rich as you calculated it would. Often the kyards stacks up mighty contrary, an' when you're just about callin' for drinks round, blandly surmisin' in your sublime ignorance that you makes a winnin' an' is shore due to scoop the pot, that 'ere gent 'Providence,' who's sittin' some quiet an' unobstrusive whilst you raises the bet to the limit, just steps in an' calls your hand. Then it is that your full house goes down like an avalanche before his four of a kind, an' you, some sore an' chagrined, meanders off an' ponders on this vale of tears."

"You're some long-winded, Broncho," said old Ben Sluice, "but you're dead right. I've seen a hell's slew o' minin' pards go under just 'coss they'd struck it rich. They rakes in their dinero an' away they goes, playin' it high an' standin' the crowd, all the time a-consumin' o' nosepaint unlimited; an' the next thing you knows is they done jumped the track."

"H'I knew a real bang-up toff once," joined in the cockney. "'E wos a genelman, too, boiled shirt, shiny pants an' h'all, an' a dead smooth job 'e 'ad—just raked in the quids for doin' nuffin' but loaf 'round. You've all 'eard of the Scotch 'Ouse—leastways, h'any that's been to the little village h'I come from. Well, 'e was wot they calls 'shopwalker' there. H'I goes in there one day (h'I'd got a big payday comin', an' h'I thinks, thinks h'I, I'll be cute this time an' lay in a bang-up outfit). Well, h'in I goes an' h'up 'e comes as h'affable an' perlite as you please an' sez:

"'And what's yours, sir?'

"Well, h'I wos h'all took aback, gettin' sich a question from a puffect stranger. At last h'I stammers out:

"''Arf-an'-'arf, an' thank ye kindly, mister.'

"Well, 'e just smiles superior-loike, an' sez,

"'I mean, what do you want to buy?'

"Well, I thinks to myself, 'That's comin' it low on a chap.' It weren't the friendly touch, wos h'it? But h'I don' sye nuffin' 'bout it, but gets a rig-out an' skips.

"Next v'yage h'I comes into the West Indy Docks. I thinks as h'I loafs round, mebbe I'll go an' see if my rorty toff is still on top. Well, 'e ain't there, so I asts the cove wot I bought the duds from, when did 'e cut 'is 'ook? Well, wot d'you think, byes: 'e'd been an' committed sooicide. Stroike me good an' blind, but you could a' knocked me down wiv a feaver when I 'ears it."

"What's a dead cinch to one gent is jest an ornery layout to another," commented Broncho.

"I allows that 'shopwalker' o' yours don't accoomilate no joys from his duties. Mebbe he reckons them mighty low, not to say debasin', an' finally he gets that fretful an' peevish he jest throws up his deal in disgust, jumps on his war-pony, an' lights out on the death trail."

And now a pitiful incident occurred. That poor ship's drudge, the kid, with the exception of Jack Derringer, who was in the other watch, had but one friend and chum, which was the almost equally disreputable ship's cat—a gaunt, thin tabby.

These two shared their blankets and shared their grub. Scanty as the fare was, the kid always saved enough out of his daily whack to give the cat a good square meal.

As Broncho remarked,

"It's shore an example to humanity, the way that 'ere despised an' put-upon urchin hugs an' cherishes that cat; it's plumb touchin' as a spectacle."

Since the mysterious voice episode, Jack's friendliness with the ragged boy had caused some comment in the foc's'le.

Often these two were to be seen seated together talking in the second dog-watch. A notable change was beginning to show itself in the small urchin. He was no longer the dirty ragamuffin of yore; his shrill speech was not so full of oaths, and he ceased to shirk his work whenever he could conveniently do so.

The rolling-stone seemed to possess a wonderful influence over the boy, and in the dog-watch he grew into the way of giving the kid a short lecture.

These strange lectures proved a wonderful education to the suppressed urchin, who drank in every word of them.

"Jim," the rover would say, as he smoked lazily on the fore-hatch, "your language is a sight too foul for a kid of your age. You just take a turn with that small tongue of yours, and go easy on swearing. I know it's hard, specially at sea, but I'll give you a tip. Now you've seen the Spanish inscriptions on cigar-boxes, haven't you? Yes? Well, suppose something happens—you stub your toe over a ring-bolt, or slip up on some slush by the galley—you want a harmless, inoffensive word to express your feelings. Well, there's your word in top-weight Spanish on the cigar-box. 'Claro!' you say, short and quick in an annoyed way, 'Claro!' Well, you do it again; this time you're feeling a bit hotter, and you want something the least bit stronger. 'Maduro!' you say, and put your feeling into the 'u.' But you go and stub your toe a third time; it's getting to be a bad habit of yours, and you really want something strong this time to get the proper flavour in your mouth. There's the word ready for you on the cigar-box. 'Colorado!' and the worse you feel the more you roll the 'r,' until you can make the word howl with pain. Listen——"

Jack frowned ferociously, and then from the back of his throat threw out the terrible oath:

"Color-r-r-r-a-a-a-do!!!"

The rolling-stone's lectures were certainly original, to say the least of them, and they generally had their amusing side.

One Saturday night Jack lay on his back watching his beloved stars, whilst the boy was busy at the pump washing off his weekly allowance of dirt in preparation for Sunday.

This was a new habit of his, set going by his star-gazing friend, who, finding that the boy did not possess any soap, had presented him with a dozen pieces, saying,

"Jim, here's some soap for you. If there's any of it left by the time we're in the North Atlantic, there'll be trouble."

As the boy finished his toilet the rover called to him, and pointing upwards, said:

"Do you see that star, Jim? That's 'Aldebaran,' the eye of Taurus, the bull, the second sign of the zodiac. Doesn't he shine plain? He's easy to see, isn't he? But suppose he was all coal-dust and dirt! We shouldn't be able to see him, should we? In the same way, if you're all dirty and covered with coal-dust, instead of being well polished by soap and water, how do you expect your guardian angel to watch over you? Why, he'd lose you amongst all the other specks of dirt on this earth, and never find you again; then you'd be an easy thing for the old gentleman with a forked tail, eh, sonny?"

"I'm afeard then, Jack, my guardian angel ain't never see'd me since I was born, for I don' ever remember bein' clean 'ceptin' lately," said the boy mournfully.

"Well, cheer up, old son! I expect he's got his eye on you all right all the same," declared the other heartily, alarmed by the seriousness with which Jim took his remarks.

Then, searching round for an idea whereby to soften his statements, he spied Sam.

"Don't you be down-hearted, Jim," he went on. "Look at Sam. How would you expect his guardian angel to see him? Yet he does, notwithstanding his colour."

"But Sam do shine be-e-autiful when he's hot," declared the boy.

This last was too much for Jack; he lay back and roared, whilst Jim's big brown eyes watched him in wonder.

But the men forward were rather huffed by Jack's friendship with the boy.

"Fust time h'I ever see'd the cock o' the foc's'le pal up with the ship's boy," grunted the cockney one day.

"You just be keerful what you say, Hollins," said Red Bill. "I just gave the little nipper a clout on the jaw t'other day for giving me sauce, when up jumps Derringer.

"'Leave that kid alone,' sezzee.

"'Mind yer own bloomin' bizness,' sez I; an' before I knows where I am, I'm lyin' on my back on the deck with a bump the size of a two-sheave block on the side of my head."

"'E calls 'im Jim, too," went on the scandalised cockney. "Might be bruvers, the way Jack spiles 'im. Kids want kickin'—h'it's the on'y way ter teach 'em."

But to return to the cat.

It was close on eight bells in the afternoon watch. The Higgins lay rolling in a heavy swell, with her courses hauled up; the sun was obscured, and heavy rain-clouds hung over the horizon.

There was not the slightest breath of wind, and the ship echoed with the slating and flogging of her sails as she rolled.

A continuous stream of water gushed in through her ports, and poured in a cascade first one way and then the other across the maindeck.

The port watch were on deck, busy "sand and canvassing" the main and fore fife-rails, preparatory to revarnishing.

The fore-hatch had just been chipped, and was resplendent in bright patches of red lead. The fates were rapidly arranging a holocaust for poor puss, for, as if obeying some unseen hand, he suddenly roused and stretched himself where he had been coiled up asleep on the foc's'le head; then, with the slow, graceful movement of his tribe, he descended the ladder and deliberately went up and rubbed himself against the fore-hatch. But alas! the eagle eye of Black Davis was upon him, and the red lead betrayed him, for it had left its marks upon his brindled coat; too late he tried to lick it off.

"Terantulars, yew dirty sneakin' beast. Rub my paint off, would yew?" roared the mate.

With remarkable swiftness he clutched poor puss in his iron fist, and a second later the cat was adrift on the swell and hidden from sight.

With a scream of fury and distress, the kid, who had been at work on the fore fife-rail, flung himself upon the bully, biting, kicking, and scratching.

Broken words burst from his mouth in a torrent, and, Jack's lecture forgotten, he raved and swore as only a boy bred to the sea can swear, raining a very shower of blows with his little fists upon the big mate.

Catching him by the scruff of his neck, Black Davis flung him aside.

The poor boy was hurled across the deck, to be brought up by the iron combing of the hatch, which caught him upon the left brow as he fell.

Jim dropped stunned, and lay motionless, bleeding copiously, whilst the fatal red lead with sardonic irony smeared itself in mockery upon his cheek and shoulder.

There was a low growl of suppressed anger from the watch, and if looks could have killed, Black Davis would not have lived long.

"Git on with your work, yew scrapin's o' hell, or I'll soon knock the bile out o' your gizzards," he roared; then, walking up to the senseless body of the boy, he kicked it twice heavily on the ribs.

"No shamming, yew little devil! Up yew get, or I'll make yew smell hell."

But before he could lift his foot again the stalwart form of the rolling-stone stood between the mate and his victim.

"Drop that, you d——d child-murderer! Come on and hit a man your own size."

The words fairly hissed from Jack's firm mouth, and there was a devil in his flashing eyes no one on board had ever seen there before.

Planted lightly but firmly on his legs, he squared up to the bucko with clenched fists and furious, quivering lips.

"Come on!" he raged, taking a step forward. "Come on, you devil!"

The port watch stared, open-mouthed, half expecting the heavens to fall in their amazement at Jack's daring.

Black Davis's glance fell before the fury of Jack's eyes. His big fist, half-raised, dropped to his side again; he took a step backward, then, muttering something indistinctly between his teeth, he slowly turned on his heel and walked aft.

Jack stared, the anger in his eyes changing to a look of blank surprise.

"Well, I'm blowed!" he muttered.

A half-muffled cheer broke from the port watch and many of the starboard who had jumped from their bunks in anticipation of a royal set-to.

The rover turned and snapped out,

"Fetch a bucket of water, one of you."

A dozen men rushed to obey.

Bending over the senseless urchin, Jack gently wiped the blood and red lead from the little white face; then, with the tenderness of a woman, he picked the boy up in his arms and carried him to his bunk.

There he skilfully doctored the long cut on the boy's forehead, first washing it, and then drawing the edges together with sticking-plaister zigzagged across it, whilst the starboard watch looked on in admiration of his handiwork.

Luckily for the poor little waif, his short life of hardship and want had so toughened him that, with the exception of a bad bruise, his ribs were intact.

"Poor old Dandy!" were the first words the kid spoke after coming to, and the tears rushed to his eyes as the lonely feeling of his loss came over him.

"Never mind the cat, sonny. I reckon Jack Derringer's done saved your life; if it hadn't been for Jack, you'd a' been hittin' the trail after Dandy yourself," said old Bedrock Ben.

"And that ain't no bloomin' josh. Jack put the skybosh on the 'ulkin' bully, and no mistyke. Crikey, if it weren't the 'ighest old rig to see Black Davis spifflicated.

"''Ow's that, umpire?' sez I.

"'W'y, h'out, er course!' and away walks 'is bloomin' lordship, fairly 'oodooed."

Thus the cockney, with a chuckle of delight.

"Did Derringer save me from the mate? I don' remember nothink. Black Davis slugged me, didn't he?" the boy asked faintly.

"If standing up between the mate an' you lying senseless, and daring Black Davis to touch you, isn't saving you, I don't know what is," said Curly hotly.

"Oh, shut up, you fellows, and leave the boy alone," growled Jack. "It's just eight bells, and Jim's going to lie quiet and get some sleep.

"Do you hear that, Jim?" he continued; "you're not to stir from your bunk till I give you leave. Green'll do your 'peggy' for you, eh, Green?"

The man nodded nervously in assent.

"That's bueno! Now shut your eyes, sonny, and take a siesta."

The boy's brown eyes glowed with a wealth of gratitude and a dog-like look of adoration as they rested upon Jack's stalwart figure; but the rolling-stone was a martinet of a doctor—not a word would he allow above a whisper in the foc's'le until the kid was asleep.

It was the cockney's wheel when the watch changed, and at four bells, six o'clock, he came forward, his face eloquent with news.

"H'I've found 'im out, byes, h'I've found 'im out!" he shouted incoherently to the group of men seated yarning on the fore-hatch and spare spars, and he pointed wildly at the rolling-stone.

"What's he done now?" rumbled half a dozen deep voices.

"Wyte, me bloomin' ole shellbacks, lemme tell the yarn."

"Well, pipe ahead; we ain't stoppin' ye," growled Red Bill.

"Jack," said the cockney, suddenly darting upon the rover—"Jack, me bloomin' lovy-duck, does you know w'y Black Dyvis wouldn't stan' up to yer?"

"Maybe I do, maybe I don't," laughed Jack.

"Well, h'I do, then, so now. I 'eard the ole man spin the bosun the whole blessed yarn; an' believe me, byes, h'I wos that tickled to death, before I knoo where h'I wos the bally 'ooker wos two p'ints off 'er course."

"Heave ahead, mate, heave ahead; you're all aback. Swing yer fore-yards an' get sail on to yer yarn," broke in the impatient Red Bill again.

"Orl right, cocky, orl right. Dye yer 'air. That red 'ead o' yours mykes ye in sich a blawsted 'urry, you'll get jumpin' inter yer coffin one fyne dye afore ye're dead."

There was a laugh, for Red Bill was notoriously hasty and impulsive in his actions.

"Well," began the cockney impressively, "h'it were this wye. The bosun wos a-leanin' agin the rail to windward er-scannin' o' things in general, an' allowin' mebbe 'e'd take a pull on the weather braces, w'en h'up comes the ole man from 'is grub. 'E goes over to ther bosun an' 'e sez:

"'What sort of er'and is that man Derringer?'

"'Best man wiv a marlin-spike h'I've see'd fer a long time,' sez the bosun.

"'Well,' goes on the ole man, speakin' slow an' solemn-loike, ''es the man as did up Slocum on the I.D. Macgregor!'

"Byes, h'I could er dropped. Slocum, mind you, the bigges'-fisted lump of a two 'undred an' fifty pound bucko sailin' the seas—the man as can 'old a six-foot Noo Orleans buck nigger, one in each 'and, lift 'em off the deck, an' bash their ugly black 'eads together; h'I've see'd 'im do it——"

"That's so, mate," broke in Hank. "I were in Iquique wi' him when he killed er man—picked him up an' kind er bumped 'im agin the boat skids an' broke his head; the ole man put some lie in the log, an' there weren't no more heard of it."

"Well," continued the cockney, "the skipper 'e spins the bosun the yarn, an' h'I jest absorbs h'it likewise. Seems Cappen Summers told 'im 'bout it, an' 'e spots you, Jack, from them tattoo-marks o' yourn.

"Well, byes, this ere grinnin' cuckoo 'ere, 'om I'm pra'd to shipmytes wiv, 'e 'as words or somethin' wiv Mister Bucko Slocum, syme wye mebbe as 'e 'ad wi' Dyvis, an' they ups an' 'as it out.

"Well, they fit an' fit an' fit, Cappen Summers an' the 'ole bloomin' ship's comp'ny er-lookin' on. My crikey, but it must er been the 'ighest ole rig! Fer two hours they fit by ole man Summers' ticker, till they wos h'all blood an' rags. Then Jack, 'e up wiv 'is fist an' lets drive. Oh Lord! Weren't it er knock-out! That swot Slocum, 'e just flies back'ards, lands on 'is 'ead on the quarter-bitts, an' lays there, reglar broke up; didn't come to till nex' mornin'.

"Ole man Summers tho't 'e were killed, an' gives Jack 'is job on ther spot.

"That's w'y Dyvis weren't 'avin' none!" concluded the cockney solemnly.

"'Sthat true, Jack, 'sthat true?" shouted half a dozen voices.

"Better ask the old man," laughed the rover.

In a moment Jack was circled by a crowd of eager men, all bawling at once.

"Lord lummy, Jack, you must be a bruiser," called one.

"Did Black Davis know this, d'you suppose?" asked Curly.

"'Course 'e did, you h'ass!" cried the cockney scornfully. "W'y, 'e ain't put a finger on 'im th'ole passage, not even towin' out."

"I reckon Black Davis was some scared he'd lose his job if Jack downs him, same as that other fire-eatin' miscreant," mused Broncho. "No, he were dead agin playin' your hand, Jack; he weren't hankerin' to be your beef—he's too keerful of his skin that away."

"Gaud blimy! Wot er scrap h'it would er been," lamented the cockney.

"It shore would ha' been some lurid, but I pities the mate. He was due to emerge a totterin' wreck. Jack was just a-moanin' for blood an' oozin' with f'rocity," asserted the cowpuncher.

"He did look a heap grim," remarked Bedrock Ben.

"But what if Black Davis had downed him?" inquired Pinto.

"Sich thoughts is figments," said Broncho contemptuously. "I'm puttin' up chips Jack'd have that rancorous hold-up too dead to skin. Jack weren't aimin' to put no delicacy into his play, that time."

"Green, if you don't tcha-tcha[6] and strike eight bells, you'll have the mate on your trail," broke in the bucko-downer, anxious to cut short the conversation.

And a few moments later the silvery note of the bell announced that the first watch had begun.

FOOTNOTES:

[6] Tcha-tcha, "hurry up" (Zulu).

CHAPTER VII

"IN THE SECOND DOG-WATCH"

All through the tropics, Pedro, under the influence of his solitary confinement, had been becoming more and more morose and despondent.

He hardly touched the wretched fare which was placed before him, and had wasted to a shadow of his former self.

His fierce black eyes glittered out of a sallow, heavily-lined face, upon which the lowering scowl daily became deeper and deeper.

His ragged moustache was broken and torn by chewing, whilst his lower lip hung sore and bleeding from the constant gnawing of his teeth.

"It's a cert," remarked Broncho, "that that bowie-whirlin' dago is due to go flutterin' from his limb one o' these days. He's lookin' 'bout ready to break camp for the etarnal beyond; his vittles no longer gives him joy, an' he just sets thar an' wilts."

"Weevily hard tack and dirty warm water wouldn't give anybody joy," replied Jack. "He wants air and exercise; they should let him out for an hour on deck every day."

"Gate an' seat checks for the realms o' light is about what he wants, I reckon," retorted the cattle-ranger.

And Broncho was right. One morning they found him too late; he was lying in a pool of blood with a small piece of broken wood in his clenched fingers. With this poor weapon the Chilian had managed to tear open a vein in his arm, and so bled to death. Thus miserably ended the poor little bucko-killer.

His death brought the superstitious members of the crew to the front again. Pessimistically they prophesied all sorts of evils, and Sam, the chief authority, openly proclaimed that Black Davis, with the death of the ship's cat upon his soul, would be the next victim of the ghostly avenger.

In the south-east trades easy times reigned in the starboard watch. For nearly a week not a sheet, brace, or halliard was touched, except for the usual pull on the braces and general "freshening of the nip" every evening.

In the second dog-watch the men would collect on the foc's'le head, and exchange yarns with eager faces and vehement gestures.

Every man forward had seen life in its more unusual phases. Paddy, Hank, Jack, and the cockney had all been shipwrecked more than once; and even Jim had had a strange crop of experiences crowded into his short life.

One evening Jack had just related a yarn of how he had been wounded in an affray in the New Hebrides, when mate of a "blackbirder," as the schooners recruiting Kanaka labour for the Queensland plantations were called.

"Any money in thet layout?" inquired the gambler.

"Used to be," returned Jack, "till the missionaries and opposition in Australia broke it up."

"Thar's many a cinch in the South Seas," observed Hank. "Copra an' curios ain't bad, nor yet pearls, speshully if yew kin strike a preserved patch when thar ain't no gunboat knockin' around."

"Smuggling opium's good, too," reflected Jack musingly.

"Yew bet! Ever tried it?"

"Aye."

"How did it pan out?" inquired Bedrock Ben, somewhat eagerly.

"So-so!" grunted the rover. "Did three good trips. Then we got caught napping in a typhoon, and the old junk went to the bottom."

"Close call, eh?"

"Yes; only three of us saved—two Chins and myself."

"H'I tell ye, byes, smugglin's good gear h'all round," broke in the cockney.

"Begorra, an' I'm after knowin' that same. Weren't I in the Admiral Tronde, a bruck-up little one-gunned stame-kettle runnin' guns fur them Urriguay sports," cried Paddy excitedly.

"Were ye, Pat? Bully for you," went on the cockney. "I done some gun-runnin' too up the Persian Gulf; but h'I 'ad ter quit—the screw were good enuff, but the 'eat wos a knock-out. Lord love ye! W'y, we biled our cauffee on the shanks o' the anchors; s'elp me, but they wos allers red 'ot. An' th' ole man, 'e don' ever wear nuffin' but a bloomin' gal's night-gownd——"

"Heat don't worry me," interrupted Hank. "It's cold calls the turn on me. I was up the Behring once sealin' an' got my bellyful."

"Much ice?" inquired Jack casually.

"A pretty considerable mush of it."

"I was two months in the ice to the south'ard once in the Cairngorm," declared the rover.

"The hell yew war? 'Member speakin' the I.P. Rakes off the Dyeego Ramerrez? Yew had ye jibboom gone an' nought above the lower-mast forrard. Your ole man sent a life-boat aboard us fur spuds—said y'd got scurvy bad. By Davy, I allers allows thet were the dirtiest sea I ever see'd a boat live in."

"It was bad," agreed Jack. "We got stove in trying to get aboard again, and lost three men."

"Thet's right! I see'd yew wi' these very eyes, smashed to staves yew were; an' yew were in thet boat, eh?"

"Yes," said the Britisher quietly. "I was second mate of the Cairngorm, and had charge of her."

"Phew!" exclaimed Hank, drawing a long breath; "an' whar did yew larn thet trick o' handlin' a boat? Been whalin', I s'pose?"

"No; all the boat-work I know I picked up in the Islands."

"Ever seen Siwash squaws run a birch-bark through rapids?" asked old Bedrock Ben. "That's what I calls boat-handlin'."

"Squaws 'andle a boat! To 'ell wiv ye!" burst out the cockney disdainfully. "What d'you know 'bout h'it? W'y, you ain't never seen the Boat Ryce."

"What boat race?" grunted old Ben.

"Lord lummy, byes, listen to 'im! Sech h'ignorance is bloomin' well a disgryce."

"What's this here race you-alls alludes to?" inquired Broncho in his polite Texan drawl.

"Oh, 'ell!" gasped the cockney, and sank back in a state of collapse.

"I see'd the Boat Race onct," suddenly put in Jim's small voice, "an' I ain't never forget it."

"I ain't no use fur racin'," growled Red Bill. "I does a v'yage once in one o' them tea-clippers, an' that were enuff racin' to last me my time. What wi' carryin' on when it's blowin' great guns an' muckin' around in the tropics with royal stuns'ls, save-alls, water-s'ls, ringtails, an' sech-like superfloous pocket-handkerchers, it ain't no game fur a white man."

"What was your ship, mate?" inquired the rover, looking up with interest.

"Titania."

"I came home from Australia once in the Cutty Sark," said Jack slowly.

"Lose any men?" asked Red Bill sharply.

"Well, off the Horn we did. Helmsman lost his head—let her run off, whilst we were at the main braces. We shipped a big sea and lost nine men overboard—two of them washed off the foreyard."

"I believe you, son," snorted the fiery-headed Bill. "That's the way wi' them packets. Men's lives is nuffin' so long as they makes a good passage."

"Men's lives!" growled Jack disdainfully. "Red Bill, you talk like a softy! What do you come to sea for but to take the rough with the smooth? When a man begins thinking of his life at sea, it's about time he stopped ashore and turned counterjumper, ink-squirter, or hayseed——"

"Go easy, mate, go easy!" put in Hank mildly.

"Well, I've got no patience when a man begins talking about his precious life."

"Look 'ere!" began Red Bill hotly, "you jest take in the slack o' that jaw-tackle o' yours, Jack Derringer. You're a sight too free wi' them insinnivations. I ain't afraid o' you for all ye prize-fightin' tricks, so go slow, or there'll be a slogging match."

"Bill," said the rolling-stone, with that catching smile of his, "shake hands. You're a white man, and I take it all back. It was just you talking of men's lives that roused my dander. I don't like to hear good sailormen talk about their lives like so many frightened land-crabs. I once went a yachting trip with three brass-bound, useless, chicken-hearted clothes-props, and I tell you I got a sickener of 'my precious life' talk.

"Things went well enough at first, when there was only just enough wind to keep us moving—though I had my hands full, what with cooking, steering, and doing all the dirty work; for though they were all three big men, they were so fat and flabby they couldn't pull their own weight on a rope or even hit a dent in a pat of butter; but we got a bit of a blow heading over to the French coast from Falmouth, and if ever I saw three badly scared, nerveless citizens, it was that crowd.

"The boat was a snug little yawl, and as I was pressing her through it pretty hard, things naturally got a bit wet, and now and again some green water lopped aboard.

"Well, after they'd had their first experience of a big dollop, they all turned on me.

"'Isn't it getting dangerous?' began the first uneasily.

"'Haven't we got too much sail for safety?' quavered the second.

"'Wouldn't it be risking our lives to go on?' stuttered the third. 'I'm afraid——'

"'Any fool could see that,' I broke in, as I shoved her nose into a lump of green water to cut short their chorus.

"After a good deal of spluttering they recovered sufficiently to give tongue again.

"'I'm wet through,' whimpered one. 'I must go below and change my things or I'll catch cold. D'you think it safe for me to leave the deck?'

"'I guess the deck can take care of itself all right,' I answered.

"'No, I don't mean that,' he said solemnly. 'I mean, if the boat turned over when I was in the cabin, I should lose my life, I should be d-d-drowned.'

"'By Jove, so you would!' I exclaimed, as if struck by the gravity of the idea.

"'D'you really think it would be more dangerous below than here?' put in another of the boobies anxiously.

"'You're all insured, ain't you?' I asked with a wooden face.

"'Yes,' they gulped as a spray took them; 'but for God's sake turn the boat round and go back.'

"'Can't; too dangerous to run before this sea,' I declared, making a big bluff.

"They were getting too much for my patience altogether, so with a wild cry of 'Look out!' I shoved the helm over and soused them again.

"This time I had them all as limp as a wet swab, and as the wave hit them they screeched like so many frightened women. But directly the water cleared off there was more tongue-wagging.

"'My God! I thought we were gone,' gasped one.

"Then the second booby let fly:

"'What an escape! A second longer and I should have been drowned——'

"'How terrible!' I put in brutally.

"'Terrible? Yes, you're right. Isn't the sea awful? I've never been in such danger in my life before.'

"'Nor ever will be again if you can help it, I expect,' I sneered.

"But their minds were too overwrought to take any notice of my brutal speeches.

"'I thought I should burst——' began the fattest.

"'I've often thought you'd do that,' I cut in cheerfully.

"'——from holding my breath so long,' he finished, eyeing me dismally.

"Well, the end of it all was, I got the unhappy trio below, battened 'em down, and weathered it out by my lonesome. Twenty-seven hours at the tiller! Ever since that cruise, whenever a man begins to talk about his life being in danger, I begin to get hot in the collar."

"Land folk is certainly queer that way an' easily scared," commented the pacified Red Bill.

"Gettin' scared is easy. The bigges' fire-eatin' son of a gun is scared some time in his life; but it's givin' away your hand an' showin' you're scared that gets you logged down as plumb nerveless an' no account," remarked old Ben sagely.

"You're shore right, Ben," agreed Broncho. "It's the white-livered coyote who can't keep his mental fears corralled who goes to drawin' his gun when there ain't no need, an' gets over shootin' an' pluggin' the wrong gent."

"Thet's so, pardner," grunted the gambler. "See this scar?" pointing to a livid streak on his cheek-bone. "I gets that from a tenderfoot back-east puppy as acts the way you mentions."

"He sartinly makes a greevious mistake that time," returned Broncho ambiguously.

"He shore would ha' had a depitation o' thanks from his grateful pards if he'd hit the bull's-eye, I reckon," rumbled old Ben in a loud aside.

At this moment the bell went, and the watch on deck got hastily to their feet, caught up caps, and knocked the ashes out of their pipes before going aft.

Sometimes Broncho and Jack would sneak into the bosun's little berth in the midshiphouse. Here the three of them, with pipes smoking like chimneys, passed many a pleasant hour.

Over the bosun's bunk was the worn and faded photograph of a very pretty girl. This picture seemed to attract the rolling-stone in some strange way, for often he stared fixedly at it with a faraway look in his eyes, as if he were peering back into the past and trying to recall some half-forgotten memory.

One night, noticing his rapt gaze, the bosun remarked casually:

"Yes, she's a nice-lookin' gal, ain't she?"

"I beg your pardon!" said Jack hastily, the dark red flushing through his tan. "I didn't mean to be rude, but that photograph reminds me of somebody."

"Well, bein' as we're all good mates here," observed the bosun, "I'll tell you the yarn. I never ain't married—I ain't that lucky, though I walks out with scores o' gals in my time; but I on'y ever has one real sweetheart, an' she was a clipper. She was——" He broke off, and then resumed slowly, "That's 'er photo—she was second 'ousemaid to Lord Arrendale" (Jack gave a sharp start of surprise).

"That's away back ten years or more," continued the bosun reflectively; "then I goes off on a v'yage out East, thinkin' as how with a big payday a-comin' I'd get spliced when I gets home again. But my luck's dead out. I gets wrecked among the Islands, an' precious near ate up, an' it's over four years afore I drops my mudhook in the old cottage. Then I found my gal had gone an' left her place an' disappeared." The strong man's eyes grew misty, and the deep voice shook. "Well, I ups anchor an' beats up and down the whole country, but I never meets up with my gal no more; so I goes to sea again, and I ain't been ashore more'n two months all put together in the last ten years.

"And do you think I ever forgets that gal o' mine? No, sir; she's as dear to me, an' more, than she was in them days when I was a-courtin'. I often envies folks that I sees married, all so comfort'ble in their little bit o' home with the kids an' all. The likes o' them never don't seem to realise their luck. It's us fellers who 'as no wife, nor 'ome, nor kids—who's in Shanghai one minit an' off the Horn the next—it's us who spots their luck."

The bosun ceased and looked keenly at Jack.

"Ben Cray," said the latter earnestly but simply, reaching out his hand and seizing the bosun's burly fist, "I'm sorry!"

Broncho stared; he had only heard the big Britisher addressed as bosun, and did not know his real name, and he also thought that Jack was in like ignorance up to that evening.

There was something going on behind the scenes which he could not even guess at. He was a keen observer, and had noticed the blush on the cheek of his friend.

"He's a hard-cut citizen, is Jack," thought the cowboy. "It takes a lot to jump him offen his gyard."

"Ben," continued Jack, "you're a real white man. I remember her now, poor little thing, and you too."

"I spotted you fust day you comes aboard, sir!"

"I didn't know, bosun; I've never been home since I went to sea, and that was just before you went on that unlucky voyage."

"I see'd the ole lord last time I was back," began the bosun with some hesitation; and then stopped, as if he would have liked to say something more, but dared not.

"Hm!" muttered Jack indifferently, with mask-like face; but the keen-eyed cowpuncher noticed a singular gleam in the rover's clear blue orbs.

For a few moments there was silence, and then Broncho broke in:

"Talkin' of marriage, you shorely recalls my Juanita, don't you, Jack?"

"Certainly I do."

"Well," went on the cowboy, "I never gets my brand on to her, though I near has the hobbles on more'n once."

"I'm very sorry to hear that, Broncho. I thought you were in double harness long ago."

"Well, I never does fasten somehow, though I ropes at her continuous; then one day she goes curvin' off with that ere miscreant Montana Joe, which has me plumb disgusted. I just chucks a pair o' blankets across my saddle, stuffs a wad o' notes in my war-bags, an' lights right out. Finally I makes Frisco, where I gets to drownin' dull care with nosepaint; an' I makes sech a success of that ere undertakin' that I presently finds myself as you-alls knows."

"Sidelights out, hand on the look-out!" roared Black Davis from aft.

"Aye, aye, sir!" came back the answer, and night began.

The following evening Jack, Broncho, and the boy Jim were yarning together on the foc's'le head, when a terrific uproar broke out on the deck below them. There was a hurricane of deep-sea laughter, and the next moment the small form of the cockney disengaged itself from the crowd, and came dashing up the topgallant ladder.

"Jack!" he cried, "Jack, wot's a genelman?"

"Why, Jack is, er course," burst out the boy.

"I mean, wot mykes a genelman?"

The rest of the crowd were on his heels, and Curly, thrusting his way through, burst out hotly.

"Hollins says a gentleman is a man with shiny pants and a stove-pipe hat. What do you say, Jack?"

"Bedad! I on'y knoo one gintlemen," cried Pat, "an' he weren't one at all at all."

"I see's a gentleman once," said Red Bill, "an' he had a bit er glass stuck in his eye."

"When you-alls says gentleman," drawled Broncho, "you mean the real brand, I surmise; for there's a greevious number o' gents a-waltzin' around puttin' on frills an' bluffin' they're the thoroughbred article, which same soon bogs down in one's eestimation as plumb low an' ornery. What you-alls call gentlemen is gettin' 'most rar' as buffaloes in these here wide-spread an' high-flung times; but when you does cut their trails, you can bet a whole team you're goin' to be duly impressed tharby."

"A gentleman's a cove wi' clean 'ands, 'coss he don't work," shouted Jimmy Green excitedly from the edge of the crowd.

"You shut yer dirty 'ead! 'Oo asked you ter talk when able seamen's around?" roared the cockney furiously. "Give that byby-face er clout, will ye, Ben?"

Jimmy Green got his clout and retired from the contest.

"A gentleman's a sport who can sit down to a game o' poker an' lose his dollars smiling," asserted the gambler.

"A gentleman's a tenderfoot who trails round buyin' salted claims," pronounced old Ben.

"I meets a shentlemans vonce vot I yumps a bag along vor, an' he give me two bob; you bet dat's a shentleman's, my schmard fellers," grunted Muller.

"A gentleman has shiny boots," put in Pinto from the background, with a nervous glance round as if he were taking a liberty.

"That's wot I sye," cried the cockney approvingly; "'e's a toff wi' shiny pants an' shiny boots——"

"And a boiled shirt, I hope?" interrupted Jack, laughing.

"Well, h'I don' mean to insinnivate nuffin' agin you, Jack. We h'all knows you is a real bang-up 'eavy swell when you've got your shore togs on."

"I meets a genelman one time way down to Saint Louis, bigges' genelman eber I see'd, an' he gib dis chile a clout on der ear an' say, 'Get out ob my way, yo dirty nigger,'" announced Sam.

"Well, 'ave you h'all done, for Gaud's syke?" inquired the cockney loftily.

"Wall," said Hank slowly, "I calculate a gentleman's a cuss as is some perlite. He don't spit on the floor——"

"Bedad, what does he do, thin?" broke in the astonished Pat.

"Why, spits in the spittoon!"

"Er course," agreed the cockney. "W'ere wos you brought h'up, Pat?"

"Seein' as 'ow each member o' this 'ere committee-meetin' 's 'ad 'is sye," he went on, "h'I arise ter propose that we asts the opin'on o' Jack Derringer, h'as bein' er h'expert on the subject."

"I shore seconds thet proposal," said Broncho, "though I nurses certain views tharon which no expert is goin' to stampede me out of."

"Well," began Jack, as they all waited round silently, "it's a pretty big subject; but my idea of a gentleman is a clean man who minds his own business and'll go the limit for a pal—a man who plays his cards straight and keeps a stiff upper lip."

"Thet ain't no gentleman, thet's a white man," exclaimed old Bedrock Ben, with a shake of his head.

"Same thing, ought to be," replied Jack.

"Well, see 'ere, cocky, does you mean ter tell me a man can be a genelman wivout no shiny pants nor nuffin'?" asked the astonished cockney.

"Every Siwash is a gentleman when he's got his store-clothes on, 'cordin' t'you, Hollins," said Hank with contempt.

"What in hell air yew broken-down gin-soakers doin' forrard? Relieve the wheel, yew scum, or I'll come an' knock yer durned ugly heads off."

It was Black Davis on the rampage. The foc's'le head committee-meeting broke up like a swarm of disturbed ants, and as they crowded down the ladder the cockney called out:

"There's a genelman for ye, byes, a real genelman."

CHAPTER VIII

"ON THE FOC'S'LE HEAD"

One Sunday afternoon in the south-east trades the foc's'le indulged itself in another of those excitable debates which sailors on deep-water ships love so much.

It was a superb South Pacific day, with a glinting sea and a sky full of those fluffy white billowy clouds which painters so delight to seat cherubs upon.

The upper strata of these sheep-backs moved faster than the lower, as if engaged in a heavenly steeplechase, signifying an increase of wind.

On the Higgins, for a wonder, peace reigned, for the old man and Black Davis were both below taking a "stretch off the land," whilst the bosun held the deck.

Forward both watches were assembled on the foc's'le head—some stretched on their backs with eyes shut, others propped up against the capstan or bitts pretending to sew or read.

Studpoker Bob, true to his bent in life, was rapidly appropriating Hank's payday by aid of a very dirty pack of cards and a game known as "Casino."

Close by sat Jack Derringer, patching a pair of oilskin pants, with the cowboy prone beside him, a paint-covered, disreputable slouch hat which had once been a "shore-enough Stetsin" hiding his face from the glare of the sun.

Leaning against the port lighthouse, old Ben Sluice, with the aid of a gigantic pair of spectacles perched on the tip of his nose, laboriously spelt out a yellow-backed English society novel.

The cockney, with his head buried in his arms, lay face down on the deck in the attitude beloved by the British Tommy Atkins, snoring like a tired cross-cut saw; whilst Paddy at his side bent a wrinkled brow upon a gigantic volume entitled, The Drainage of Europe.

Below on the maindeck Curly and the boy worked steadily upon a mass of singlets and shirts, with the aid of the wash-deck tub.

Suddenly old Ben Sluice dropped his book, gave a slow look round, and, catching Jack's eye, spoke:

"Jack, you've been learnt—eddicated as they say. What breed o' coyote air these here book-sharps? What does they allow is their long suit? Does this here benighted burro reckon he knows 'hoss'? He don't know 'hoss' from 'jackass,' nor 'mewel' from 'dogy'; he's green an' juicy a whole passel, like a fool-kid suckin' eggs an' actin' smart."

"What's the trouble, Ben?"

"Why, look-a-here; this buckaroo clean gets me, fur a fact. I cain't throw a squaw-hitch over his idees worth a cent. He has me driftin' like lost sheep——"

"What cuts you, old son?" broke in Broncho, from behind his sombrero.

"Wall, it's this way. Thar's a long-nose coon the book-sharp calls Lord Edward, who didn't oughter be allowed round. He's a big auger, too, way up on the trail.

"He goes buttin' round the landscape, a-hittin' it up high, a-discardin' his dinero like as if he's a mine-boss an' a-soakin' up tanglefoot to beat a sheepman; an' he's roped up a wife as pretty as a peach, whom he don' pay no more attention to than if she's an empty bottle.

"He jest neglec's her complete 'cept with his tongue, which is that mean an' ugly it gets her hot in the collar every time. Wall, she jest sets thar an' wilts, an' don' pay no heed to nothin', though thar's a whole mob o' softies floppin' round her like gapin' trout-fish, sayin' as how hers weren't no dago dream o' paradise, till they gets mushy an' maudlin' over her white face an' big eyes; an' thar ain't one of 'em, with their soft talk, who's got the sand to up an' shoot the white outer the high-falootin' eye of Lord Edward.

"Chucks! It makes me tired. Is they men or wax figgers? An' this here book-sharp allows they're first-class broncho-twisters. But if they is low-down skunks, the wimen bar this here put-upon Lady Beatrice is shore rattlesnakes from away back, they're that venomous; an' they fires out words at this here Lord Edward's wife as'd make a jack-rabbit curl his tail, which same words carves out wounds in the pore female like mushroom bullets. I'm a single-footer myself, an' ain't cut the tracks o' many wimen bar squaws; nor yet want to, onless this here book-sharp's brand o' female is a fake, which I shore reckon it is."

"Women is mighty various," drawled the cowpuncher meditatively. "Some is sweet as molasses, some's all venegar. One kind'll stampede at the drop of a hat, another'll get balky an' jest set thar. No, you can't play no system on women—the deal's a sight too blotched."

"Then you allows this here book-sharp shows savvy in his idees?"

"Has these here rattlesnake females you discourses on many rings on their horns?"

"Wall, I reckon their lustre is some faded, if that's a high kyard in the deal."

"Which it shore enough is, for it's this way. When we-alls starts along this mortal trail we're like colts friskin' about, allowin' it's a case o' jam an' doughnuts cl'ar through. We shore sooner or later butts into trouble, gets bogged, and is yanked out, an' goes on gettin' bogged an' bein' yanked out till it gets to be a habit. But wi' wimen it's different. Gettin' bogged that-a-way frets 'em, till they're feelin' as ugly an' mean as Government pack-mules, an' they jest hankers to shoot off their bazoo till they has some one howlin'; an' the more rings they has on their horns the more they frets an' sets in to pull the props out from under the fresher fillies an' side-track them into the bog of disrepute."

Jack listened to this speech with half-shut eyes, and then half muttered to himself:

"Men are a queer kind of beasts and women a queer kind of angels."

"I allow Broncho piles it on too thick," declared old Ben stubbornly, not noticing Jack's remark.

"Bedad!" chimed in Paddy, roused from his book by the miner's deep voice, "but my old woman's after bein' 'the pole o' me tent,' as they say in the Seharey. Her spuds'd make the mouth o' the divil wather sufeecient to put out old Mother Nick's galley-fire."

"Lawd, you surprise me, Pat!" exclaimed the cockney, rolling over on his back and rubbing his eyes. "A bloomin' Don Juan like you spliced? W'y, you're a disgryce."

"Be aisy, be aisy, an' don't call y'r brither names. What's a Don Juan, any way?"

"A Don Juan is er sort er——" and Hollins broke off and scratched his head for want of the proper word.

"I'll be after Don Juaning you with a black eye the minit before next," burst out Paddy fiercely, the suspicion breaking into his brain that he was being insulted.

"Oh, go slow an' don't be so bloomin' gay," drawled the cockney disdainfully. "You ain't the on'y lydy-killer on the beach, if you 'as got an old Dutch peelin' spuds on yer h'ancestral mud-bank."

"The hen-breed is smooth goods s'long as yew don't get married none; then they're sure p'ison," suddenly broke in Hank, with the sad but self-satisfied look of a man of big experience in such matters.

"Thar, you're shore way off the range," exclaimed Broncho emphatically. "A female which ain't hitched up in double harness is as wo'thless in the game o' life as an ace which ain't drawed nothin'. Her locoed parents is plumb chagrined to death, when, after chippin' in a blue stack or two for the draw, they can't rake out even a hen-ranche tough or a paper dude to yoke her up to. And, again, say you-alls is a-aimin' to throw your rope over some high-steppin', head-tossin' filly; what with you prancin' out in y'r store-clothes every time, an' the dinero you-alls has to paw down in your war-bags for to soothe her frettin's for doughnuts an' sech eadibles, it shore makes your wad o' notes look some flat an' shrunk up. An' all the time you-alls is a-frettin' an' a-frothin' an' feelin' chunked up, mebbe, one minit, an' flatter than a flapjack the next. No, you draws no dividend on women onless they're married. It's them yoked-up longhorns like Paddy who gets a rake off the pot in this earthly game."

"I'm puttin' up my payday agen that deck-swab that yew ain't married none, Broncho," returned Hank sourly.

"That's so, son, I ain't that lucky," drawled the cowpuncher. "I've taken tickets more'n once, but I never ain't drawed nothin' I'm near makin' a winnin' play with."

"I'd rather hev' had a blank than the winning number o' the lottery I raked in my old woman with," growled the disillusioned Hank.

"Mebbe she reckons she ain't owin' Providence nothin' fur bliss gratis when she gets down to the bedrock o' your vartues," remarked old Ben Sluice, with a slow grin.

"Is that meant?" snarled Hank, rising to his feet. He was not in the best of tempers—those who played cards long with Studpoker Bob seldom were. "I'll soon show yew my vartues, my all-fired smartie," he growled, advancing on Ben in a menacing attitude. "I guess them vartues'll raise some pretty considerable bumps on y'r ugly figger-head."

"It's a foight, bedad!" exclaimed Paddy, delightedly. "Go it, ye spalpeens! Git a move on your bump-raisin' operations, Hank, me broth of a boy."

"Jest you backwater some," said Ben coolly, pulling out a capstan-bar from the rack as Hank squared up to him.

Hank drew back uncertainly, for there was a nasty gleam in the old miner's eyes.

"Crikey! but 'e's got the bulge on you, Hank, proper," grinned the cockney appreciatively.

"I would shorely like to savvy what for you two lunattics is a-howlin' for blood?" drawled Broncho, as he slowly proceeded to fill his pipe.

"This half-baked sluice-robber has the hell-freezin' nerve to insinnivate that my old woman don't bank none on my vartues," explained the injured benedict ferociously.

Jack had been holding himself in up till now well enough, but this last was too much for him, and, doubling up, he burst into a roar of laughter, in which old Ben joined heartily, taking for granted that the laugh was on his side of the deck.

"I guess Ben wouldn't think it so durned funny, if he'd drop that handspike an' stand up like a man," snarled Hank.

"Book-sports allows as how it's women as causes mos' of the skin-ticklin' in this ornery globe, an' I reckon they shore hits the bull's-eye this time," remarked Broncho, sagely.

"What's the row?" broke in Curly excitedly, coming up the topgallant-ladder in two bounds.

"W'y, swipe me if ole Ben ain't been an' hurted Hank's delikit feelin's," explained the cockney.

"It's a cert, son, as how Hank ain't out to have his back scratched that away. A wounded grizzly is mild an' dreamlike compared to him," added Broncho, with a slow droop of his left eye.

"Vy don' you blunk 'im?" grunted the Dutchman's heavy voice, addressing itself to Hank.

"Hell!" burst out the exasperated man. "If thet Dutch son of a carrion-crow gives me any durned chin-chin, I'll ram his ugly pig's-eyes outer the back of his head"; and Dutchy withered into his shell again.

"Look-a-here, partner, ain't you had 'bout enuff o' this low-grade dust-raisin'," inquired Ben loftily; still, however, clinging to his trusty capstan-bar. "'Cos thar goes four bells an' it's my wheel."

"Air you goin' to take in the slack o' them insinnivations?" demanded Hank, with dignity.

"You jest step outer the trail an' let this outfit pass, or I reckon you'll be shy considerable epidermis in another minit," growled old Ben angrily, as Hank blocked his way down the topgallant-ladder.

"Wall! Dog my cats if I stand to that!" roared Hank, and he made a wild rush at the old miner.

Ben lunged out furiously with the handspike, but the long, wiry down-easter dodged the formidable weapon with catlike activity, and the next moment they were "in holds," in the parlance of the prize-ring.

Clutched in each other's arms, they reeled across the foc's'le head like hugging bears, and then down they came with a crash on the deck.

"I'll learn yew to miscall a free-born American citizen, yew long-ha'red dump-thief," screeched Hank, as they rolled over and he came on top.

But with a desperate effort Ben reversed the positions, and as his horny fingers gripped the other's hairy throat he growled like an angry grizzly.

"You reckon you's ugly, but this child's uglier."

Hank tried hard to gurgle out a suitable retort, but his effort sounded like the choke of a ship's pump. Wildly he clutched at the iron hands on his throat, but in vain; he could not budge them. His breath began to come in short gasps, his face to flush purple beneath the deep tan, and his strength to leave him.

Both watches were now gathered round the two combatants, a ring of excited faces.

The gambler was perched up on the capstan, and as he remarked afterwards in describing the fight to Red Bill, who was all this time waiting to be relieved at the wheel,

"I jest sits back in the peep-chair an' follows the run of the cards, like it were a faro game."

The cockney, his face working with excitement, hopped up and down like a cat on hot bricks, crying out,

"Sock it to 'im, Ben, sock it to 'im! Starboard watch fur ever!"

"Chucks! but Ben has him in one spin o' the wheel," remarked Broncho to the rover. "This here's a freeze-out for Hank; he's beginnin' to unwind melodies o' despair."