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."