CHAPTER V
"THE SPELL OF THE MOON"
Dawn broke, and the sun rose into the windless sky and turned the vast blue of the ocean into a glittering sheen, which it hurt the eyes to look upon.
Of the sleepers, Tari was the first to rouse himself, and as he gained his feet and took an eager glance round the horizon, Broncho and Jim awoke, but Jack slept on.
"Don't wake him," said Broncho in a low tone. "Rest is shore needful to Jack after the way I disturbs his slumbers lately with my rediclous, rannikaboo idees on the subjects of holdups an' Apaches."
So Jack was allowed to remain huddled up on the after-thwart in the uncomfortable position in which he had fallen asleep.
Broncho served out the rations, and whilst they munched their hard-tack Jack stirred and opened his eyes.
"Awake, are you, old son?" remarked the cowpuncher heartily; "you've had a jimdandy sleep. Here's your chuck all ready for you," and he passed over Jack's allowance.
"By Jove! It's dark!" exclaimed the latter; "but why are you fellows having your chow in the middle of the night?"
"Middle of the night——" began Broncho, and then stopped, a look of consternation in his eyes.
"My God! he's off his head!" whispered Jim.
"Never seen such a dark night," went on Jack. "Can't see a yard!" Then, as he felt the warm rays of the sun on his face, "Why, what's happened? Where are you all?"
Slowly the terrible truth broke upon him. For a long minute no one spoke, whilst Jack fought with all his courage and strength of will against an overpowering desire to give way and break down.
This last calamity, coming on top of all the late trials, threatened to overcome his iron nerves, which, sorely tried and weakened by anxiety and privation, were strained to their utmost.
In silence he sat, shaking all over as if with ague, the others watching him with fixed, blank, expressionless eyes, as if hypnotised.
Not a muscle moved amongst the three onlookers of this cruel struggle.
No sound was heard but the lapping of the water against the boat's side and the creaking of the steer-oar in its crutch, jerked by the fierce grip of Jack's shaking right hand.
Presently he spoke, slowly and deliberately, pronouncing each word with care in the great effort to keep his voice steady.
"Boys, I'm blind, stone-blind!"
"Hell!" ejaculated Broncho, with a long breath, and there was a world of feeling in the utterance of that one word.
Suddenly Jim broke down and burst into long, deep sobs, which shook his little body fiercely as they tore themselves forth.
Then Tari, the poor savage, sprang forward, and kneeling at the blind man's feet, seized his hand, patting and caressing it.
"You no mind, Jack. Me your pleni, me your dog, my eyes good, see dam long way. Me see for you, me look eberywhere, all-e-way you want; tell you what Tari see, then you no want eyes."
"It's all right, boys," said Jack cheerfully, the sound of Jim's sobs and Tari's low pleading acting like a tonic on his manhood. "It's all right. I guess I'm moon-struck, that's all; it's my own fault—I fell asleep in the full glare of the moon. Don't you worry, boys, it'll pass off in a few days."
"Ain't thar no remedy for this here malady?" inquired Broncho. "It's a cinch we-alls ain't goin' to allow this here dissolute moon to deal sech a low-flung play without coppering his bet. He ain't goin' to bluff us on sech a debased an' dark-evolvin' deal without bein' raised to the limit. I propose we-alls has a powwow as to how to euchre his little game."
"There's no remedy that I ever heard of," said Jack meditatively, in a low, quiet voice.
"Every disease leaves a trail, an' it's by scoutin' along that trail that we-alls hits the remedy," declared Broncho. "Mebbe your eyes is some painful, Jack?"
"Only a very slight throbbing."
"Can you locate this here throbbin'?"
"Seems to be along my eyebrows."
"What for of a play would it be if we-alls ropes an' ties down these throbbin's you mentions with a bandage o' sorts?"
"Might try a cold-water bandage," returned Jack doubtfully, "though I'm afraid only time will cure me."
"As to cold water, that's some difficult to round up, bein' most scarce as ice on this range. Why, this here ocean's as warm as new cow's milk."
"How about a hot-water bandage?" put in Jim, who was listening eagerly to the cowboy's proposals.
"Why, thar you euchre me again, son. We-alls can't light a camp-fire to heat a billy in this here boat; it's liable to bust the bottom out o' her."
Eventually Broncho, tearing off some strips from a flannel shirt, dipped them over the side till they were well soaked, and then bound them X-fashion across Jack's eyebrows.
"It's a poor hand," muttered the cowboy, "but we plays it for all it's worth."
Jack was made to lie down on the blankets under the awning, and all three vied with each other to make him as comfortable as possible.
The blindness made the strong man feel as helpless as a child. Jack's captaincy was over and he became a passenger in the boat, whilst Broncho took his place.
The cowboy, seated in the sternsheets, talked without ceasing in the desire to keep Jack from brooding. He recalled cunningly many a mirth-provoking experience which the two had gone through together in the past, and again and again he had his audience laughing uproariously at some quaint yarn. Even Tari, who understood very little of Broncho's queer cowboy and poker slang, joined in with a will.
"Do you mind how that tenderfoot Britisher downs Texas out with the U-bar outfit last fall, Jack?"
The cowpuncher stopped and smiled meditatively.
"Yes," he went on, addressing himself to the Kanaka, "Britishers is shore oncertain in their play a whole lot. As I daresay you-all notes, Tari, they mostly acts contrary to all idees o' wisdom, an' yet wins through on the game, an' it's a mighty difficult proposeetion to locate their play or cinch on to their system.
"Jack's British an' so's Jim; but they've trailed around that wide-spread through diff'rent countries that thar ain't much o' the Old Country paint an' varnish left on 'em. It all don' get rubbed off.
"I meets up with a pretty hefty mob o' Britishers, moseyin' 'round one way an' another. Some's green an' juicy, an' that tender you'd think they didn't oughter ha' left their mammy's apron-strings. But them shorthorns don' never pan out jest how you-alls imagines. They interdooces new idees into the play. It ain't all bluff, neither, an' as they accoomilates wisdom an' absorbs the many an' variegated systems in which life is played, they frequent emerges tharfrom as hard as granite and as knowin' an' crafty as a she-grizzly.
"When I paws back in my mem'ry I rec'llects quite a corralful o' strange plays these here British shorthorns makes.
"One I minds spechul; he's no more'n a kid, his eye-teeth bein' hardly growed. It's San Antonio whar he butts in on the scenery, w'arin' dude clo'es an' lookin' that soft and innocent I'm mighty dubious 'bout his not meltin' into a cawpse 'less he pulls his freight for milder climes. But I notes a clean-strain look in his eye, kinder open an' free like'n eagle's, which same eye gives me a faint surmise as how he ain't so tender and lamblike as he appears.
"I runs agin this here shorthorn first, a-takin' a pasear in his dude clo'es. Next I meets up with him over a faro game, an' I sees he has the fever on him shore 'nuff; his eyes is a-glitterin' an' his jaw clenched like he's desp'rate. He shore loses a heap, an' I notes his war-bags a-saggin' in and in, till presently they is plumb empty an' devoid of contents entire. Then he r'ars up on his hind-laigs, gives a laugh 'most like a wolf-howl, an' vamooses.
"'Bout an hour later he swarms in on the scenery again, but he's a mighty dissolute lookin' hobo now. His dude clo'es is gone—I reckons he's done pawned 'em—an' he's a-caperin' 'round in a p'ar o' overalls, nought but squares o' variegated colours wi' patchin', an' a shirt which is 'most all ventilation. He's bar'-foot an' bar'-headed.
"Wall, this here youthful scarecrow wanders kinder thoughtful up to the kyard-sharp who deals the faro game which roped in his dinero, an' slammin' down a twenty-dollar gold-touch, allows he'll cut kyards for it.
"That 'ere kyard-sharp kinder smiles slow an' satisfied, like a wolf wi' a strayed calf or a b'ar wi' honey, an' then cold-decks him some careless an' easy.
"But the boy cinches on to his play; his eyes sparkle, an' he cuts loose some loud an' fierce:
"'You're a damned cheat!'
"The faro-sharp ain't fretted none. He jest pulls his Colt an' p'ints it 'cross the layout, sayin' sorter glacial-like:
"'Do you-alls savvy the meanin' o' that word. Mebbe bein' some recent an' ignorant o' manners, you don't.' He pauses an' takes a chew slow an' delib'rate, his gun still p'inting in a line wi' that British infant's breastbone; then he resoomes, frownin' f'rocious an' grittin' his teeth: 'Wall, I aims to larn you. Car'less words is the downfall o' many, an' has to be c'rrected, or are liable to breed trouble. That word you-alls uses means "Death" in Texas.'
"But the boy, who I can see is some fretted an' impatient, breaks in here with his queer coyote laugh; then, flingin' himself forward over the layout, he rams his forehead plumb up agin the cold muzzle o' that Colt, and warbles out soft an' sweet like he's some pleased wi' himself:
"'I say you're a d——d cheat!'
"Great snakes an' creepin' reptiles! But it were a nervy play to make!
"The silence is that thick you-alls could pick it up an' chew it, an' you could hear the flies walkin' about! We mavericks who has the front stalls even cinches on to our breath an' corrals it in our innards, till we're as distended an' blown out as a dead steer in a coullee.
"An' the shorthorn shore bluffs this frothy kyard-sharp clean an' easy. For a moment he looks kinder dubious an' mystified; then he lowers his gun, kaufs up the Britisher's double-eagle, an' chucks it over to him, a-sayin':
"'Here's y'r dinero, an' I'm advisin' you, stranger, to pull your freight an' git. You-alls is too d——d tough for Texas."
Broncho stopped, and then broke into a yarn which he told with much droll solemnity, ending up with:
"This here's meant to be humourous. Mebbe it ain't, but it's allers had humour cinched on to it an' it's got to be a custom, so I allows we'll have to let it go at that, bein' as it's tagged an' labelled that-away, though I shore reckons it's mighty grim an' doleful as a funny play, and it more often has me winkin' water than throwin' off onrestrained guffaws."
It was a gallant fight, this of the plucky cowboy, desperately pitting old yarns and jokes against the present blackness; but through all the laughter his serious, anxious eyes kept watching his blind shipmate with an almost pitiful look.
Perhaps, of all the occupants of the whaleboat, the calamity to their leader hit the cowpuncher the hardest. The strongest natures feel the most, especially for others, and no one could say that there was any strain of weakness in Bucking Broncho.
Jack's bandages were constantly renewed, and fresh soaked in salt water. He proved a good and tractable patient, and no one heard any complaint leave his lips.
Only an occasional fleeting look of agony in his sightless eyes showed the chafing of the restless spirit within.
Soon after midday, Jim, who was standing up in the bows taking a glance round the horizon, suddenly gave a shout of surprise.
"Land ho!" he cried.
Right ahead, where the horizon grew indefinite and seemed to melt away into the midst of the tropical heat, there lay an island, clear cut and distinct. The black reef, the low beach, the very palms showed up in dark clusters of straight stems and bushy foliage.
"Hurrah! An island right ahead!" he went on.
Tari and Broncho scrambled up and clambered forward.
After a long look, Tari said quietly,
"Dat am ghost-island!"
"Ghost-island? Precious little ghost about that," asserted Jim confidently.
"It's an atoll, I expect," called Jack from under the awning. "Surely we can't have drifted as far north yet as the Paumotus! By my reckoning the nearest island is over a hundred miles off."
"It's a coral island—I can see the cocoanut trees," the boy sang out excitedly.
"I'm afraid Tari's right, son," said Broncho, after a long scrutiny. "It's a mirage!"
"A mirage?" exclaimed Jim incredulously, in tones of deep disappointment.
It was a wonderful sight. There lay the island, plain to see, and no one but a trained observer could have detected that it was a sham.
But Tari and Broncho were right. Many a mile had the cowpuncher ridden in chase of just such a lifelike image on the prairie without getting any nearer.
"These here mirages is just a deadfall, an' many a poor cowman has panned out through trailin' after them," observed Broncho.
"Well, the island that mirage reflects is somewhere down under the horizon," said Jack. "Just take its bearings, one of you, and we'll shape our course for it directly the wind condescends to blow."
"It's north-a-half-west," said Jim, after a look at the compass.
All that long afternoon, whilst they drifted helplessly, the fairy island hung over the horizon in the north.
Soon after darkness had fallen Jack startled the whole boat's crew by saying very quietly,
"Boys, it's my watch on deck now. I've got my sight back."
There was a wild, hoarse cheer, a buzz of congratulations, and night set in.