The cowboy, seeing that the mate meant business, pulled off his wet coat and vest, also the black silk handkerchief that was tied in a very fashionable knot around his neck and remarked, "Stranger, you be mighty keerful how many bones you break in my body."
Here the mate made a lunge for him, which the boy ducked, and with an upper-cut he sent the mate to the deck in a heap. The mate got up and started for a belaying pin. The crafty range rider was upon him in a second with a left hook to the jaw. The mate went down, and stayed down for some time. Then the second mate, third mate and captain came to the rescue of their first mate. The mates were knocked down as fast as they could get up. The Captain called the crew saying, "Arrest this man and put him in irons for mutiny on the high seas."
This the crew refused to do, because the way this new sailor could use his hands was not at all to their liking, and they were not anxious to take on any rough stuff so early on the voyage.
The Captain, flushed with rage, ran to the cabin shouting:
"I will get my gun and kill this mutineer." The mates picked themselves up and the two went after guns. The cowboy, turning to the sailors, said:
"Here, you critters, get behind a sage bush or something,—get out of range and get out damned quick, for there is going to be Hell shot out of this here ship in about a minute." Reaching down in his riding boots he pulled out two forty-fives and backed over to the starboard bulwarks to await the signal from the cabin.
He did not have to wait long. The Captain came roaring up the companion-way, thinking that the new sailor at the sight of the gun would run and get under cover. But not so with this one, far from it. There he stood, a plain and visible target for the Captain's and mate's guns. While the Captain was running along the lee alleyway of the bridge-deck, the cowboy called to him, saying:
"Can you kill from the hip, Mister? If you can't you'd better get close and shoot straight."
The Captain was too angry to utter a sound. It was bad enough to knock his three mates down and out, without heaping insult upon insult by asking if he could shoot straight. The blow he had got on the jaw from this untamed sailor he considered enough to justify him in killing on sight anyway, for it would be days before he could bring his jaws together on anything harder than pea soup or bread pudding.
With these maddening thoughts twitching his nautical brow, he swung from the bridge-deck onto the main deck. There in front of him stood the new mariner leaning against the bulwarks with his hands behind his back. The Captain's gun was swinging at arm's length in the right hand, but not pointed toward the cowboy.