"So long as that schooner lies there, I want her looked after. So you and Blunt stay aboard with half the hands and watch for funny business. But first, before I start up river, run up to Mr. Little and get an inventory of his spare men and arms. Spares, mind: those he can do without for a few days. Hurry back."
Jerry Rolfe started without comment. That was his conception of duty. He had scarcely reached the deck when he was recalled. Barry could not erase from his mind that picture of Leyden, at that moment perhaps enjoying an intimate chat with Natalie Sheldon. And the more he thought of it,—the thought swept through his mind in a flash—the hotter he became, and he no longer restrained the impulse to follow, though the folly and possible danger of it was clear to him.
"Rolfe!" he shouted. "Never mind. I'll go to the post myself. Stay here and get together all our own spares. You know them better than I do."
The mate received this new order as complacently as the first. It suited him better. In that steaming, reeking river station he was more at home about his ship than tramping through an odorous village on shore business.
Barry hustled up to the post and found Little deep in a stock-taking revel, as enthusiastic as a boy in his new sphere. The typewriter-sailor was more at home here than on board the ship, in utter contrast to Rolfe; and Barry grinned perforce at the formidable armament he had strapped about his body. He looked the part of a fiction trader, with pen behind his ear, big cheroot in his teeth, and two mighty revolvers in holsters at his waist.
"Ship ahoy, me tarry shellback!" he shouted as Barry entered. "Snug as a bug already. Everything's fine—first-chop, except the station hands. Can't find where they're working, Barry, though the pay sheet shows fifty or more taking wages from Houten. But what's the trouble? You look as solemn as that crocodile you plunked on the beezer as he was investigating my free-lunch department."
"Nothing's the matter," replied Barry shortly. "It's about the hands I want to see you. How many men, with guns, can you spare me for a few days? I'm going up river."
"Whoopee!" yelled Little, dancing. "Up river? Me too. Say, we can take—"
"We nothing, Little. You stay right here. I want about six good men, that's all, to join up with one watch from the ship."
"Oh, say now, that ain't fair, Barry. There's nothing to keep me here now the dust's aboard. Besides, Vandersee was here, half an hour ago, and mentioned the same thing. Said it as if he knew what he was talking about, too. Told me to tell you he was in reach of us all the time, and that we might safely leave the station."