"That'll do, Tom; it's like your talk, short, and to the point."
From that time they talked of him as Tom the Sailmaker.
"We're going to look for something for breakfast, Marvel," said Rough-and-Ready. "Don't wake the women--let them have their sleep out. And keep your eye on those two rascals yonder. If they come to close quarters, have no mercy. They'd have none on you. Come along, Tom."
They returned some two hours afterwards, with smiling faces. The women gathered hope from their cheerful countenances. The sailmaker was loaded with wood to replenish the fire, which had not been allowed to go out during the night.
"We're going to have a fine breakfast," said Rough-and-Ready, flourishing half a dozen plump pigeons. He chuckled as he exhibited them; but he had no time for trifling. There was more serious business to attend to--the cooking of the pigeons.
With those and a few mussels they made a breakfast fit for kings and queens. The two malcontents in the distance had no fire and no pigeons; they made their breakfast off cold shell-fish, and looked with envious eyes at the cooking going on among the other party.
"Ah, ah, my fine fellows!" cried Rough-and-Ready, waving half a roasted pigeon in the air; "what d'ye think of mutineering now?"
They could not hear him, but they understood his taunting action.
Said Rough-and-Ready to the women, when breakfast was finished,--
"Can you handle a pistol? Could you pull the trigger of one straight in the face of man or beast, if danger threatened?"