"One down, but there are hundreds more," groaned Jim.
"Three's too many for 'em. I don't think any more will attack us, except perhaps an odd old one," declared the rover.
"I corrals your remyarks with gladness, Jack," declared the cowboy; "for I was shore some dubious about the play. If they rounds up together an' charges in a mob, it's on the kyards one or other of we-alls emerges from the battle shy an eye."
Presently another albatross made a descent upon them, and after a fierce fight retired from the contest, bleeding and disgusted; but he had left his mark on Broncho's hand, which was nastily torn.
"This here abandoned conduct of these debauchees of birds has me plumb weary," remarked the cowpuncher, as he wiped his blood-stained knife on his sleeve. "I feels like a spring lamb on the pra'rie up agin an eagle. That ere profligate bird was shore hungerin' for blood, an' I feels kind o' comforted when I dirties his shirt-front, an' he, carolling forth a squawk, jumps out an' pulls his freight. No, Jack, thar's nothin' timid about these here albatrosses; they're bold a whole lot, not to say f'rocious an' gore-thirsty."
"Our combination's too strong," grunted the latter optimistically.
But though Broncho discussed the danger in his off-hand way, and Jack seemed cool and undismayed, Jim hung in the life-buoy, his little, thin face white and drawn.
The desperate fight with the fierce birds had almost been too much for his young nerves, toughened though they were, and he felt sick and faint.
But the cold was now beginning to make itself felt, and this was really the chief danger to the castaways; for the wind had been falling steadily all the morning, and had become very faint, whilst the sea ran in long oily ridges, only one of which here and there broke with any strength. The boy's lips were blue, and his teeth chattered, though he tried hard to keep them clenched.