"Can you locate us at all, Jack?" asked the cowboy, as they once more breathed freely in the dime-museum cabin. "Ain't thar no blazed trail we-alls could jump on to, so as to lope into Frisco some quicker'n we've been comin' out?"
"'Fraid not; Frisco's a long way off, but I don't think we're more than a week's sail from Pitcairn Island. This breeze'll let her head up within a point of north. I'll get the latitude if I can catch the sun to-morrow, but I'm afraid the longitude will be mere guess-work, as the chronometers have both been allowed to run down."
"Wall, you play the hand, Jack; you're up in this ship's game. I just come in blind an' leave it to you, bein' what you-alls might call an amature."
"We'll just have a powwow with the Kanakas and then get to work," said Jack, as they left the cabin.
On gaining the deck they found the elements still moderating.
The Ocmulgee floated high out of the water as buoyant as a cork, and her deck, except where the rollers slopped through the bulwark ports, or an occasional saucy-crested comber popped over her topgallant rail, was quite free of water.
At the stern was perched Jim, busily watching three fishing-lines, whilst amidships Lobu still sat gazing at his ebony tiki.
From the caboose came a thin wreath of smoke, which blew down to leeward in a long streamer. Tari was within, doing all he knew to make a fat lump of rancid pork more or less eatable.
Jack gave a long look round the heaving horizon, but no sail broke the monotony of rushing sea and sky. He then went and sounded the pumps, and was well satisfied.
"An hour's work will pump her dry," he remarked to the cowpuncher. "We'll get sail on her first, though."