Calmly he reviewed the situation, and, used to the vicissitudes of the West, treated his change of fortune with the stoical philosophy of a frontiersman.
By the time that Broncho was arrayed afresh, the last of the poor drunks had been dragged from the foc's'le. Then, as Jack and the cowboy emerged, they came face to face with a big square chunk of a man, with eyebrows so thick and bushy that they almost hid his fierce, bloodshot little eyes.
"Up onto the foc's'le-head," he cried angrily. "Git a move on, yew blasted farmers, or yew won't know what struck yew."
It was Black Davis, the mate of the Higgins, one of the most notorious of buckos.
Broncho opened his mouth to reply, but Jack Derringer shoved him up the topgallant ladder with a grip of iron, and, directly they were out of earshot, said:
"That man with the eyebrows is kind of sheriff of this outfit—mate, sailors call it. He's a bad 'un from away back, but he's got the drop on us, old son, and we've got to jump around lively without any tongue-wagging, or he's liable to make things red hot."
"Gaud blimy, but h'I should sye so," remarked a cockney, who was shipping a capstan-bar close to them. "'E's a bloomin' devil from the word go, is that blawsted swine. H'I done a passage with 'im afore, an' I knows 'im, h'I does, the black-'arted 'ound."
They had no time for further reminiscences of Black Davis, however, for he now appeared on the foc's'le head in company with the big hairy bosun.
"Never see'd sich a crowd o' hayseeds—not two sailormen among 'em, I don't expec'," said the bosun.