"And your name?"
"Dudley Compton, sir. I'm going out to Montevideo, where I have to make enquiries for a Mr. Bradshaw. He was a great friend of my guardian, and wrote a year ago to say that I was to come out to his ranch and he would give me work. Later I shall buy a farm for myself."
"Humph! You will do well to serve an apprenticeship first, and get to know the country. Besides, until the Indians are settled, and civil war has come to an end, it is not over safe to be in the neighborhood of Montevideo, much less to expend good money on a farm. So you are going out to join a Mr. Bradshaw, Mr. James Bradshaw, a short, wiry gentleman, who came out twenty years ago?"
"That is the description," agreed Dudley, "but I have never seen him. It is a year since he wrote to my guardian."
"Humph! Then there is disappointment for the boy," Mr. Blunt exclaimed beneath his breath. "I will not tell him now. I'll wait till he has got his sea legs and has overcome his homesickness. Anyone could see with half an eye that the lad was feeling lonely and forsaken. Come, we will make for a little nook I know of," he said aloud, seeing that Dudley had finished his meal. "It is just outside the saloon entrance, and the captain has rigged an awning so as to keep off the worst of the spray. Get a good overcoat on and join me here."
Dudley felt a different creature as he rose from his seat, and staggered out of the saloon, clinging to the edge of the table, to the back of the fixed seats, and to the walls as he made his way towards his cabin. And what a different aspect it presented now. Before, it seemed but a dismal hole, black and forbidding. Now, the white paint, and the fact that he looked at it with an eye which was no longer jaundiced, gave it a home-like appearance. He wedged his body into a corner, reached for the rough topcoat which he had purchased before sailing, and, cramming a hat on to his head, he returned to the saloon. Mr. Blunt was already there, his sombrero pulled down over his eyes and secured by a cord beneath his chin, while a cloak of ample proportions and of foreign appearance covered his shoulders and fell to his knees.
"The class of thing you will wear soon," he said, noticing Dudley look at it. "This is a poncho, and many a time have I been grateful for its services. It is the cloak generally used in South America. Now, up we go. Hang on to the rail, and follow me across the deck."
He ran up the companion, stopped for a few moments at the exit from the saloon to the deck, and then darted out, a gust of wind sweeping under the wide flap of his sombrero as he did so and turning it back over the top. Dudley followed swiftly, and in a few seconds he was ensconced with his new friend under a canvas awning rigged between the mizzen mast and the end of the companion. It was but a flimsy shelter, it is true, but it kept the clouds of spray from drenching them, while it was seldom that a wave of any proportions broke over the rail. Dudley sat well back on a roll of rope and watched the sea breaking about the vessel, thoroughly enjoying this magnificent sight, and forgetful of the fact that barely two hours ago all his misery and discomfort, not to say desperation, was due to the waves which he was now watching. It seemed wonderful to him that any ship could live in such a sea, and he was more than half surprised to note how placid and obviously content the two men at the wheel were.
"Settling down to a nice blow, with the wind right aft, and therefore carrying us fast to the end of our journey," sang out Mr. Blunt, for the ordinary tones of the voice were swallowed in the roar of the wind, in the rattle and scream of the rigging. "We are running out of the Bay, and shall be setting our course for Lisbon before the night falls. Then we touch at Cape St. Vincent, and at once set our bows west and south, making for Rio de Janeiro. A week from there will take us to Montevideo, and then the old life again!"
Between the gusts of wind he told Dudley how he had gone to South America, to the province of Entre Rios, many years before, and how he had acquired an estancia. Then he charmed him with a description of his life, mounted on the finest horse at the first streak of day, rounding up cattle which were more than half wild, or galloping over the wide plains in the effort to secure some of the numerous herds of fine horses which roamed the country, utterly wild and untamed. There were Indians, too, and outlaws to be contended with, and a thousand other dangers which made a man a man, and brought out all that was fine in him.