"You come around talking to me," he said, "you say any more to me and I'll fix you all right." The night-watchman stepped aside, and when Jack turned at the end of that walk the watchman was scuttling down the companion way like a rabbit into a burrow.
Nobody congratulated Jack in words. He was a dark horse. He was one of themselves, but except with Johnnie he was not a clubable young man. Men like Cockney, men like Mike, never spoke to him, nor he to them. Sometimes, in the morning, after the watering was over, if he met Scholar's eye, he would give his head a little jerk to left and say: "Hallo!" He was of those who, when others talked, could move away and not come back again, and yet be called to account by no one for such contempt. He was of those who, if spoken to, could lean up against the rail, cross-legged, turn and look gently up and down the frame of the questioner, then move away, dumb. Perhaps it was Jack, and his partner Johnnie with his feverish devilry, who were at the bottom of an opinion that began to be current on the lower deck. The lower deck men, it appeared, thought that the main deck men were somewhat lacking in spirit. They managed to pass on their devilish restlessness to one or two on the deck in question, and these, thus affected, had the air of looking for trouble. A handy theme offered, and they fell to grumbling over the fact that they were three men short.
"Men short, did you say?" inquired Mike.
"Things short. Do you call them three things men?"
The complaining voices subsided, but there were glances cast at Mike by one or two that were intended to be read as: "Who do you think you are?"
"I've had enough short-handed," broke out one of the less easily extinguished.
But here the routine interfered. A hail came from forward, and the men on the poop, and the men in the cabin below, had to file away to the afternoon feeding. When the main deck bunch spread out with hay and buckets, Candlass appeared, coming down the narrow alley to see that the men did not overdo the belabouring of those steers near the end where the hay was, great beasts whose main thought was to make a meal off the armfuls of hay that went past them while the steers at the far end looked down the alley and lowed vehemently; to see, also, that the mood of laziness in the men did not triumph over the mood of determination and prevent the steers at the far end from having a fair feed; to see also that all hands had tumbled out. So far he had had no skulkers in his crowd, but he was an experienced cattle boss. He moved along slowly, edging sideways past each hay-laden man. All were busy; he had merely to look on. Then he spoke.
"Isn't there a man short?" he asked.
Nobody answered.
"Tom," he addressed one, "do you know where that fellow with the mouth organ is?"