“Yes, sir.”
“You remember that fellow who was here night before last?”
“The good-looking chap that limped?”
“Yes.”
“And I’m to crease him if he pokes his noodle down the stairs?”
“Exactly! No talk, no palaver! If he starts talking he’ll talk you out of your boots. Shoot!”
“In the leg? All right.”
His employer having gone, Dodge sat in a corner from which he could see the companionway and all the passages. He lit a long black cigar, laid his formidable revolver on a knee, and began his vigil. A queer job for an old cow-punch, for a fact.
To guard an old carpet that didn’t have “welcome” on it anywhere—he couldn’t get that, none whatever. But there was a hundred a week, the best grub pile in the world, and the old man’s Havanas as often as he pleased. Pretty soft!
And he had learned a new trick—shooting target in a rolling sea. He had wasted a hundred rounds before getting the hang of it. Maybe these sailors hadn’t gone pop-eyed when they saw him pumping lead into the bull’s-eye six times running? Tin cans and raw potatoes in the water, too. Something to brag about if he ever got back home. 105