"The sculpins!" ejaculated the storekeeper briskly. "Can't excuse that. Anything but a crew that'll turn on the afterguard that they've signed on for to obey!"
"That's right, Cap'n Am'zon," said Cap'n Joab. "Ye say a true word."
"An' for good reason," declared the mendacious storekeeper. "I've had experience with such sharks," and he ran his finger reflectively down the old scar upon his jaw.
"I always wanted to ask you 'bout that scar, Cap'n Am'zon," put in Milt
Baker encouragingly. "Did you get it in a mutiny?"
"Yep."
"I didn't know but ye got it piratin'," chuckled Milt. "Bet Gallup, she swears you sailed under the Jolly Roger more'n once."
"So I did," declared the captain boldly. "This crew o' mutineers I speak of turned pirates, and they held me—the only one of the afterguard left alive—to navigate the ship.
"Guess mebbe you've heard tell, Cap'n Joab, of the mutiny of the Galatea?" went on the narrator unblushingly.
His fellow skipper nodded. "I've heard of it—yes. But you don't mean to say you sailed on her, Am'zon?"
"Yes, I did," the storekeeper declared. "I was third aboard her—she carried a full crew. She sailed out o' N'York for Australia and home by the way of the Chile ports and the Horn—a hermaphrodite brig she was; and—she—could—sail!