'Hell,' said Arizona Bill, 'did you ever see such a thing as thishyer Fortescue?'

'I should smile,' replied a man from Michigan, 'by the holy Mackinaw, he's a daisy, Fortescue! What'll we call him, boys?'

'Oh, call him Bertie, that's his name too,' cried some one from British Columbia. 'The next time he gives me taffy, I'll say, "Dry up, Bertie!"'

Arizona grinned.

'Boys, it's Bertie all the time. Did you pipe his gun? That elegant dude with a gun! Bought it for us, boys. And his voice, too. "Hee'ar, men, pawss this aw—rope throo this—aw—thing, aw!" Oh, he makes me sick! Does he know a horse from a mewel! Oh, ain't he tender, and so green and juicy! But that thing, and a gun, is what fetches me every time. He'll shorely be pullin' it down on one of us, onless one of these mustangs kindly plants his heels in his stomach and lays him out.'

There were plenty of mustangs equal to the job if they hadn't been moored so close. For the Pilgrim's fifteen hundred mixed rakings and scrapings of Texas included many able equine gymnasts, many supremely skilled kickers, many that looked for some one to bite as if indeed all flesh was grass. There were real horses on board; there were imitations; some had pedigrees and were unsound, some had no pedigrees and were no sounder; some had teeth and some hadn't. There were mustangs, 'Kieutans,' bronchos, ponies. Some could be ridden, some no one could ride. They could, however, be sold, and England bought them. They were black and grey, white and brown, and bay and sorrel. There were 'painted' horses, or Pintos, skewbalds and piebalds; there were claybanks, and true buckskins, some with black and some with silver tails and manes; some half-hairless, patchy, some with heads like battered fiddles, some with rumps like ancient hatstands; some were blind, some wall-eyed, some were fat and some thin, some worth dollars, others worth cents, but all costing gold because the British Empire was in the market shouting for horses, and yelling 'I'll take all you've got!'

But if the horses were mixed brutes, the men that looked after them were no less a marvellous collection of terrible uniques. Old Bob Wadd reckoned them up.

'There's Texans 'ere, and some from Arizona, and half a dozen bleeding Mexicans, and three real Dutchmen, and two Danes and a Finn, and some real Spaniards and a one-eyed blackguard from Vennyzweela, and seven nigs, and a bally Kanaka, and several English and three Irish, and two Kanucks and three Canadian Frenchmen. That's all I've marked off, but bimeby, I expects a Greek, and a Rooshian, and a Prooshan, and a Turk, and a Chinaman will turn up. Oh, they've the 'oliest lot of unhung pirates I ever see on board a ship or on a wharf! And dear, dear Bertie 'as the management of 'em! Shipmates, mark my words, you'll 'ave a tale to pitch when you 'ops ashore out of this horse-packet as'll curl hair equal to any curlin' tongs. The first time it blows and the 'orses begin to kick and peg out, Bertie and these shinin' gems out of the jool-case they calls Noo Orl'ans, will be 'aving awful arguments on the main deck. I smells trouble afar off like, as I said afore, from a gasworks or a candle factory.'

The two mates said the same. They said it to themselves. They said it to the 'old man.' The first mate groaned to the second greaser, and even to the third.

'Forder, I opine there will be serious difficulties yet between this young Fortescue and these horse-keepers.'