“I made a hit with him,” gravely replied Cary, “but it may not last long. What else is in your noddle?”
“A dozen of these men are ashore, Captain Cary, and most of ’em will be pickled when they come off to-night. They were having a pow-wow on deck yesterday. It meant nothing in my young life, but it popped into my mind just now. It was this crazy dope about El Tigre Amarillo—they swore he was still hiding in Cartagena—and the main gazabo of the police had offered a thousand dollars reward for the outlaw, dead or alive. One of the firemen had a poster and was reading it to the bunch. They got all jazzed up over it. You know how they go up in the air. Every mother’s son of ’em was all set to grab El Tigre with his bare hands and get the thousand dollars.”
“Flattering, I call it,” said Cary. “I hadn’t heard about the reward. They will try to cash in before we sail, Charlie?”
“It may be a flivver, sir, but I thought I ought to tip you off. They won’t have the nerve unless they see a chance to rush you in a mob.”
“Then I must keep them from getting their heads together,” said Cary. “And my two deck officers are of no use to me. That is unfortunate.”
“I’ll say so,” replied the chief engineer, “but I’ll do my best to make that thousand dollars hard to collect. Sorry I must go below, sir. Be sure to give me a call when the party begins.”
CHAPTER XIV
SHAKING A CREW TOGETHER
The master of the Valkyrie prowled on deck for some time. The two or three men in the forecastle had ceased their noise and were presumably in their bunks. The steamer was quiet. Cary regretted that he had been compelled to tap Mr. Duff on the head, but there had been no other way out of it. Quick action had been demanded or the dandyish second mate, Mr. Panchito, might have escaped from the saloon to raise an alarm.
First impressions of Mr. Bradley Duff had been more favorable than expected. He amounted to more than a rum-eaten shell of a man. There had been no cowardice in his violent rebellion. His sense of the fitness of things had been outraged, that a chief officer left in charge of a ship should be challenged by a crazy vagabond with no credentials.