“I’d give ’em a taste of the rope’s end.”
It was the old captain’s voice rumbling down from the quarter deck. He, too, had been aroused by the sound of the scuffle. Tom glanced up at him with an apprehensive eye, for he stood in considerable awe of the old sailor, and quieted right down.
“They will be good boys now, Captain,” grinned Jim. “Their feelings were temporarily upset.”
“It seemed to be an upset of some kind,” replied the captain with a grim smile, and went back to his chair.
Peace being restored, Jeems began his narrative in the slow, drawling manner characteristic of his mode of speech. He was leaning forward with his elbows on his knees, and his gray eyes—large and open—seemed to be looking dreamily over the dusky sea, that was rolling languidly through the warm darkness of the night.
“It was a some different sort of night than this when I first heard tell of the mine, which maybe you boys think you will find some trace of, being young and hopeful and full of action.”
“Now, Jeems, don’t get personal,” warned Jim. “We aren’t as young as we act.”
“I know it, Skipper,” admitted Jeems; “but as I was going to tell you, this night I was speaking of, it had started in to snow something fierce. I was young then myself, and had been prospectin’ all day and had come home to my little cabin that was under the shelter of a huge ledge in the mid-Sierras.
“I can tell you, lads, I was mighty glad to be out of the storm that night, and I pitied any poor prospector who might be caught out in it. My cabin was smaller than the one I had on the Island off the coast, where you first discovered me, but it was comfortable and warm, and well sheltered from the wind.