Page:McClure's Magazine volume 10.djvu/349

Rh of cord an empty tomato-can with brilliant label.

"Tramp, be the powers," said one. "Isn't thot the name o' the bird, Jim?"

"Right you are, Dennis," said the one addressed—a tall, active American: he who had been called "Yim" by the sympathizing Swede with the "loosed" teeth.

"Yes," said the wreck, "tramp, that's my latest rôle. How'd I get here? I was in a saloon, drinking, but I don't remember any more. I might have been drugged. My head feels light."

"It'll be heavier with a few bumps on it," said Dennis. "Ye've been shanghaied 'long with three or four more of us. Gwan aft an' git bumped; we've had our share."

"What craft is this? "

"Ship 'Indiana' o' New York. Ye'll know her better 'fore ye see the next pint o' beer."

Indiana'?" repeated the wreck. "And do you happen to know, any of you, who owns her?"

"Western Packet Line," said Jim; "J. L. Greenheart's the owner. Get out o' here; the mate wants to see you."

"Thank you; but I don't particularly care to see the mate. The captain will answer very well for me. Allow me to introduce myself—J. L. Greenheart, owner of this ship and employer of every man on board."

Stricken as were those men with sore spots and aching bones, they burst into uproarious laughter at this flippant declaration, during which the ragged one moved toward the door and passed out.

"Lord help him," said Jim, "if he goes aft with that bluff! The mates are horses, but the skipper's a whole team."

Ten minutes later the ragged one returned—feet first and unconscious—in the arms of two of the watch on deck, who bundled him into the bunk he had lately quitted and said to the inquiring men:

"We don't know what happened. They had a lively muss on the poop, an' the skipper an' mates must ha' jumped on him; then they called us aft to get him."

The two passed out, and the seven men, with no time for sympathy or nursing, chose, with much bickering, the bunks they were to occupy, for the passage at least, patched up their hurts with what appliances they possessed, and turned in. But they had no sooner stretched out than the rasping voice of the second mate was heard at the door.

"Heye, in there," he called. "Who's that dock rat ye've got with you?"

"Don't know, Mr. Barker," answered Jim from his bunk. "He didn't sign when we did—shanghaied in place of a good man, likely—but says he's the owner."

"Did he know the owner's name without being told?"

"No, sir—nor the name of the ship; we told him."

"Where is he?"

"In the forrard lower bunk, sir—this side."

The second officer stepped in—the still-burning slush-bucket showing him to be a red-whiskered, red-eyed giant—and scanned closely the grimy features of this latest pupil in nautical etiquette. As though there was hypnotic power in the red eyes, the injured man opened his own and returned the stare, at the same time feeling with his fingers a discolored swelling on his forehead that bore plainly the stamp of a boot-heel.

"An all-round hobo; get him out at eight bells, if he can move," said the officer as he left the forecastle.

At four bells the helmsman was relieved, and reported to his mates in the watch on deck as follows:

"He marches up the poop steps an' tells the mate suthin' pretty sharp, an' then, 'fore the mate could stop him, he was down below routin' out the skipper. They had a run-in down there—I heard 'em plain—he was orderin' the skipper to put back to New York an' land him, an' the skipper got a black eye out of it. Then the second mate turns out, an' the first mate goes down, an' between 'em all three they boosts him up the co'panionway an' kicks him round the poop till he can't wiggle."

And when the lookout came down and told of his appearing on the forecastle deck shortly after the second mate's visit and sitting for an hour on the port anchor, muttering to himself and answering no questions, the watch on deck unanimously agreed that he was demented. At eight bells he was in his bunk, and responded to the vigorous shaking he received by planting his feet in the stomach of Dennis, the shaker, and sending him gasping into the opposite bunk.

"Howly Mother," groaned the sailor, when he could breathe. "Say, you scrapin's o' Newgate, try yer heels on sam one ilse—the second mate, f'r inshtance. Me cuticle won't hold any more shpots. "

Dennis had been disciplined the day before, mainly while prostrate.