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 Los Angeles. For even fifteen dollars, probably ten, you can get him for your ship, friend captain."

"I don't know what your damned law in this country is, but I know it ain't goin' to stand between me and my man," the captain declared. "I'll make it fifty dollars to anybody that brings that mutineer back."

Still there were no takers, save the battered-face mate, who hesitated against the threat of Simon's great pistol, rusty though it was as if it had been fished up out of the sea.

"For as much as fifty dollars I will, myself, guarantee that your sailor returns again to your ship," Don Abrahan said. He depreciated the matter almost to nothing by the slight lifting of his brows, the waving of his hand, as if to say that a man must descend to small affairs when in the company of despicable inferiors.

"Hell! he'll be forty miles away before you fellows can turn around!" the captain swore.

"Let him go; it cannot be far," Don Abrahan returned. "There are mountains and deserts to turn a man back when he runs away in this country. I have only to give the word, and your man returns."

"And if you don't give the word?" Captain Welliver asked, looking at him sharply.

"Who knows?" Don Abrahan replied. "My hides blow out to sea and never find their way into your ship. Perhaps your sailor may be carried off by a wind, as well. How is any man to know?"