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Updated: May 25, 2025
He knew how futile would be any attempt to escape under the cold hawk-eyes of the man with the broken nose. As the gig put off from the sloop's side, the boy leaned dejectedly against the rail. Pharaoh Daggs slouched up to him. "Ah there, young 'un," said he with cynical jocularity, "just thinkin' o' leavin' us, were ye, when the old man took the gimp out o' ye?"
He was on the verge of a fever, and Bob's prescription of rest and sleep was what he most needed. Made snug at the back side of the berth, where little or no light came, he fell into a fitful slumber. Bob took a last look to see that his friend was comfortable and went on deck. Pharaoh Daggs had taken a great deal of liquor the night before, as was his wont when grog was being passed.
"Wal, Miss Jorth, I reckon you mean we're a bad lot of sheepmen?" he queried, in the cool, easy speech of a Texan. "No," flashed Ellen. "Shore I don't say sheepmen. I say y'u're a BAD LOT." "Oh, the hell you say!" Daggs spoke as he might have spoken to a man; then turning swiftly on his heel he left her. Outside he encountered Ellen's father.
Jeremy went white with anger. "An' now" Daggs' voice broke in a sudden snarl "an' now, we'll show ye how we treat such curs aboard a ten-gun buccaneer! Stand by, mates, to keel-haul him!" At this moment a second party of pirates poured swearing out of the fo'c's'le hatch, dragging Job Howland in their midst.
He was more or less talkative, besides, and from him I learned that Daggs planned to start about midnight for your side of the island, carrying buckets of pitch and tinder, so as to roast you out. "As you may imagine, this kind of talk nearly turned me sick with fear, and right in the midst of it Pharaoh Daggs came on deck.
I've no home, no relatives, no friends! I've been forced to live my life with rustlers vile men like y'u an' Daggs an' the rest of your like.... But I've been good! Do y'u heah that? ... I AM good so help me God, y'u an' all your rottenness cain't make me bad!" Colter lounged to his tall height and the laxity of the man vanished.
"Now, where's that other whelp?" panted Daggs. Somebody went below and dragged Jeremy to light. The boy was brought up to the crowd at the capstan. He took one look at Bob's pitiful, set stare and the red drops on the deck, then turned blazing to face the man with the broken nose. "You great coward!" he cried. The man was staggered for an instant.
He laid a rather compelling hand on Ellen's shoulder. "Heah, mah gal, give us a kiss," he said. "Daggs, I'm not your girl," replied Ellen as she slipped out from under his hand. Then Daggs put his arm round her, not with violence or rudeness, but with an indolent, affectionate assurance, at once bold and self-contained.
He had been stolen by her father or by one of her father's accomplices. Isbel's vaunted cunning as a tracker had been no idle boast. Her father was a horse thief, a rustler, a sheepman only as a blind, a consort of Daggs, leader of the Hash Knife Gang. Ellen well remembered the ill repute of that gang, way back in Texas, years ago.
It passed. Again the rancher leveled the glass. "Wal, Blaisdell, there's our old Texas friend, Daggs," he drawled, dryly. "An' Greaves, our honest storekeeper of Grass Valley. An' there's Stonewall Jackson Jorth. An' Tad Jorth, with the same old red nose! ... An', say, damn if one of that gang isn't Queen, as bad a gun fighter as Texas ever bred.
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