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Updated: June 24, 2025
'I've got a bit of a dazzler here to spring on you. What d'yer think o' that? He removed his hat, and exposed a pint pannikin filled to the brim with clean, coarse nuggets. 'Whew! whistled Jim. 'You've hit it thick. 'Yes, he said. 'That's from three buckets off the bottom. I s'pose you'll get her just ez good. My mate's got a few ounces o' finer stuff.
So far as the Dazzler was concerned, it was a simple matter, and soon they were putting a single reef in the mainsail and getting ready to weigh anchor. Joe was curious. These were undoubtedly the oyster-beds; but how under the sun, in that wild sea, were they to get oysters? He was quickly to learn the way.
Escape was sure now, for he knew, even if he were discovered, that it would be impossible for the Dazzler to get under way and head him off before he made the land and the protection of that man who wore the uniform of Uncle Sam's soldiers. The report of a gun came to him from the shore, but his back was in that direction and he did not bother to turn around.
Off a bleak piece of marshland Bill and the Cockney said good-by and cast loose in their skiff. French Pete, in the cabin, bewailed their bad luck in various languages, and sought consolation in the wine-bottle. The wind freshened as they got clear of the land, and soon the Dazzler was heeling it with her lee deck buried and the water churning by, half-way up the cockpit-rail.
Some kind of an altercation was going on, as French Pete's voice attested. "No, no!" he cried. "Put it on ze Dazzler. Ze Reindeer she sail too fast-a, and run away, oh, so queeck, and never more I see it. Put it on ze Dazzler. Eh? Wot you say?" "All right then," Red Nelson agreed. "We 'll whack up afterwards. But, say, hurry up. Out with you, lads, and heave her up! My arm 's broke."
"Hard a-lee!" 'Frisco Kid cried, throwing the tiller down, and following it with his body. "Cast off! That 's right. Now lend a hand on the main-sheet!" Together, hand over hand, they came in on the reefed mainsail. Joe began to warm up with the work. The Dazzler turned on her heel like a race-horse, and swept into the wind, her canvas snarling and her sheets slatting like hail.
He sprang into the skiff after the men, and, with a wave of his uninjured arm, cried heartily: "And then it 's for Mexico, my lads Mexico and summer weather!" Just as the Dazzler, freed from her anchor, paid off under the jib and filled away, a dark sail loomed under their stern, barely missing the skiff in tow.
French Pete then ran out a great quantity of chain and rope, so that the Dazzler dropped back a hundred feet or more, where she rode more easily. It was a wild stretch of water which Joe looked upon from the shelter of the cockpit.
The wind was blowing from the north in mild squalls, and the Dazzler cut noiselessly through the landlocked water. "Where are we going?" Joe asked the Cockney, in an endeavor to be friendly and at the same time satisfy his curiosity. "Oh, my pardner 'ere, Bill, we 're goin' to take a cargo from 'is factory," that worthy airily replied.
While the other two rowed, and by the Frenchman's orders, Joe began to throw out the iron. This saved them for the time being. But just as they swept alongside the Dazzler the skiff lurched, shoved a side under, and turned turtle, sending the remainder of the iron to bottom. Joe and 'Frisco Kid came up side by side, and together they clambered aboard with the skiff's painter in tow.
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