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Updated: June 13, 2025
You didn't find any of the others?" "None." Darrow got to his feet. "I think I'd like to see Eagen Slade whatever he calls himself." "I don't know," began the captain. "It might not be " He hesitated and stopped. Darrow drew back a little, misinterpreting the other's attitude. "Do I understand that I am under restraint?" he asked stiffly. "Certainly not. Why should you be?"
"Maybe you think that's all we need," said Eagen hoarsely; "an' if that's the way you feel you won't find me backin' down when you start something. Just now I ain't forgetting that crazy fool with that rifle up there." "You didn't come here for a gun play, Eagen," said Rathburn. "You ain't plumb loco every way. I take it you saw me makin' for this place an' followed me here. What do you want?"
"Now that's what I calls right proper and handsome!" he cried admiringly. "We reely had no right to expect that, boys, as seamen, from our first officer! Mr. Eagen has the right, and we signed to it all straight, to work us as he pleases; and w'at does he do? Why, he up and gives us a week shore leave, and then he gives us light watches, and all the time our pay goes on just the same.
Then he told me that was why he wanted me to ship for this cruise." The captain eyed me quizzically. I threw out my hands in a comic gesture of surrender. "Well, where are we bound, anyway?" The dirty, unkempt, dishevelled figure stiffened. "Mr. Eagen," its falsetto shrilled, "you are mate of this vessel. Your duty is to see that my orders as to sailing are carried out. Beyond that you do not go.
"I didn't think you did," said Price. "I'll have to get goin' hit for new country an' never know when I may run up against the law in a quarter where I ain't expecting it; always sneaking along like the coyote. It was Mike Eagen who gave me that name, Joe." Rathburn's voice was low and vibrant, and the old man felt the menacing quality in it.
Suddenly he remembered that Gomez had said Eagen was paying a call on Doane. What could Eagen have to do with Doane which would warrant his visiting him early in the morning? Rathburn recalled that Gomez had intimated that Doane liked to play cards. Was the man then a professional gambler? But no, Gomez had said he did not play well.
"Here's the money I took this morning, Doane," he said in matter-of-fact tones. "I came here to turn it over to you." With bulging eyes Doane stared at him. Eagen laughed loudly. "That's rich! Tryin' to make me think you was goin' to give it all to him? Don't you figure, Mr. Coyote, that I can throw my rope aroun' a simple scheme like you an' that shivering rat over by the table cooked up?
I have to beg your pardon, Mr. Darrow. It has just occurred to me. He called himself Eagen with you." "Eagen! What is this? Is Eagen alive?" "And on this ship. We picked him up in an open boat." "And you say he calls himself Slade?" "He is Ralph Slade, adventurer and journalist. Mr. Barnett knows him and vouches for him."
"Let him play with it," Eagen said harshly. Mallory withdrew from the window, as Eagen reached for his left stirrup and swung into the saddle. "I see you ain't takin' it," Rathburn called to him with a jeering laugh. "An' I ain't forgettin' it?" Eagen shouted, as he drove in his spurs.
The men separated, intending fresh meat. The affair was ridiculous. These sheep had become as wild as deer. Our surrounding party with its silly bared knives could only look after them open-mouthed, as they skipped nimbly between its members. "Get a gun of the Old Man, Mr. Eagen," suggested Pulz, "and we'll have something besides salt horse and fish." I nodded. We continued.
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