O
Lord! S'y, I gotta to get drunk. S'y, what-all's the first jump in the
bally game now?"
"Well, the first thing, little man," observed Hardenberg, "is for your
mother's son to hang the monkey onto the safety-valve. Keep y'r steam
and watch y'r uncle."
"Scrag the Boomskys," said Slick Dick encouragingly.
Strokher pulled the left end of his viking mustache with the fingers of
his right hand.
"We must now talk," he said.
A last conference was held in the cabin, and the various parts of the
comedy rehearsed. Also the three looked to their revolvers.
"Not that I expect a rupture of diplomatic relations," commented
Strokher; "but if there's any shooting done, as between man and man, I
choose to do it."
"All understood, then?" asked Hardenberg, looking from face to face.
"There won't be no chance to ask questions once we set foot ashore."
The others nodded.
It was not difficult to get in with the seven Russian sea-otter
fishermen at the post. Certain of them spoke a macerated English, and
through these Hardenberg, Ally Bazan and Nickerson--Strokher remained on
board to look after the schooner--told to the "Boomskys" a lamentable
tale of the reported wreck of a vessel, described by Hardenberg, with
laborious precision, as a steam whaler from San Francisco--the _Tiber_
by name, bark-rigged, seven hundred tons burden, Captain Henry Ward
Beecher, mate Mr. James Boss Tweed.
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