I put it to you as
between man and man."
With set teeth, and ever and again glancing over the rail at the
oncoming boat, the two fed their fortune to the fire. The pelts,
partially cured and still fatty, blazed like crude oil, the hair
crisping, the hides melting into rivulets of grease. For a minute the
schooner reeked of the smell and a stifling smoke poured from the galley
stack. Then the embers of the fire guttered and a long whiff of sea wind
blew away the reek. A single skin, fallen in the scramble, still
remained on the floor of the galley. Hardenberg snatched it up, tossed
it into the flames and clapped the door to. "Now, let him squeal," he
declared. "You fellows, when that boat gets here, let _me_ talk; keep
your mouths shut or, by God, we'll all wear stripes."
The Three Crows watched the boat's approach in a silence broken only
once by a long whimper from Ally Bazan. "An' it was a-workin' out as
lovely as Billy-oh," he said, "till that syme underbred costermonger's
swipe remembered he was Methody--an' him who, only a few d'ys back, went
raound s'yin' 'scrag the "Boomskys"!' A couple o' thousand pounds gone
as quick as look at it. Oh, I eyn't never goin' to git over this."
The boat came up and the Three Crows were puzzled to note that no
brass-buttoned personage sat in the stern-sheets, no harbour police
glowered at them from the bow, no officer of the law fixed them with the
eye of suspicion.
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