id Stubbs. "Salt pork and
hardtack is what they needs,--not beefsteak."

"Nonsense, Stubbs. This isn't a slave-ship. Nothing like good fodder
to keep 'em in trim. They are getting just what you get at a training
table, and I know what that does,--keeps you fit as a king."

"Mebbe so. I'll tell you what it'ull do for them,--it'll inspire 'em
to cut our bonny throats some day. The ale alone 'ud do it. Think of
servin' ale to sech as them with nothin' to do but sit in the sun.
Darned if they ain't gettin' to look as chubby as them babies you see
in the advertisements. An' their tempers is growin' likewise."

"Good fightin' spirit, eh?"

"Yes," drawled Stubbs, "an' a hell of a bad thing to have on the high
seas."

"Well," said Danbury, after a moment's thought, "you have them up on
deck to-morrow and I'll have a talk with them."

It was Danbury's first opportunity to look over his mercenaries as a
whole and he gave a gasp of surprise at the row after row of
villainous faces raised with sneering grins to his. Well in the front
squatted "Bum" Jocelin, known to the water-front police for fifteen
years,--six feet of threatening insolence; "Black" Morrison with two
penitentiary sentences back of him; and "Splinter" Mallory, thin,
leering, shifty. And yet Danbury, after he had recovered himself a
bit, saw in their very ugliness the fighting spirit of the bulldog. He
had not hired them for ornament but for the very lawlessness which led
them rather to fight for what they wished than to work for it.
Doubtless below their flannel shirts they all had hearts which beat
warmly. So he met their gaze frankly and, raising one foot to a
capstan, he bent forward with a smile and began. Stubbs stood by with
the strained expression of a father who stands helpless watching a son
do a foolish thing. On the other hand, Wilson, though he would not
have done it himself, rather admired the spirit that prompted the
act.

"Men," began Danbury,--and Stubbs choked back an exclamation at his
gentleness,--"men, I haven't told you much about the errand upon which
you are bound, but I feel now that you ought to know. You signed for
two months and agreed to accept your orders from me. You were told
there would be some scrapping----"

"The hell we were," broke in Splinter. Danbury, ignoring the
interruption, blandly continued:

"And you were all picked out as men who wouldn't balk at a bit of a
mix-up. But you weren't told what it is all about.