found Blythe on the bridge with Mott.
"I have to report a prisoner of war captured, captain," I announced in formal military style.
Blythe laughed.
"Who is he?"
"Captain Boris Bothwell, sir."
"What!"
I told him and Mott the circumstances. The mate unbent a little.
"And the lubber shot at you? In your own cabin! Put him in irons and throw him ashore at Panama. That's my advice, Mr. Blythe. Get rid of him, and you'll not hear any more about this mutiny business."
"I'm of that opinion myself, Mr. Mott. We'll keep him under guard until he's in safe custody."
Blythe followed me down to my cabin, and for the first time he and Bothwell looked each other over.
"This isn't a passenger ship, sir," announced the owner of the Argos bluntly. "You've made a mistake, sir. We'll hand you over to the authorities at Panama."
Bothwell bowed.
"Dee-lighted! I've always wanted to see the old city of Pizarro, Drake and Morgan. Many a galleon has been looted of ingots and bullion by the old seadogs there. If I weren't so conscientious, by Jupiter, I'd turn pirate myself."
"Haven't a doubt of it," Blythe assented curtly. "We'll try to see that your opportunities don't match your inclinations. Unless I guess wrong you wouldn't hesitate to cut a throat to escape if your hands were free."
"Not at all."
"Just so. Merely as a formality we'll take the precaution of making sure you haven't any weapons that might go off and injure you—or anybody else. Jack, may I trouble you to look in my cabin for a pair of handcuffs—middle right hand drawer of my dressing table?"
We made our prisoner secure and spelled each other watching him. The first three hours fell to me. Except the Arizonian I think all of us felt a weight lifted from our hearts. The chief villain was in our hands and the mutiny nipped in the bud.
But Bothwell had managed to inject a fly into the ointment of my content.
"We've drawn your sting now," Blythe had told him before he left.
"Have you? Bet you a pony I'll be free inside of twenty-four hours," the Russian had coolly answered.
Chapter XIII.
Mutiny
It was in the afternoon of the day after our encounter with Bothwell—to be more accurate, just after four bells. Miss Wallace and I were sitting under the deck awning, she working in a desultory fashion upon a piece of embroidery while I watched her lazily.
The languorous day was of the loveliest. It invited to idleness, made repudiation of work a virtue. My stint was over for a few hours at least and I enjoyed the luxury of pitying poor Mott, who was shut up in a stuffy cabin with our prisoner.
Yeager, too, was off duty. We could hear him pounding away at the piano in the saloon. Ragtime floated to us, and presently a snatch from "The Sultan of Sulu."
Since I first met you,
Since I first met you,
The open sky above me seems a deeper blue,
Golden, rippling sunshine warms me through and through,
Each flower has a new perfume since I first met you.
"T. Yeager is a born optimist," I commented idly. "Life is one long, glorious lark to him. I believe he would be happy if he knew raw, red mutiny were going to break out in twenty minutes."
"He's very likable. I never knew a man who has had so many experiences. There's something right boyish about him."
"Even if he could give me about a dozen years."
"Years don't count with his kind. He's so full of life, so fresh and yet so wise."
"His music isn't fresh anyhow. I move we go stop it."
"Thank you, I'm very comfortable here. I don't second the motion," she declined.
"Motion withdrawn. But I'm going to tempt him from that piano just the same. Jimmie, come here. Run down to the music-room and tell Mr. Yeager that Miss Wallace would like to see him."
Evelyn laughed.
"I think you're real mean, Mr. Sedgwick."
"For saving the life of your musical soul?"
"He is pretty bad," she admitted.
He was on the chorus again, his raucous exuberant voice riding it like one of his own bucking broncos.
Golden, rippling sunshine warms me through and through, Each flower has a new perfume since I first met you.
"Bad. He's the worst ever. Thank Heaven, we've got him stopped! There he comes with Jimmie."
He moved across the deck toward us with that little roll usually peculiar to dismounted horsemen of the plains.
"I do like him," the young woman murmured. "He's so strong and gentle and good-natured. I don't suppose he could get mad."
"Oh, couldn't he? I'll ask him about that."
"Now I do think you're mean," she reproached with a flash of her eyes.
"You sent for me, Miss Wallace? Was it to throw him overboard because he's mean?" Yeager asked genially.
Her eye was sparkling and her lips open for an answer, but the words were never spoken. For at that instant a man burst past us with blood streaming down his face from a ghastly cut in the forehead. He was making for the bridge.
"It's come," I said, rising and drawing my revolver.
"I must go to Auntie," Evelyn said, very white about the lips.
"Not now. She's perfectly safe. They won't trouble her till they have won the ship."
"And there will be some merry times before then, I expect," said Tom, his hand on the butt of a revolver and his vigilant eye sweeping the deck.
We were hurrying forward to the wheelhouse. Every moment I expected to see a rush of men tearing up the companionway, but all seemed quiet and orderly. The hands on deck either had not noticed Dugan, or else were awaiting developments.
"'Twas Caine did it, sir," Dugan explained to Blythe. "I was lying in my bunk when he came down with the stowaway you were holding prisoner."
"With Bothwell?" I cried.
"Yes, sir. They asked me to join them in taking the ship. They put it plain they
