"There's lots worse than Yanks," admitted a brother officer with extreme tolerance. "Wonder what he's going to do to raise that extra seven hundred? Rob a bank?"
Like many plainsmen, young Sam Varney had been impressed and thrilled by his crossing of the ocean. He decided to try a job on a coaster for a while, till he got his bearings. One thing was sure. He did not want any of the dry goldfields—which were said to be petering out, anyhow.
He had met a sea captain, and the latter, glad indeed to get a hand in these days when men were scarce, had told him to come along and meet the Narwhal at Freemantle. Sam, of course, had not the slightest idea of the reputation along the coast of the tramp freighter Narwhal, or of the even less savory things said about Captain Moebus and the tow-headed Axel Larssen, his mate.
There is no use going into a log of his experience. First he was robbed of his few possessions. Then he was beaten in three plucky but hopeless fights with the captain and mate. Bruised, sore, sometimes unconscious, he was tied up every time the Narwhal made a regular port. Not until they put in, several weeks later, at a small island near shore in the Bight, did Sam have any chance to escape.
They did not tie him this time. What use? The Bight swarmed with sharks. Even if a man made shore, there was nothing at all in front of him but waterless desert. On the tiny island, of course, there was no chance to escape. There was only a beachcomber's hut or two—and with these Captain Moebus had a little nefarious business with contraband.
When the captain and mate had gone ashore to transact it, Sam looked longingly at the mainland shore. Less than a mile away. He thought he could make it—and did not think at all about what he might find, if he proved successful. Taking his chance when other members of the crew were below, he dove from the side, and swam hand over hand for the desert shore.
An hour later the captain and mate, returning, made sure he was not on board. There was no small boat missing. The answer seemed plain.
"Good riddance!" snarled Captain Moebus. "The white-pointers 'ave 'ad a meal!"
He was wrong. Just twenty minutes earlier Sam Varney had hauled himself to the sandy, barren shore of the Bight. He was near the point of complete exhaustion from his long swim, and the physical batterings received before. But no shark had noticed him.
Chapter II
Monsters in the Mulga.
The first thing the Yank saw, when the smart of salt was out of his eyes, was a fence. It was a good strong fence, built of close mesh—not barbed wire. It came right down and ended at a stout pile driven in below tide marks.
Sam grinned at it, and sat down beside it to rest. Time had been, back on the Panhandle range, when he had cursed fences. Now one looked like a friendly and familiar thing. Prob'ly a ranch or sheep station right near, he said to himself drowsily. He slid slowly over on one side and slept.
Two hours later from the west came six swift camels—racing maharis, not
