Argosy and Railroad Man's Magazine — page 92: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

484 through the fit of-strangulation, retching, and nausea essential to a speedy recovery. “You’ve been skating dangerously close to the edge.” “Dm a dyin’, doc, a dyin’,” he gurgled, wheezing and drooling and spitting brine. “ Rot! » ‘A dyin’—a dyin’, doc!” he groaned, coughing and striking his chest with his huge fists. “Sit up and try taking a few strokes at the oars,” I told him. He made a wry face and turned over on one side. “T guess I’m done fer—I ain’t long to live,” he said wheezingly, as she felt the Jumps on his-head with his fingers and gave vent to a series of the most heartrending moans imaginable. But when he found that, instead of being faced with approach- ing dissolution, he continued to improve, he ceased his absurd groaning and sat up. “My laigs is so weak, jist like a cat, doc,” he informed me with an air of stupid surprise. ‘ Jist like an ornery, slinkin’, one-eyed cat.” I murmured my comprehension and ex- pressed my sympathy. Yet upon reflection I failed to see the exact application of these words. All specimens of the genus feline which came within my knowledge were sup- plied by nature with limbs as well muscled, tough, and wiry as was needed for the pur- suit of a most active existence. One-eyed cats in particular seemed singularly fa- vored in this regard; at least, the only one T had known was a crook-tailed Thomas with a very comfortable appetite and well- developed predatory instincts, who could outmaneuver and outfight any two-eyed, God-fearing cat in the neighborhood, and could rake more garbage out of a can with one lusty paw in a given time than any cat I ever heard of. The day was so extremely warm and sticky, however, that I lacked the breath to argue with him, and I lay in the bottom of the boat, panting from my recent exer- tions, a piece of wet sailcloth over my head. “Them biffs on my dome was pretty fierce, doc,” he said, looking foolish. ‘TI wouldn’t never ’a’ drownded thataway if ye hadn’t jumped me when I wa’n’t a lookin’. ARGOSY AND RAILROAD MAN’S MAGAZINE. And all along I was jist a fooling with ye, doc. Was jist a foolin’ all along, a tryin’ ye out, an’ I wouldn’t never ’a’ dreamed 0’ beatin’ it back to the ship without landin’ fer Letcher any more’n I’d ’a’ hurt a hair o’ yer precious dome.” “Do you forget the threats you. made against my life?” I asked. ‘The names you called me—your rage?” ““Jist byplay, doc. Why, thinks I, here’s the doc a plannin’ to cut straight into the beach in plain sight o’ them mutyneers, ‘stead o’ crawlin’ along shore hid by the rocks. Here’s the doc without no more plan ’n a bebby to keep from bein’ jumped by them fierce mutyneers, who’d swipe his little Chinee tub-boat an’ turn him loose t’ shift like they done Letcher. “Thinks I, Peter Mankus has got t’ guard the doc ag’in’ hisself; Peter Mankus has got t’ wheedle the doc into puttin’ back round the p’int out o’ sight before a look- ing fer Letcher. That there’s common sense. That there’s logic. That there’s wisd’m.” He had hauled in his shirt from over the stern to wring the water out of it, and at each word he gave it an additional vigorous twist. “So that’s what I was a thinkin’ all along,” he continued: ‘‘ But suddent as a spankin’ jibb’m, ye flies up an’ biffs me in the dome—like the tail of a runnin’ rat- line, yer two lamps a blazin’, an’ the holes in yer beak stretched wide an’ a grabbing at the air. And all along I was only a fool- in’. I guess I never heerd 0’ sitch a think, doc; I never heerd 0’ sitch a think!” By this time Mankus actually believed that events had fallen out exactly as he described them, and J did not seek to con- tradict him. It was sufficient that, on ac- count of the great fright he had received, he was now tractable and willing to rescue George Letcher. While Mankus talked I glanced toward the shore, and found that our boat had floated a considerable distance out to sea during the hours we had wasted in bicker- ing, fighting, and recovering. The cliffs al- most blended with the horizon, and were partly obscured by-haze. We had-drifted in an easterly direction, comniclooolkks.conn