At the very first whoop from the big man the pump-man had stopped dead, softly set down his suit-case, and waited.  Now he stepped swiftly toward the big man.  And to the passenger, looking and listening from the cabin mess-room, it looked like the finest kind of a battle; but just then the captain came up the gang-plank calling out, “Cast off those lines.  And don’t fall asleep over it, either.”  The deck force scattered to carry out his orders.  The pump-man picked up his suit-case and went on to his quarters.

Next morning (the ship by now well down the Jersey coast and the passenger on the bridge by the captain’s invitation) again was heard the carolling voice: 

  “Our ship she was alaborin’ in the Gulf o’ Mexico,
  The skipper on the quarter, with eyes aloft and low. 
  Says he, ‘My bucko boys—­’”

that far when the big man’s hoarse bass interrupted, “Say you, what about that Number Seven tank?”

  “—­Says he, ‘My bucko boys, it’s asurely goin’ to blow’”

The pump-man paused, inclined his head, set one hand back of his ear, and asked, “And what about Number Seven tank?  And speak up, son, so I can hear you.”

“Speak up!” The big man roared to the heavens.  “Speak up!  Don’t tell me to speak up.  Did yer clean that tank out?”

“No, I didn’t clean it out.”

“Yer didn’t?  And why in hell didn’t yer?”

“Because I don’t have to.  But I put a couple of men to work and saw that they cleaned it out.  And it was done before you were out of your warm bunk this morning.”

“Who’s that big fellow?” The passenger put the question to the captain.

“That’s my bosun—­and a good one.”

“And the other?  Know anything of him?”

“The singing one?  Nothin’, except he’s the new pump-man.  And I can see right now it won’t be many hours afore the bosun’ll beat his head off.”

“You think he will?”

“I know he will.  Why, look at him—­the size of him, and solid’s a rock.”

The passenger took another look over the top of the bridge canvas.  He was surely a big man; and under his thin sleeveless jersey, surely a solid man.  And the pump-man, in his skimpy, badly-fitting dungarees, though of good height, did not look to be much more than half the other’s bulk.

“That same bosun’s beat up more men than any shipping agency ever kept a record of.  That’s Big Bill.  And if you’d ever travelled on oil-tankers, you’d ‘a’ heard of him.  He’s a whale.  Take another look at him, Mr. Noyes.”

Noyes took another look.  The boson surely was a tremendously muscled man.  He was knobbed with muscle.  But Noyes had his own opinion about the two men, and he hazarded it now.

“But he’s a wonderfully quick-moving fellow, that pump-man, captain.  And he’s surely got his nerve with him.  Look at him leap across that open hatch!  If he fell short he’d get a thirty-foot drop and break his neck.”