"We'd better set watches. Everybody must get some sleep to-night," observed the rover. "Cert," agreed Broncho; "my eyelids is weighin' my eyes down as if they're loaded pack-saddles." "An' mine is winkin' like an occultin' light," declared the bosun's mate. "Of course, you, Lolie, and Jim are out of this," began Jack. "Suppose I take the first watch, Bill the middle, and Tari the morning." "An' what about this nigger?" asked Broncho. "Oh, you're the horse-wrangler; you're not on night-herd." "And why should I be left out?" exclaimed Loyola, in an injured voice. After a great deal of argument, in which even Jim joined, it was decided that if she chose Loyola could keep Jack's watch with him, whilst Broncho joined Tari. So, this knotty point settled, whilst Jack and Loyola shared the sternsheets the others turned in on the flooring-boards, and were soon sleeping heavily the deep sleep of exhaustion. The night passed uneventfully. The breeze held steady with a long, smooth sea, over which the whaleboat bowled along with the sheet well aft, making good speed and dropping the dago's boat fast; but slowly and surely the schooner crept up, though it was four bells in the middle watch before she picked up her boat. Soon after a small coral reef with a few palms on it was passed to windward. As the first light of dawn spread high over the east, the sleeping boat's crew were awakened by the wild, deep cry of the Kanaka: "Sail-ho! sail-ho!" In a moment these magic words had roused the tired sleepers into a wide-eyed wakefulness. "Whar?" burst out Broncho. "There she is! There she is, right ahead!" called Loyola breathlessly. Jack seized the telescope, whilst the others broke out into a babble of exclamations, questions, and surmises. "She's heading our way, I'm almost certain," declared Jack. "She's got square topsails, and her masts are in line, so I can't be certain of her rig; but I think she's an Island schooner, for a certainty." "What for of a play would it be to let rip a volley at that paltry marooner. Mebbe it'd act as a signal-smoke to the stranger?" asked the cowpuncher, indicating the _Black Adder_, which was less than three cables' lengths off on their lee-quarter. "First chop!" agreed Jack, picking up his Winchester. "Just a sorter 'So long, ta-ta!' to the blighter," hinted Bill. The schooner was busy sending up a big gaff-headed main-topsail, and the three musketeers aimed at the group of men tailing on to the fall of the sheet out-haul. The three reports burst out together, and the group of men disappeared suddenly behind the bulwarks; a bullet had cut the rope they were hauling on. "Good shot! good shot!" cried Jim hysterically, clapping his hands. "That crowd hit the deck some sudden, I'm thinkin'," exclaimed Bill, grimly reloading. "I guess that dago sharp's moppin' his feachers some, if he ain't fretted to the core an' grittin' his teeth with frenzy," chuckled the cowboy.