The chief, at the nozzle, was the first to see the lion creeping around the hatch. “Stop him!” he cried, to nobody in particular. “Damn it all! Behind you, man,” he yelled to “Shine.” “Look behind you!” “Shine” could not hear him. The chief took off his cap and threw it down at the animal, vainly. He dropped on his hands and knees beside the hatch, clutching the nozzle of the three-inch line, bellowing hoarsely for water, half-choked with laughter. When “Shine” caught sight of the lion and turned from the bears to drive it back, the chief saw the bears closing in, and he hammered on the iron coaming of the hatch with the nozzle, in an inarticulate excitement. And then he got water just as “Shine” dropped his pipe and ran; and he struggled with his kicking nozzle, the tears of laughter running down his cheeks, unable to see the bears whom he was trying to take in the flank with his stream so as to hold them until “Shine” could make good his retreat. Keighley had been working his men like an old slave-driver, glancing back at the chief, every now and then, with a sly, dry smile. Now he caught Borden’s pipe and steadied it. “All right, chief,” he said. “He’s out. Here he comes.” “Shine” climbed, panting, up the ladder. “Hold those brutes off us now,” Keighley ordered. “We got to get down to that fire. Here ‘Shine’! You an’ Cripps take this pipe an’ keep those cats away from the hatch.” “Shine” came to the chief’s pipe, grinning at the remarks of the men. “You’re as good as a circus,” Borden said, wiping his eyes. “They scared the tripe out o’ me.” [Illustration: _Keighley turned to his pipe. “I’m responsible for this boat”_ See page 124] The chief gave place to him. Keighley ordered: “Down yuh go, now.” Cripps and “Shine,” at one angle of the hatch, and Moore and his pipeman, diagonally opposite, commanded the deck below with two solid streams that drove the animals into shelter among the cages, while Keighley and his squad, with axes and ladder straps, went down to fasten their six-inch line and cut an opening for the pipe in the hatch. The smoke blew up in a thick belch as the men stripped off the tarpaulin. “That’ll keep Mr. Bear busy,” the chief said. “Mr. Doherty, too,” “Shine” volunteered. The chief looked at him. “Who’s this Doherty anyway?” “Shine” kept his eyes on the pipe. “He’s the mut that got us all in trouble the time o’ the fire on that other Dutch boat.” “I thought the ‘Jiggers’ were at the bottom of that,” the chief said, with a pretended innocence. “They blamed it on us. They blamed ev’rythin’ on us--because some o’ the fat heads higher up used th’ association in their damn con games.” The chief scowled at this reference to the conspiracy that had ousted him. “You’re a ‘Jigger,’ are you?”