Dumps, also, was a thief, and,
indeed, so were all his brethren. Dumps and Poker were both of them
larger and stronger, and in every way better, than their comrades; and
they afterwards were the sturdy, steady, unflinching leaders of the team
during many a toilsome journey over the frozen sea.
One magnificent afternoon, a few days after the escape of the _Dolphin_
just related, Dumps and Poker lay side by side in the lee-scuppers,
calmly sleeping off the effects of a surfeit produced by the eating of a
large piece of pork, for which the cook had searched in vain for
three-quarters of an hour, and of which he at last found the bare bone
sticking in the hole of the larboard pump.
"Bad luck to them dogs," exclaimed David Mizzle, stroking his chin as he
surveyed the bone. "If I could only find out, now, which of ye it was,
I'd have ye slaughtered right off, and cooked for the mess, I would."
"It was Dumps as did it, I'll bet you a month's pay," said Peter Grim,
as he sat on the end of the windlass refilling his pipe, which he had
just smoked out.
"Not a bit of it," remarked Amos Parr, who was squatted on the deck
busily engaged in constructing a rope mat, while several of the men sat
round him engaged in mending sails, or stitching canvas slippers,
etc.--"not a bit of it, Grim; Dumps is too honest by half to do sich a
thing. 'Twas Poker as did it, I can see by the roll of his eye below the
skin.
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