Start the Text

Copyright laws are changing all over the world, be sure to check
the laws for your country before redistributing these files!!!

Please take a look at the important information in this header.
We encourage you to keep this file on your own disk, keeping an
electronic path open for the next readers.

Please do not remove this.

This should be the first thing seen when anyone opens the book.
Do not change or edit it without written permission. The words
are carefully chosen to provide users with the information they
need about what they can legally do with the texts.


**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts**

**Etexts Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971**

*These Etexts Prepared By Hundreds of Volunteers and Donations*

Information on contacting Project Gutenberg to get Etexts, and
further information is included below. We need your donations.
The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a 501(c)(3)
organization with EIN [Employee Identification Number] 64-6221541

As of 12/12/00 contributions are only being solicited from people in:
Colorado, Connecticut, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa,
Kentucky, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Montana,
Nevada, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota,
Texas, Vermont, and Wyoming.

International donations are accepted,
but we don't know ANYTHING about how
to make them tax-deductible, or
even if they CAN be made deductible,
and don't have the staff to handle it
even if there are ways.

As the requirements for other states are met,
additions to this list will be made and fund raising
will begin in the additional states. Please feel
free to ask to check the status of your state.

International donations are accepted,
but we don't know ANYTHING about how
to make them tax-deductible, or
even if they CAN be made deductible,
and don't have the staff to handle it
even if there are ways.

These donations should be made to:

Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
PMB 113
1739 University Ave.
Oxford, MS 38655-4109


Title: The Garotters

Author: William D. Howells

Release Date: May, 2002 [Etext #3237]
[Yes, we are about one year ahead of schedule]
[The actual date this file first posted = 02/05/01]

Edition: 10

Language: English

Project Gutenberg Etext of The Garotters, by William D. Howells
*****This file should be named gartt10.txt or gartt10.zip*****

Corrected EDITIONS of our etexts get a new NUMBER, gartt11.txt
VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, gartt10a.txt

This etext was produced from the 1897 David Douglas edition by David
Price, email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk

Project Gutenberg Etexts are usually created from multiple editions,
all of which are in the Public Domain in the United States, unless a
copyright notice is included. Therefore, we usually do NOT keep any
of these books in compliance with any particular paper edition.

We are now trying to release all our books one year in advance
of the official release dates, leaving time for better editing.
Please be encouraged to send us error messages even years after
the official publication date.

Please note: neither this list nor its contents are final till
midnight of the last day of the month of any such announcement.
The official release date of all Project Gutenberg Etexts is at
Midnight, Central Time, of the last day of the stated month. A
preliminary version may often be posted for suggestion, comment
and editing by those who wish to do so.

Most people start at our sites at:
http://gutenberg.net
http://promo.net/pg


Those of you who want to download any Etext before announcement
can surf to them as follows, and just download by date; this is
also a good way to get them instantly upon announcement, as the
indexes our cataloguers produce obviously take a while after an
announcement goes out in the Project Gutenberg Newsletter.

http://www.ibiblio.org/gutenberg/etext02
or
ftp://ftp.ibiblio.org/pub/docs/books/gutenberg/etext02

Or /etext01, 00, 99, 98, 97, 96, 95, 94, 93, 92, 92, 91 or 90

Just search by the first five letters of the filename you want,
as it appears in our Newsletters.


Information about Project Gutenberg (one page)

We produce about two million dollars for each hour we work. The
time it takes us, a rather conservative estimate, is fifty hours
to get any etext selected, entered, proofread, edited, copyright
searched and analyzed, the copyright letters written, etc. This
projected audience is one hundred million readers. If our value
per text is nominally estimated at one dollar then we produce $2
million dollars per hour this year as we release fifty new Etext
files per month, or 500 more Etexts in 2000 for a total of 3000+
If they reach just 1-2% of the world's population then the total
should reach over 300 billion Etexts given away by year's end.

The Goal of Project Gutenberg is to Give Away One Trillion Etext
Files by December 31, 2001. [10,000 x 100,000,000 = 1 Trillion]
This is ten thousand titles each to one hundred million readers,
which is only about 4% of the present number of computer users.

At our revised rates of production, we will reach only one-third
of that goal by the end of 2001, or about 3,333 Etexts unless we
manage to get some real funding.

The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation has been created
to secure a future for Project Gutenberg into the next millennium.

We need your donations more than ever!

Presently, contributions are only being solicited from people in:
Colorado, Connecticut, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa,
Kentucky, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Nevada,
Montana, Nevada, Oklahoma, South Carolina,
South Dakota, Texas, Vermont, and Wyoming.

As the requirements for other states are met,
additions to this list will be made and fund raising
will begin in the additional states.

These donations should be made to:

Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
PMB 113
1739 University Ave.
Oxford, MS 38655-4109


Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation,
EIN [Employee Identification Number] 64-6221541,
has been approved as a 501(c)(3) organization by the US Internal
Revenue Service (IRS). Donations are tax-deductible to the extent
permitted by law. As the requirements for other states are met,
additions to this list will be made and fund raising will begin in the
additional states.

All donations should be made to the Project Gutenberg Literary
Archive Foundation. Mail to:

Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
PMB 113
1739 University Avenue
Oxford, MS 38655-4109 [USA]


We need your donations more than ever!

You can get up to date donation information at:

http://www.gutenberg.net/donation.html


***

If you can't reach Project Gutenberg,
you can always email directly to:

Michael S. Hart

hart@pobox.com forwards to hart@prairienet.org and archive.org
if your mail bounces from archive.org, I will still see it, if
it bounces from prairienet.org, better resend later on. . . .

Prof. Hart will answer or forward your message.

We would prefer to send you information by email.


***


Example command-line FTP session:

ftp ftp.ibiblio.org
login: anonymous
password: your@login
cd pub/docs/books/gutenberg
cd etext90 through etext99 or etext00 through etext02, etc.
dir [to see files]
get or mget [to get files. . .set bin for zip files]
GET GUTINDEX.?? [to get a year's listing of books, e.g., GUTINDEX.99]
GET GUTINDEX.ALL [to get a listing of ALL books]


**The Legal Small Print**


(Three Pages)

***START**THE SMALL PRINT!**FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS**START***
Why is this "Small Print!" statement here? You know: lawyers.
They tell us you might sue us if there is something wrong with
your copy of this etext, even if you got it for free from
someone other than us, and even if what's wrong is not our
fault. So, among other things, this "Small Print!" statement
disclaims most of our liability to you. It also tells you how
you may distribute copies of this etext if you want to.

*BEFORE!* YOU USE OR READ THIS ETEXT
By using or reading any part of this PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm
etext, you indicate that you understand, agree to and accept
this "Small Print!" statement. If you do not, you can receive
a refund of the money (if any) you paid for this etext by
sending a request within 30 days of receiving it to the person
you got it from. If you received this etext on a physical
medium (such as a disk), you must return it with your request.

ABOUT PROJECT GUTENBERG-TM ETEXTS
This PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm etext, like most PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm etexts,
is a "public domain" work distributed by Professor Michael S. Hart
through the Project Gutenberg Association (the "Project").
Among other things, this means that no one owns a United States copyright
on or for this work, so the Project (and you!) can copy and
distribute it in the United States without permission and
without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, set forth
below, apply if you wish to copy and distribute this etext
under the "PROJECT GUTENBERG" trademark.

Please do not use the "PROJECT GUTENBERG" trademark to market
any commercial products without permission.

To create these etexts, the Project expends considerable
efforts to identify, transcribe and proofread public domain
works. Despite these efforts, the Project's etexts and any
medium they may be on may contain "Defects". Among other
things, Defects may take the form of incomplete, inaccurate or
corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other
intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged
disk or other etext medium, a computer virus, or computer
codes that damage or cannot be read by your equipment.

LIMITED WARRANTY; DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES
But for the "Right of Replacement or Refund" described below,
[1] Michael Hart and the Foundation (and any other party you may
receive this etext from as a PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm etext) disclaims
all liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including
legal fees, and [2] YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE OR
UNDER STRICT LIABILITY, OR FOR BREACH OF WARRANTY OR CONTRACT,
INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE
OR INCIDENTAL DAMAGES, EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE
POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES.

If you discover a Defect in this etext within 90 days of
receiving it, you can receive a refund of the money (if any)
you paid for it by sending an explanatory note within that
time to the person you received it from. If you received it
on a physical medium, you must return it with your note, and
such person may choose to alternatively give you a replacement
copy. If you received it electronically, such person may
choose to alternatively give you a second opportunity to
receive it electronically.

THIS ETEXT IS OTHERWISE PROVIDED TO YOU "AS-IS". NO OTHER
WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, ARE MADE TO YOU AS
TO THE ETEXT OR ANY MEDIUM IT MAY BE ON, INCLUDING BUT NOT
LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A
PARTICULAR PURPOSE.

Some states do not allow disclaimers of implied warranties or
the exclusion or limitation of consequential damages, so the
above disclaimers and exclusions may not apply to you, and you
may have other legal rights.

INDEMNITY
You will indemnify and hold Michael Hart, the Foundation,
and its trustees and agents, and any volunteers associated
with the production and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm
texts harmless, from all liability, cost and expense, including
legal fees, that arise directly or indirectly from any of the
following that you do or cause: [1] distribution of this etext,
[2] alteration, modification, or addition to the etext,
or [3] any Defect.

DISTRIBUTION UNDER "PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm"
You may distribute copies of this etext electronically, or by
disk, book or any other medium if you either delete this
"Small Print!" and all other references to Project Gutenberg,
or:

[1] Only give exact copies of it. Among other things, this
requires that you do not remove, alter or modify the
etext or this "small print!" statement. You may however,
if you wish, distribute this etext in machine readable
binary, compressed, mark-up, or proprietary form,
including any form resulting from conversion by word
processing or hypertext software, but only so long as
*EITHER*:

[*] The etext, when displayed, is clearly readable, and
does *not* contain characters other than those
intended by the author of the work, although tilde
(~), asterisk (*) and underline (_) characters may
be used to convey punctuation intended by the
author, and additional characters may be used to
indicate hypertext links; OR

[*] The etext may be readily converted by the reader at
no expense into plain ASCII, EBCDIC or equivalent
form by the program that displays the etext (as is
the case, for instance, with most word processors);
OR

[*] You provide, or agree to also provide on request at
no additional cost, fee or expense, a copy of the
etext in its original plain ASCII form (or in EBCDIC
or other equivalent proprietary form).

[2] Honor the etext refund and replacement provisions of this
"Small Print!" statement.

[3] Pay a trademark license fee to the Foundation of 20% of the
gross profits you derive calculated using the method you
already use to calculate your applicable taxes. If you
don't derive profits, no royalty is due. Royalties are
payable to "Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation"
the 60 days following each date you prepare (or were
legally required to prepare) your annual (or equivalent
periodic) tax return. Please contact us beforehand to
let us know your plans and to work out the details.

WHAT IF YOU *WANT* TO SEND MONEY EVEN IF YOU DON'T HAVE TO?
Project Gutenberg is dedicated to increasing the number of
public domain and licensed works that can be freely distributed
in machine readable form.

The Project gratefully accepts contributions of money, time,
public domain materials, or royalty free copyright licenses.
Money should be paid to the:
"Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."

If you are interested in contributing scanning equipment or
software or other items, please contact Michael Hart at:
hart@pobox.com

*END THE SMALL PRINT! FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.12.12.00*END*

CHAPTER I

The weather door of the smoking-room had been left open
to the North Atlantic fog,
as the big liner rolled and lifted,
whistling
to warn the fishing-fleet.

"That Cheyne boy's the biggest nuisance aboard,"
said a man in a frieze overcoat,
shutting the door
with a bang.

"He isn't wanted here.

He's too fresh."

A white-haired German reached
for a sandwich,
and grunted between bites:

"I know der breed.

Ameriga is full of dot kind.

I deli you you should imbort ropes'
ends free under your dariff."

"Pshaw! There isn't any real harm
to him.

He's more
to be pitied than anything,"
a man from New York drawled,
as he lay at full length along the cushions under the wet skylight.

"They've dragged him around from hotel
to hotel ever since he was a kid.

I was talking
to his mother this morning.

She's a lovely lady,
but she don't pretend
to manage him.

He's going
to Europe
to finish his education."

"Education isn't begun yet."

This was a Philadelphian,
curled up in a corner.

"That boy gets two hundred a month pocket-money,
he told me.

He isn't sixteen either."

"Railroads,
his father,
aind't it'?"
said the German.

"Yep.

That and mines and lumber and shipping.

Built one place at San Diego,
the old man has;
another at Los Angeles;
owns half a dozen railroads,
half the lumber on the Pacific slope,
and lets his wife spend the money,"
the Philadelphian went on lazily.

"The West don't suit her,
she says.

She just tracks around
with the boy and her nerves,
trying
to find out what'll amuse him,
I guess.

Florida,
Adirondacks,
Lakewood,
Hot Springs,
New York,
and round again.

He isn't much more than a second-hand hotel clerk now.

When he's finished in Europe he'll be a holy terror."

"What's the matter
with the old man attending
to him personally'?"
said a voice from the frieze ulster.

"Old man's piling up the rocks.

'Don't want
to be disturbed,
I guess.

He'll find out his error a few years from now.

'Pity,
because there's a heap of good in the boy if you could get at it."

"Mit a rope's end;
mit a rope's end!"
growled the German.

Once more the door banged,
and a slight,
slim-built boy perhaps fifteen years old,
a half-smoked cigarette hanging from one corner of his mouth,
leaned in over the high footway.

His pasty yellow complexion did not show well on a person of his years,
and his look was a mixture of irresolution,
bravado,
and very cheap smartness.

He was dressed in a cherry-coloured blazer,
knickerbockers,
red stockings,
and bicycle shoes,
with a red flannel cap at the back of the head.

After whistling between his teeth,
as he eyed the company,
he said in a loud,
high voice:

"Say,
it's thick outside.

You can hear the fish-boats squawking all around us.

Say,
wouldn't it be great if we ran down one?"
"Shut the door,
Harvey,"
said the New Yorker.

"Shut the door and stay outside.

You're not wanted here."

"Who'll stop me?"
he answered deliberately.

"Did you pay
for my passage,
Mister Martin?

'Guess I've as good right here as the next man."

He picked up some dice from a checker-board and began throwing,
right hand against left.

"Say,
gen'elmen,
this is deader'n mud.

Can't we make a game of poker between us?"
"There was no answer,
and he puffed his cigarette,
swung his legs,
and drummed on the table
with rather dirty fingers.

Then he pulled out a roll of bills as if
to count them.

"How's your mamma this afternoon?"
a man said.

"I didn't see her at lunch."

"In her state-room,
I guess.

She's
'most always sick on the ocean.

I'm going
to give the stewardess fifteen dollars
for looking after her.

I don't go down more'n I can avoid.

It makes me feel mysterious
to pass that butler's-pantry place.

Say,
this is the first time I've been on the ocean."

"Oh,
don't apologise,
Harvey."

"Who's apologising?

This is the first time I've crossed the ocean,
gen'elmen,
and,
except the first day,
I haven't been sick one little bit.

No,
sir!"
He brought down his fist
with a triumphant bang,
wetted his finger,
and went on counting the bills.

"Oh,
you're a high-grade machine,
with the writing in plain sight,"
the Philadelphian yawned.

"You'll blossom into a credit
to your country if you don't take care."

"I know it.

I'm an American - first,
last,
and all the time.

I'll show
'em that when I strike Europe.

Pif! My cig's out.

I can't smoke the truck the steward sells.

Any gen'elman got a real Turkish cig on him?"
The chief engineer entered
for a moment,
red,
smiling,
and wet.

"Say,
Mac,"
cried Harvey,
cheerfully,
"how are we hitting it?"
"Vara much in the ordinary way,"
was the grave reply.

"The young are as polite as ever
to their elders,
an'
their elders are e'en tryin'
to appreciate it.

A low chuckle came from a corner.

The German opened his cigar-case and handed a skinny black cigar
to Harvey.

"Dot is der broper apparatus
to smoke,
my young friendt,"
he said.

"You vill dry it?

Yes?

Den you vill be efer so happy."

Harvey lit the unlovely thing
with a flourish:

he felt that he was getting on in grown-up society.

"It would take more'n this
to keel me over,"
he said,
ignorant that he was lighting that terrible article,
a Wheeling
"stogie."

"Dot we shall bresently see,"
said the German.

"Where are we now,
Mr. Mactonal'?"
"Just there or thereabouts,
Mr. Schaefer,"
said the engineer.

"We'll be on the Grand Bank to-night;
but in a general way o'
speakin',
we're all among the fishing-fleet now.

We've shaved three dories an'
near skelped the boom off a Frenchman since noon,
an'
that's close sailin',
ye may say."

"You like my cigar,
eh?"
the German asked,
for Harvey's eyes were full of tears.

"Fine,
full flavour,"
he answered through shut teeth.

"Guess we've slowed down a little,
haven't we?

I'll skip out and see what the log says."

"I might if I vhas you,"
said the German.

Harvey staggered over the wet decks
to the nearest rail.

He was very unhappy;
but he saw the deck-steward lashing chairs together,
and,
since he had boasted before the man that he was never seasick,
his pride made him go aft
to the second-saloon deck at the stern,
which was finished in a turtle-back.

The deck was deserted,
and he crawled
to the extreme end of it,
near the flagpole.

There he doubled up in limp agony,
for the Wheeling
"stogie
"joined
with the surge and jar of the screw
to sieve out his soul.

His head swelled;
sparks of fire danced before his eyes;
his body seemed
to lose weight,
while his heels wavered in the breeze.

He was fainting from seasickness,
and a roll of the ship tilted him over the rail on
to the smooth lip of the turtle-back.

Then a low,
grey mother-wave swung out of the fog,
tucked Harvey under one arm,
so
to speak,
and pulled him off and away
to leeward;
the great green closed over him,
and he went quietly
to sleep.

He was roused by the sound of a dinner-horn such as they used
to blow at a summer-school he had once attended in the Adirondacks.

Slowly he remembered that he was Harvey Cheyne,
drowned and dead in mid-ocean,
but was too weak
to fit things together.

A new smell filled his nostrils;
wet and clammy chills ran down his back,
and he was helplessly full of salt water.

When he opened his eyes,
he perceived that he was still on the top of the sea,
for it was running round him in silver-coloured hills,
and he was lying on a pile of half- dead fish,
looking at a broad human back clothed in a blue jersey.

"It's no good,"
thought the boy.

"I'm dead,
sure enough,
and this thing is in charge."

He groaned,
and the figure turned its head,
showing a pair of little gold rings half hidden in curly black hair.

"Aha! You feel some pretty well now'?"
it said.

"Lie still so:

we trim better."

With a swift jerk he sculled the flickering boat-head on
to a foamless sea that lifted her twenty full feet,
only
to slide her into a glassy pit beyond.

But this mountain-climbing did not interrupt blue-jersey's talk.

"Fine good job,
I say,
that I catch you.

Eh,
wha-at?

Better good job,
I say,
your boat not catch me.

How you come
to fall out?"
"I was sick,"
said Harvey;
"sick,
and couldn't help it."

"Just in time I blow my horn,
and your boat she yaw a little.

Then I see you come all down.

Eh,
wha-at?

I think you are cut into baits by the screw,
but you dreeft - dreeft
to me,
and I make a big fish of you.

So you shall not die this time."

"Where am I?"
said Harvey,
who could not see that life was particularly safe where he lay.

"You are
with me in the dory - Manuel my name,
and I come from schooner
"We're Here"
of Gloucester.

I live
to Gloucester.

By-and- by we get supper.

Eh,
wha-at?"
He seemed
to have two pairs of hands and a head of cast-iron,
for,
not content
with blowing through a big conch-shell,
he must needs stand up
to it,
swaying
with the sway of the flat-bottomed dory,
and send a grinding,
thuttering shriek through the fog.

How long this entertainment lasted,
Harvey could not remember,
for he lay back terrified at the sight of the smoking swells.

He fancied he heard a gun and a horn and shouting.

Something bigger than the dory,
but quite as lively,
loomed alongside.

Several voices talked at once;
he was dropped into a dark,
heaving hole,
where men in oilskins gave him a hot drink and took off his clothes,
and he fell asleep.

When he waked he listened
for the first breakfast-bell on the steamer,
wondering why his stateroom had grown so small.

Turning,
he looked into a narrow,
triangular cave,
lit by a lamp hung against a huge square beam.

A three-cornered table within arm's reach ran from the angle of the
to the foremast.

At the after end,
behind a well-used Plymouth stove,
sat a boy about his own age,
with a flat red face and a pair of twinkling grey eyes.

He was dressed in a blue jersey and high rubber boots.

Several pairs of the same sort of foot-wear,
an old cap,
and some worn-out woolen socks lay on the floor,
and black and yellow oilskins swayed
to and fro beside the bunks.

The place was packed as full of smells as a bale is of cotton.

The oilskins had a peculiarly thick flavour of their own which made a sort of background
to the smells of fried fish,
burnt grease,
paint,
pepper,
and stale tobacco;
but these,
again,
were all hooped together by one encircling smell of ship and salt water.

Harvey saw
with disgust that there were no sheets on his bed-place.

He was lying on a piece of dingy ticking full of lumps and nubbles.

Then,
too,
the boat's motion was not that of a steamer.

She was neither sliding nor rolling,
but rather wriggling herself about in a silly,
aimless way,
like a colt at the end of a halter.

Water-noises ran by close
to his ear,
and beams creaked and whined about him.

All these things made him grunt despairingly and think of his mother.

"Feelin'
better?"
said the boy,
with a grin.

"Hev some coffee?"
He brought a tin cup full,
and sweetened it
with molasses.

"Is n't there milk?"
said Harvey,
looking round the dark double tier of bunks as if he expected
to find a cow there.

"Well,
no,"
said the boy.

"Ner there ain't likely
to be till
'baout mid-September.

'Tain't bad coffee.

I made it."

Harvey drank in silence,
and the boy handed him a plate full of pieces of crisp fried pork,
which he ate ravenously.

"I've dried your clothes.

Guess they've shrunk some,"
said the boy.

"They ain't our style much none of
'em.

Twist round an'
see ef you're hurt any."

Harvey stretched himself in every direction,
but could not report any injuries.

"That's good,"
the boy said heartily.

"Fix yerself an'
go on deck.

Dad wants
to see you.

I'm his son,
- Dan,
they call me,
- an'
I'm cook's helper an'
everything else aboard that's too dirty
for the men.

There ain't no boy here
'cep'
me sence Otto went overboard - an'
he was only a Dutchy,
an'
twenty year old at that.

How'd you come
to fall off in a dead flat ca'am?"
"'Twasn't a calm,"
said Harvey,
sulkily.

"It was a gale,
and I was seasick.

'Guess I must have rolled over the rail."

"There was a little common swell yes'day an'
last night,"
said the boy.

"But ef thet's your notion of a gale -"
He whistled.

"You'll know more
'fore you're through.

Hurry! Dad's waitin'."

Like many other unfortunate young people,
Harvey had never in all his life received a direct order - never,
at least,
without long,
and sometimes tearful,
explanations of the advantages of obedience and the reasons
for the request.

Mrs. Cheyne lived in fear of breaking his spirit,
which,
perhaps,
was the reason that she herself walked on the edge of nervous prostration.

He could not see why he should be expected
to hurry
for any man's pleasure,
and said so.

"Your dad can come down here if he's so anxious
to talk
to me.

I want him
to take me
to New York right away.

It'll pay him."

Dan opened his eyes,
as the size and beauty of this joke dawned on him.

"Say,
dad!"
he shouted up the fo'c'sle hatch,
"he says you kin slip down an'
see him ef you're anxious that way.

'Hear,
dad?"
The answer came back in the deepest voice Harvey had ever heard from a human chest:

"Quit foolin',
Dan,
and send him
to me."

Dan sniggered,
and threw Harvey his warped bicycle shoes.

There was something in the tones on the deck that made the boy dissemble his extreme rage and console himself
with the thought of gradually unfolding the tale of his own and his father's wealth on the voyage home.

This rescue would certainly make him a hero among his friends
for life.

He hoisted himself on deck up a perpendicular ladder,
and stumbled aft,
over a score of obstructions,
to where a small,
thick-set,
clean-shaven man
with grey eyebrows sat on a step that led up
to the quarter-deck.

The swell had passed in the night,
leaving a long,
oily sea,
dotted round the horizon
with the sails of a dozen fishing-boats.

Between them lay little black specks,
showing where the dories were out fishing.

The schooner,
with a triangular riding-sail on the mainmast,
played easily at anchor,
and except
for the man by the cabin-roof -
"house"
they call it - she was deserted.

"Mornin'
- good afternoon,
I should say.

You've nigh slep'
the clock around,
young feller,"
was the greeting.

"Mornin',"
said Harvey.

He did not like being called
"young feller";
and,
as one rescued from drowning,
expected sympathy.

His mother suffered agonies whenever he got his feet wet;
but this mariner did not seem excited.

"Naow let's hear all abaout it.

It's quite providential,
first an'
last,
fer all concerned.

What might be your name?

Where from
(we mistrust it's Noo York),
an'
where baound
(we mistrust it's Europe)?

Harvey gave his name,
the name of the steamer,
and a short history of the accident,
winding up
with a demand
to be taken back immediately
to New York,
where his father would pay anything any one chose
to name.

"H'm,"
said the shaven man,
quite unmoved by the end of Harvey's speech.

"I can't say we think special of any man,
or boy even,
that falls overboard from that kind o'
packet in a flat ca'am.

Least of all when his excuse is thet he's seasick."

"Excuse!"
cried Harvey.

"D'you suppose I'd fall overboard into your dirty little boat
for fun?"
"Not knowin'
what your notions o'
fun may be,
I can't rightly say,
young feller.

But if I was you,
I wouldn't call the boat which,
under Providence,
was the means o'
savin'
ye,
names.

In the first place,
it's blame irreligious.

In the second,
it's annoyin'
to my feelin's - an'
I'm Disko Troop o'
the
"We're Here"
o'
Gloucester,
which you don't seem rightly
to know."

"I don't know and I don't care,"
said Harvey.

"I'm grateful enough
for being saved and all that,
of course;
but I want you
to understand that the sooner you take me back
to New York the better it'll pay you."

"Meanin'- haow?"
Troop raised one shaggy eyebrow over a suspiciously mild blue eye.

"Dollars and cents,"
said Harvey,
delighted
to think that he was making an impression.

"Cold dollars and cents."

He thrust a hand into a pocket,
and threw out his stomach a little,
which was his way of being grand.

"You've done the best day's work you ever did in your life when you pulled me in.

I'm all the son Harvey Cheyne has."

"He's bin favoured,"
said Disko,
drily.

"And if you don't know who Harvey Cheyne is,
you don't know much - that's all.

Now turn her around and let's hurry."

Harvey had a notion that the greater part of America was filled
with people discussing and envying his father's dollars.

"Mebbe I do,
an'
mebbe I don't.

Take a reef in your stummick,
young feller.

It's full o'
my vittles."

Harvey heard a chuckle from Dan,
who was pretending
to be busy by the stump-foremast,
and the blood rushed
to his face.

"We'll pay
for that too,"
he said.

"When do you suppose we shall get
to New York?"
"I don't use Noo York any.

Ner Boston.

We may see Eastern Point abaout September;
an'
your pa - I'm real sorry I hain't heerd tell of him - may give me ten dollars efter all your talk.

Then o'
course he mayn't."

"Ten dollars! Why,
see here,
I -"
Harvey dived into his pocket
for the wad of bills.

All he brought up was a soggy packet of cigarettes.

"Not lawful currency,
an'
bad
for the lungs.

Heave
'em overboard,
young feller,
and try ag'in."

"It's been stolen!"
cried Harvey,
hotly.

"You'll hev
to wait till you see your pa
to reward me,
then?"
"A hundred and thirty-four dollars - all stolen,"
said Harvey,
hunting wildly through his pockets.

"Give them back."

A curious change flitted across old Troop's hard face.

"What might you have been doin'
at your time o'
life
with one hundred an'
thirty-four dollrs,
young feller?"
"It was part of my pocket-money -
for a month."

This Harvey thought would be a knockdown blow,
and it was - indirectly.

Oh! One hundred and thirty-four dollars is only part of his pocket-money -
for one month only! You don't remember hittin'
anything when you fell over,
do you?

Crack ag'in'
a stanchion,
le's say.

Old man Hasken o'
the
"East Wind"
- Troop seemed
to be talking
to himself -
"he tripped on a hatch an'
butted the mainmast
with his head - hardish.

'Baout three weeks afterwards,
old man Hasken he would hev it that the
"East Wind"
was a commerce-destroyin'
man-o'-war,
so he declared war on Sable Island because it was Bridish,
an'
the shoals run aout too far.

They sewed him up in a bed-bag,
his head an'
feet appearin',
fer the rest o'
the trip,
an'
now he's
to home in Essex playin'
with little rag dolls."

Harvey choked
with rage,
but Troop went on consolingly:

"We're sorry fer you.

We're very sorry fer you - an'
so young.

We won't say no more abaout the money,
I guess."

"'Course you won't.

You stole it."

"Suit yourself.

We stole it ef it's any comfort
to you.

Naow,
abaout goin'
back.

Allowin'
we could do it,
which we can't,
you ain't in no fit state
to go back
to your home,
an'
we've jest come on
to the Banks,
workin'
fer our bread.

We don't see the ha'af of a hundred dollars a month,
let alone pocket-money;
an'
with good luck we'll be ashore again somewheres abaout the first weeks o'
September."

"But - but it's May now,
and I can't stay here doin'
nothing just because you want
to fish.

I can't,
I tell you!"
"Right an'
jest;
jest an'
right.

No one asks you
to do nothin'.

There's a heap as you can do,
for Otto he went overboard on Le Have.

I mistrust he lost his grip in a gale we f'und there.

Anyways,
he never come back
to deny it.

You've turned up,
plain,
plumb providential
for all concerned.

I mistrust,
though,
there's ruther few things you kin do.

Ain't thet so?"
"I can make it lively
for you and your crowd when we get ashore,"
said Harvey,
with a vicious nod,
murmuring vague threats about
"piracy,"
at which Troop almost - not quite - smiled.

"Excep'
talk.

I'd forgot that.

You ain't asked
to talk more'n you've a mind
to aboard the
"We're Here".

Keep your eyes open,
an'
help Dan
to do ez he's bid,
an'
sechlike,
an'
I'll give you - you ain't wuth it,
but I'll give - ten an'
a ha'af a month;
say thirty-five at the end o'
the trip.

A little work will ease up your head,
an'
you kin tell us all abaout your dad an'
your ma n'
your money efterwards."

"She's on the steamer,"
said Harvey,
his eyes fill-with tears.

"Take me
to New York at once."

"Poor woman - poor woman! When she has you back she'll forgit it all,
though.

There's eight of us on the
"We're Here",
an'
ef we went back naow - it's more'n a thousand mile - we'd lose the season.

The men they wouldn't hev it,
allowin'
I was agreeable."

"But my father would make it all right."

"He'd try.

I don't doubt he'd try,"
said Troop;
"but a whole season's catch is eight men's bread;
an'
you'll be better in your health when you see him in the fall.

Go forward an'
help Dan.

It's ten an'
a ha'af a month,
ez I said,
an',
o'
course,
all f'und,
same ez the rest o'
us."

"Do you mean I'm
to clean pots and pans and things?"
said Harvey.

"An'
other things.

You've no call
to shout,
young feller."

"I won't! My father will give you enough
to buy this dirty little fish-kettle"
-- Harvey stamped on the deck -
"ten times over,
if you take me
to New York safe;
and - and - you're in a hundred and thirty by me,
anyway."

"Ha-ow?"
said Troop,
the iron face darkening.

"How?

You know how,
well enough.

On top of all that,
you want me
to do menial work"
- Harvey was very proud of that adjective -
"till the Fall.

I tell you I will not.

You hear?"
Troop regarded the top of the mainmast
with deep interest
for a while,
as Harvey harangued fiercely all around him.

"Hsh!"
he said at last.

"I'm figurin'
out my responsibilities in my own mind.

It's a matter o'
jedgment."

Dan Stole up and plucked Harvey by the elbow.

"Don't go
to tamperin'
with dad any more,"
he pleaded.

"You've called him a thief two or three times over,
an'
he don't take that from any livin'
bein'."

"I won't!"
Harvey almost shrieked,
disregarding the advice;
and still Troop meditated.

"Seems kinder unneighbourly,"
he said at last,
his eye travelling down
to Harvey.

"I don't blame you,
not a mite,
young feller,
nor you won't blame me when the bile's out o'
your systim.

'Be sure you sense what I say?

Ten an'
a ha'af fer second boy on the schooner - an'
all f'und - fer
to teach you an'
fer the sake o'
your health.

Yes or no?"
"No!"
said Harvey.

"Take me back
to New York or I'll see you -"
He did not exactly remember what followed.

He was lying in the scuppers,
holding on
to a nose that bled,
while Troop looked down on him serenely.

"Dan,"
he said
to his son,
"I was sot ag'in'
this young feller when I first saw him,
on account o'
hasty jedgments.

Never you be led astray by hasty jedgments,
Dan.

Naow I'm sorry
for him,
because he's clear distracted in his upper works.

He ain't responsible fer the names he's give me,
nor fer his other statements nor fer jumpin'
overboard,
which I'm abaout ha'af convinced he did.

You be gentle
with him,
Dan,
'r I'll give you twice what I've give him.

Them hemmeridges clears the head.

Let him sluice it off!"
- Troop went down solemnly into the cabin,
where he and the older men bunked,
leaving Dan
to comfort the luckless heir
to thirty millions.

CHAPTER II
"I warned ye,"
said Dan,
as the drops fell thick and fast on the dark,
oiled planking.

"Dad ain't noways hasty,
but you fair earned it.

Pshaw! there's no sense takin'
on so."

Harvey's shoulders were rising and falling in spasms of dry sobbing.

"I know the feelin'.

First time dad laid me out was the last - and that was my first trip.

Makes ye feel sickish an'
lonesome.

I know."

"It does,"
moaned Harvey.

"That man's either crazy or drunk,
and - and I can't do anything."

"Don't say that
to dad,"
whispered Dan.

"He's set ag'in'
all liquor,
an'
- well,
he told me you was the madman.

What in creation made you call him a thief?

He's my dad."

Harvey sat up,
mopped his nose,
and told the story of the missing wad of bills.

"I'm not crazy,"
he wound up.

"Only - your father has never seen more than a five-dollar bill at a time,
and my father could buy up this boat once a week and never miss it."

"You don't know what the
"We're Here's"
worth.

Your dad must hey a pile o'
money.

How did he git it?

Dad sez loonies can't shake out a straight yarn.

Go ahead."

"In gold-mines and things,
West."

"I've read o'
that kind o'
business.

Out West,
too?

Does he go around
with a pistol on a trick-pony,
same ez the circus?

They call that the Wild West,
and I've heard that their spurs an'
bridles was solid silver."

"You are a chump!"
said Harvey,
amused in spite of himself.

"My father hasn't any use
for ponies.

When he wants
to ride he takes his car."

"Haow?

Lobster-car?"
"No.

His own private car,
of course.

You've seen a private car some time in your life?"
"Slatin Beeman he hez one,"
said Dan,
cautiously.

"I saw her at the Union Depot in Boston,
with three niggers hoggin'
her run."

(Dan meant cleaning the windows.)
"But Slatin Beeman he owns
'baout every railroad on Long Island,
they say;
an'
they say he's bought
'baout ha'af Noo Hampshire an'
run a line-fence around her,
an'
filled her up
with lions an'
tigers an'
bears an'
buffalo an'
crocodiles an'
such all.

Slatin Beeman he's a millionaire.

I've seen his car.

Yes?"
"Well,
my father's what they call a multi-millionaire;
and he has two private cars.

One's named
for me,
the
'Harvey,'
and one
for my mother,
the
'Constance.'
"
"Hold on,"
said Dan.

"Dad don't ever let me swear,
but I guess you can.

'Fore we go ahead,
I want you
to say hope you may die if you're lying."

"Of course,"
said Harvey.

"Thet ain't
'nuff.

Say,
'Hope I may die if I ain't speakin'
truth.'
"
"Hope I may die right here,"
said Harvey,
"if every word I've spoken isn't the cold truth."

"Hundred an'
thirty-four dollars an'
all?"
said Dan.

"I heard ye talkin'
to dad,
an'
I ha'af looked you'd be swallered up,
same's Jonah."

Harvey protested himself red in the face.

Dan was a shrewd young person along his own lines,
and ten minutes'
questioning convinced him that Harvey was not lying - much.

Besides,
he had bound himself by the most terrible oath known
to boyhood,
and yet he sat,
alive,
with a red-ended nose,
in the scuppers,
recounting marvels upon marvels.

"Gosh!"
said Dan at last,
from the very bottom of his soul,
when Harvey had completed an inventory of the car named in his honour.

Then a grin of mischievous delight overspread his broad face.

"I believe you,
Harvey.

Dad's made a mistake fer once in his life."

"He has,
sure,"
said Harvey,
who was meditating an early revenge.

"He'll be mad clear through.

Dad jest hates
to be mistook in his jedgments."

Dan lay back and slapped his thigh.

"Oh,
Harvey,
don't you spile the catch by lettin'
on."

"I don't want
to be knocked down again.

I'll get even
with him,
though."

"Never heard any man ever got even
with dad.

But he'd knock ye down again sure.

The more he was mistook the more he'd do it.

But gold-mines and pistols -"
"I never said a word about pistols,"
Harvey cut in,
for he was on his oath.

"Thet's so;
no more you did.

Two private cars,
then,
one named fer you an'
one fer her;
an'
two hundred dollars a month pocket-money,
all knocked into the scuppers fer not workin'
fer ten an'
a ha'af a month! It's the top haul o'
the season."

He exploded
with noiseless chuckles.

"Then I was right?

"said Harvey,
who thought he had found a sympathiser.

"You was wrong;
the wrongest kind o'
wrong! You take right hold an'
pitch in
'longside o'
me,
or you'll catch it,
an'
I'll catch it fer backin'
you up.

Dad always gives me double helps
'cause I'm his son,
an'
he hates favourin'
folk.

'Guess you're kinder mad at dad.

I've been that way time an'
again.

But dad's a mighty jest man;
all the fleet says so."

o
"Looks like justice,
this,
don't it?"
Harvey pointed
to his outraged nose.

"Thet's nothin'.

Lets the shore blood outer you.

Dad did it
for yer health.

Say,
though,
I can't have dealin's
with a man that thinks me or dad or any one on the
"We're Here's"
a thief.

We ain't any common wharf-end crowd by any manner o'
means.

We're fishermen,
an'
we've shipped together
for six years an'
more.

Don't you make any mistake on that! I told ye dad don't let me swear.

He calls
'em vain oaths,
and pounds me;
but ef I could say what you said
'baout your pap an'
his fixin's,
I'd say that
'baout your dollars.

I dunno what was in your pockets when I dried your kit,
fer I didn't look
to see;
but I'd say,
using the very same words ez you used jest now,
neither me nor dad - an'
we was the only two that teched you after you was brought aboard - knows anythin'
'baout the money.

Thet's my say.

Naow?"
The bloodletting had certainly cleared Harvey's brain,
and maybe the loneliness of the sea had something
to do
with it.

"That's all right,"
he said.

Then he looked down confusedly.

"'Seems
to me that
for a fellow just saved from drowning I haven't been over and above grateful,
Dan."

"Well,
you was shook up and silly,"
said Dan.

"Anyway,
there was only dad an'
me aboard
to see it.

The cook he don't count."

"I might have thought about losing the bills that way,"
Harvey said,
half
to himself,
"instead of calling everybody in sight a thief Where's your father?"
"In the cabin What d'you want o'
him again?"
"You'll see,"
said Harvey,
and he stepped,
rather groggily,
for his head was still singing,
to the cabin steps,
where the little ship's clock hung in plain sight of the wheel.

Troop,
in the chocolate-and-yellow painted cabin,
was busy
with a note-book and an enormous black pencil,
which he sucked hard from time
to time
"I haven't acted quite right,"
said Harvey,
surprised at his own meekness.

"What's wrong naow?"
said the skipper
"Walked into Dan,
hev ye?"
"No;
it's about you."

"I'm here
to listen."

"Well,
I - I'm here
to take things back,"
said Harvey,
very quickly.

"When a man's saved from drowning -"
he gulped.

"Ey?

You'll make a man yet ef you go on this way."

"He oughtn't begin by calling people names."

"Jest an'
right - right an'
jest,"
said Troop,
with the ghost of a dry smile.

"So I'm here
to say I'm sorry."

Another big gulp.

Troop heaved himself slowly off the locker he was sitting on and held out an eleven-inch hand.

"I mistrusted
'twould do you sights o'
good;
an'
this shows I weren't mistook in my jedgments."

A smothered chuckle on deck caught his ear.

"I am very seldom mistook in my jedgments."

The eleven-inch hand closed on Harvey's,
numbing it
to the elbow.

"We'll put a little more gristle
to that
'fore we've done
with you,
young feller;
an'
I don't think any worse of ye fer anythin'
thet's gone by.

You wasn't fairly responsible.

Go right abaout your business an'
you won't take no hurt."

"You're white,"
said Dan,
as Harvey regained the deck,
flushed
to the tips of his ears.

"I don't feel it,"
said he.

"I didn't mean that way.

I heard what dad said.

When dad allows he don't think the worse of any man,
dad's give himself away.

He hates
to be mistook in his jedgments,
too.

Ho! ho! Onct dad has a jedgment,
he'd sooner dip his colours
to the British than change it.

I'm glad it's settled right eend up.

Dad's right when he says he can't take you back.

It's all the livin'
we make here - fishin'.

The men'll be back like sharks after a dead whale in ha'af an hour."

"What for?"
said Harvey.

"Supper,
o'
course.

Don't your stummick tell you?

You've a heap
to learn."

"'Guess I have,"
said Harvey,
dolefully,
looking at the tangle of ropes and blocks overhead.

"She's a daisy,"
said Dan,
enthusiastically,
misunderstanding the look.

"Wait till our mainsail's bent,
an'
she walks home
with all her salt wet.

There's some work first,
though."

He pointed down into the darkness of the open main-hatch between the two masts.

"What's that for?

It's all empty,"
said Harvey.

"You an'
me an'
a few more hev got
to fill it,"
said Dan.

"That's where the fish goes."

"Alive?"
said Harvey.

"Well,
no.

They're so's
to be ruther dead - an'
flat - an'
salt.

There's a hundred hogshead o'
salt in the bins;
an'
we hain't more'n covered our dunnage
to now."

"Where are the fish,
though?"
"'In the sea,
they say;
in the boats,
we pray,'"
said Dan,
quoting a fisherman's proverb.

"You come in last night with
'baout forty of
'em."

He pointed
to a sort of wooden pen just in front of the quarter- deck.

"You an'
me we'll sluice that out when they're through.

'Send we'll hev full pens to-night! I've seen her down ha'af a foot
with fish waitin'
to clean,
an'
we stood
to the tables till we was splittin'
ourselves instid o'
them,
we was so sleepy.

Yes,
they're comin'
in naow."

Dan looked over the low bulwarks at half a dozen dories rowing towards them over the shining,
silky sea.

"I've never seen the sea from so low down,"
said Harvey.

"It's fine."

The low sun made the water all purple and pinkish,
with golden lights on the barrels of the long swells,
and blue and green mackerel shades in the hollows.

Each schooner in sight seemed
to be pulling her dories towards her by invisible strings,
and the little black figures in the tiny boats pulled like clockwork toys.

"They've struck on good,"
said Dan,
between his half-shut eyes.

"Manuel hain't room fer another fish.

Low ez a lily-pad in still water,
ain't he?"
"Which is Manuel?

I don't see how you can tell
'em
'way off,
as you do."

"Last boat
to the south'ard.

He f'und you last night,"
said Dan,
pointing.

"Manuel rows Portugoosey;
ye can't mistake him.

East o'
him - he's a heap better'n he rows - is Pennsylvania.

Loaded
with saleratus,
by the looks of him.

East o'
him - see how pretty they string out all along
with the humpy shoulders,
is Long Jack.

He's a Galway man inhabitin'
South Boston,
where they all live mostly,
an'
mostly them Galway men are good in a boat.

North,
away yonder - you'll hear him tune up in a minute - is Tom Platt.

Man-o'-war's man he was on the old Ohio - first of our navy,
he says,
to go araound the Horn.

He never talks of much else,
'cept when he sings,
but be has fair fishin'
luck.

There! What did I tell you?"
A melodious bellow stole across the water from the northern dory.

Harvey heard something about somebody's hands and feet being cold,
and then:

"Bring forth the chart,
the doleful chart;
See where them mountings meet! The clouds are thick around their heads,
The mists around their feet."

"Full boat,"
said Dan,
with a chuckle.

"If he gives us
'O Captain'
it's toppin'
full."

The bellow continued:

"And naow
to thee,
O Capting,
Most earnestly I pray That they shall never bury me In church or cloister grey."

"Double game
for Tom Platt.

He'll tell you all about the old Ohio to-morrow.

'See that blue dory behind him?

He's my uncle,
- dad's own brother,
- an'
ef there's any bad luck loose on the Banks she'll fetch up ag'in'
Uncle Salters,
sure.

Look how tender he's rowin'.

I'll lay my wage and share he's the only man stung up to- day - an'
he's stung up good."

-
"What'll sting him?"
said Harvey,
getting interested.

"Strawberries,
mostly.

Punkins,
sometimes,
an'
sometimes lemons an'
cucumbers.

Yes,
he's stung up from his elbows down.

That man's luck's perfectly paralysin'.

Naow we'll take a-holt o'
the tackles an'
h'ist
'em in.

Is it true,
what you told me jest now,
that you never done a hand's turn o'
work in all your born life?

'Must feel kinder awful,
don't it?"
"I'm going
to try
to work,
anyway,"
Harvey replied stoutly.

"Only it's all dead new."

"Lay a-holt o'
that tackle,
then.

Behind ye!"
Harvey grabbed at a rope and long iron hook dangling from one of the stays of the mainmast,
while Dan pulled down another that ran from something he called a
"topping-lift,"
as Manuel drew alongside in his loaded dory.

The Portuguese smiled a brilliant smile that Harvey learned
to know well later,
and a short-handled fork began
to throw fish into the pen on deck.

"Two hundred and thirty-one,"
he shouted.

"Give him the hook,"
said Dan,
and Harvey ran it into Manuel's hands.

He slipped it through a loop of rope at the dory's bow,
caught Dan's tackle,
hooked it
to the stern-becket,
and clambered into the schooner.

"Pull!"
shouted Dan;
and Harvey pulled,
astonished
to find how easily the dory rose.

"Hold on;
she don't nest in the crosstrees!"
Dan laughed;
and Harvey held on,
for the boat lay in the air above his head.

"Lower away,"
Dan shouted;
and as Harvey lowered,
Dan swayed the light boat
with one hand till it landed softly just behind the mainmast.

"They don't weigh nothin'
empty.

Thet was right smart fer a passenger.

There's more trick
to it in a sea-way."

"Ah ha!"
said Manuel,
holding out a brown hand.

"You are some pretty well now?

This time last night the fish they fish
for you.

Now you fish
for fish.

Eh,
wha-at?"
"I'm - I'm ever so grateful,"
Harvey stammered,
and his unfortunate hand stole
to his pocket once more,
but he remembered that he had no money
to offer.

When he knew Manuel better the mere thought of the mistake he might have made would cover him
with hot,
uneasy blushes in his bunk.

"There is no
to be thankful for
to me!"
said Manuel.

"How shall I leave you dreeft,
dreeft all around the Banks?

Now you are a fisherman eh,
wha-at?

Ouh! Auh!"
He bent backward and forward stiffly from the hips
to get the kinks out of himself.

"I have not cleaned boat to-day.

Too busy.

They struck on queek.

Danny,
my son,
clean
for me."

Harvey moved forward at once.

Here was something he could do
for the man who had saved his life.

Dan threw him a swab,
and he leaned over the dory,
mopping up the slime clumsily,
but
with great good-will.

"Hike out the foot- boards;
they slide in them grooves,"
said Dan.

"Swab
'em an'
lay
'em down.

Never let a foot-board jam.

Ye may want her bad some day.

Here's Long Jack."

A stream of glittering fish flew into the pen from a dory alongside.

"Manuel,
you take the tackle.

I'll fix the tables.

Harvey,
clear Manuel's boat.

Long Jack's nestin'
on the top of her."

Harvey looked up from his swabbing at the bottom of another dory just above his head.

"Jest like the Injian puzzle-boxes,
ain't they?"
said Dan,
as the one boat dropped into the other.

"Takes
to ut like a duck
to water,"
said Long Jack,
a grizzly- chinned,
long-lipped Galway man,
bending
to and fro exactly as Manuel had done.

Disko in the cabin growled up the hatchway,
and they could hear him suck his pencil.

"Wan hunder an'
forty-nine an'
a half - bad luck
to ye,
Discobolus!"
said Long Jack.

"I'm murderin'
meself
to fill your pockuts.

Slate ut
for a bad catch.

The Portugee has bate me."

Whack came another dory alongside,
and more fish shot into the pen.

"Two hundred and three.

Let's look at the passenger!"
The speaker was even larger than the Galway man,
and his face was made curious by a purple cut running slantways from his left eye
to the right corner of his mouth.

Not knowing what else
to do,
Harvey swabbed each dory as it came down,
pulled out the foot-boards,
and laid them in the bottom of the boat.

"He's caught on good,"
said the scarred man,
who was Tom Platt,
watching him critically.

"There are two ways o'
doin'
everything.

One's fisher-fashion - any end first an'
a slippery hitch over all - an'
the other's -"
"What we did on the old Ohio!"
Dan interrupted,
brushing into the knot of men
with a long board on legs.

"Git out o'
here,
Tom Platt,
an'
leave me fix the tables."

He jammed one end of the board into two nicks in the bulwarks,
kicked out the leg,
and ducked just in time
to avoid a swinging blow from the man-o'-war's man.

"An'
they did that on the Ohio,
too,
Danny.

See?"
said Tom Platt,
laughing.

"'Guess they was swivel-eyed,
then,
fer it didn't git home,
and I know who'll find his boots on the main-truck ef he don't leave us alone.

Haul ahead! I'm busy,
can't ye see?"
"Danny,
ye lie on the cable an'
sleep all day,"
said Long Jack.

"You're the hoight av impidence,
an'
I'm persuaded ye'll corrupt our supercargo in a week."

"His name's Harvey,"
said Dan,
waving two strangely shaped knives,
"an'
he'll be worth five of any Sou'
Boston clam-digger
'fore long."

He laid the knives tastefully on the table,
cocked his head on one side,
and admired the effect.

"I think it's forty-two,"
said a small voice over-side,
and there was a roar of laughter as another voice answered,
"Then my luck's turned fer onct,
'caze I'm forty-five,
though I be stung outer all shape."

"Forty-two or forty-five.

I've lost count,"
the small voice said.

"It's Penn an'
Uncle Salters caountin'
catch.

This beats the circus any day,"
said Dan.

"Jest look at
'em!"
"Come in - come in!"
roared Long Jack.

"It's wet out yondher,
children."

"Forty-two,
ye said."

This was Uncle Salters.

"I'll count again,
then,"
the voice replied meekly.

The two dories swung together and bunted into the schooner's side.

"Patience o'
Jerusalem!
"snapped Uncle Salters,
backing water
with a splash.

"What possest a farmer like you
to set foot in a boat beats me.

You've nigh stove me all up."

"I am sorry,
Mr. Salters.

I came
to sea on account of nervous dyspepsia.

You advised me,
I think."

"You an'
your nervis dyspepsy be drowned in the Whale-hole,"
roared Uncle Salters,
a fat and tubly little man.

"You're comin'
down on me ag'in.

Did ye say forty-two or forty-five?"
"I've forgotten,
Mr. Salters.

Let's count."

"Don't see as it could be forty-five.

I'm forty-five,"
said Uncle Salters.

"You count keerful,
Penn."

Disko Troop came out of the cabin.

"Salters,
you pitch your fish in naow at once,"
he said in the tone of authority.

"Don't spile the catch,
dad,"
Dan murmured.

"Them two are on'y jest beginnin'."

"Mother av delight! He's forkin'
them wan by wan,"
howled Long Jack,
as Uncle Salters got
to work laboriously;
the little man in the other dory counting a line of notches on the gunwale.

"That was last week's catch,"
he said,
looking up plaintively,
his forefinger where he had left off.

Manuel nudged Dan,
who darted
to the after-tackle,
and,
leaning far overside,
slipped the hook into the stern-rope as Manuel made her fast forward.

The others pulled gallantly and swung the boat in - man,
fish,
and all.

"One,
two,
four - nine,"
said Tom Platt,
counting
with a practised eye.

"Forty-seven.

Penn,
you're it!"
Dan let the after-tackle run,
and slid him out of the stern on
to the deck amid a torrent of his own fish.

"Hold on!"
roared Uncle Salters,
bobbing by the waist.

"Hold on,
I'm a bit mixed in my caount."

He had no time
to protest,
but was hove inboard and treated like
"Pennsylvania."

"Forty-one,"
said Tom Platt.

"Beat by a farmer,
Salters.

An'
you sech a sailor,
too!"
"'Tweren't fair caount,"
said he,
stumbling out of the pen;
"an'
I'm stung up all
to pieces."

His thick hands were puffy and mottled purply white.

"Some folks will find strawberry-bottom,"
said Dan,
addressing the newly risen moon,
"ef they hev
to dive fer it,
seems
to me."

"An'
others,"
said Uncle Salters,
"eats the fat o'
the land in sloth,
an'
mocks their own blood-kin."

"Seat ye! Seat ye!"
a voice Harvey had not heard called from the fo'c'sle.

Disko Troop,
Tom Platt,
Long Jack,
and Salters went forward on the word.

Little Penn bent above his square deep-sea reel and the tangled cod-lines;
Manuel lay down full length on the deck,
and Dan dropped into the hold,
where Harvey heard him banging casks
with a hammer.

"Salt,"
he said,
returning.

"Soon as we're through supper we git
to dressing-down.

You'll pitch
to dad.

Tom Platt an'
dad they stow together,
an'
you'll hear
'em arguin'.

We're second ha'af,
you an'
me an'
Manuel an'
Penn - the youth an'
beauty o'
the boat."

"What's the good of that?"
said Harvey.

"I'm hungry."

"They'll be through in a minute.

Sniff! She smells good to-night.

Dad ships a good cook ef he do suffer
with his brother.

It's a full catch today,
ain't it?"
He pointed at the pens piled high
with cod.

"What water did ye hev,
Manuel?"
"Twenty-fife father,"
said the Portuguese,
sleepily.

"They strike on good an'
queek.

Some day I show you,
Harvey."

The moon was beginning
to walk on the still sea before the elder men came aft.

The cook had no need
to cry
"second half."

Dan and Manuel were down the hatch and at table ere Tom Platt,
last and most deliberate of the elders,
had finished wiping his mouth
with the back of his hand.

Harvey followed Penn,
and sat down before a tin pan of cod's tongues and sounds,
mixed
with scraps of pork and fried potato,
a loaf of hot bread,
and some black and powerful coffee.

Hungry as they were,
they waited while
"Pennsylvania"
solemnly asked a blessing.

Then they stoked in silence till Dan drew breath over his tin cup and demanded of Harvey how he felt.

"'Most full,
but there's just room
for another piece."

The cook was a huge,
jet-black negro,
and,
unlike all the negroes Harvey had met,
did not talk,
contenting himself
with smiles and dumb-show invitations
to eat more.

"See,
Harvey,"
said Dan,
rapping
with his fork on the table,
"it's jest as I said.

The young an'
handsome men - like me an'
Pennsy an'
you an'
Manuel - we
're second ha'af,
an'
we eats when the first ha'af are through.

They're the old fish;
and they're mean an'
humpy,
an'
their stummicks has
to be humoured;
so they come first,
which they don't deserve.

Ain't that so,
doctor?"
The cook nodded.

"Can't he talk?"
said Harvey,
in a whisper.

"'Nough
to git along.

Not much o'
anything we know.

His natural tongue's kinder curious.

Comes from the in'ards of Cape Breton,
he does,
where the farmers speak home-made Scotch.

Cape Breton's full o'
niggers whose folk run in there durin'
aour war,
an'
they talk like the farmers - all huffy-chuffy."

"That is not Scotch,"
said
"Pennsylvania."

"That is Gaelic.

So I read in a book."

"Penn reads a heap.

Most of what he says is so -
'cep'
when it comes
to a caount o'
fish - eh?"
"Does your father just let them say how many they've caught without checking them?"
said Harvey.

"Why,
yes.

Where's the sense of a man lyin'
fer a few old cod?"
"Was a man once lied
for his catch,"
Manuel put in.

"Lied every day.

Fife,
ten,
twenty-fife more fish than come he say there was."

"Where was that?"
said Dan.

"None o'
aour folk."

"Frenchman of Anguille."

"Ah! Them West Shore Frenchmen don't caount,
anyway.

Stands
to reason they can't caount.

Ef you run acrost any of their soft hooks,
Harvey,
you'll know why,"
said Dan,
with an awful contempt.

"Always more and never less,
Every time we come
to dress,"
Long Jack roared down the hatch,
and the
"second ha'af"
scrambled up at once.

The shadow of the masts and rigging,
with the never-furled riding- sail,
rolled
to and fro on the heaving deck in the moonlight;
and the pile of fish by the stern shone like a dump of fluid silver.

In the hold there were tramplings and rumblings where Disko Troop and Tom Platt moved among the salt-bins.

Dan passed Harvey a pitchfork,
and led him
to the inboard end of the rough table,
where Uncle Salters was drumming impatiently
with a knife-haft.

A tub of salt water lay at his feet.

"You pitch
to dad an'
Tom Platt down the hatch,
an'
take keer Uncle Salters don't cut yer eye out,"
said Dan,
swinging himself into the hold.

"I'll pass salt below."

Penn and Manuel stood knee-deep among cod in the pen,
flourishing drawn knives.

Long Jack,
a basket at his feet and mittens on his hands,
faced Uncle Salters at the table,
and Harvey stared at the pitchfork and the tub.

"Hi!"
shouted Manuel,
stooping
to the fish,
and bringing one up
with a finger under its gill and a finger in its eye.

He laid it on the edge of the pen;
the knife-blade glimmered
with a sound of tearing,
and the fish,
slit from throat
to vent,
with a nick on either side of the neck,
dropped at Long Jack's feet.

"Hi!"
said Long Jack,
with a scoop of his mittened hand.

The cod's liver dropped in the basket.

Another wrench and scoop sent the head and offal flying,
and the empty fish slid across
to Uncle Salters,
who snorted fiercely.

There was another sound of tearing,
the backbone flew over the bulwarks,
and the fish,
headless,
gutted,
and open,
splashed in the tub,
sending the salt water into Harvey's astonished mouth.

After the first yell,
the men were silent.

The cod moved along as though they were alive,
and long ere Harvey had ceased wondering at the miraculous dexterity of it all,
his tub was full.

"Pitch!"
grunted Uncle Salters,
without turning his head,
and Harvey pitched the fish by twos and threes down the hatch.

"Hi! Pitch
'em bunchy,"
shouted Dan.

"Don't scatter! Uncle Salters is the best splitter in the fleet.

Watch him mind his book!"
Indeed,
it looked a little as though the round uncle were cutting magazine pages against time.

Manuel's body,
cramped over from the hips,
stayed like a statue;
but his long arms grabbed the fish without ceasing.

Little Penn toiled valiantly,
but it was easy
to see he was weak.

Once or twice Manuel found time
to help him without breaking the chain of supplies,
and once Manuel howled because he had caught his finger in a Frenchman's hook.

These hooks are made of soft metal,
to be rebent after use;
but the cod very often get away
with them and are hooked again elsewhere;
and that is one of the many reasons why the Gloucester boats despise the Frenchmen.

Down below,
the rasping sound of rough salt rubbed on rough flesh sounded like the whirring of a grindstone - a steady undertune
to the
"click-nick"
of the knives in the pen;
the wrench and schloop of torn heads,
dropped liver,
and flying offal;
the
"caraaah"
of Uncle Salters's knife scooping away backbones;
and the flap of wet,
opened bodies falling into the tub.

At the end of an hour Harvey would have given the world
to rest;
for fresh,
wet cod weigh more than you would think,
and his back ached
with the steady pitching.

But he felt
for the first time in his life that he was one of a working gang of men,
took pride in the thought,
and held on sullenly.

"Knife oh!"
shouted Uncle Salters,
at last.

Penn doubled up,
gasping among the fish,
Manuel bowed back and forth
to supple himself,
and Long Jack leaned over the bulwarks.

The cook appeared,
noiseless as a black shadow,
collected a mass of backbones and heads,
and retreated.

"Blood-ends
for breakfast an'
head-chowder,"
said Long Jack,
smacking his lips.

"Knife oh!"
repeated Uncle Salters,
waving the flat,
curved splitter's weapon.

"Look by your foot,
Harve,"
cried Dan,
below.

Harvey saw half a dozen knives stuck in a cleat in the hatch combing.

He dealt these around,
taking over the dulled ones.

"Water!"
said Disko Troop.

"Scuttle-butt's for'ard,
an'
the dipper's alongside.

Hurry,
Harve,"
said Dan.

He was back in a minute
with a big dipperful of stale brown water which tasted like nectar,
and loosed the jaws of Disko and Tom Platt.

"These are cod,"
said Disko.

"They ain't Damarskus figs,
Tom Platt,
nor yet silver bars.

I've told you that every single time sence we've sailed together."

"A matter o'
seven seasons,"
returned Tom Platt,
coolly.

"Good stowin's good stowin'
all the same,
an'
there's a right an'
a wrong way o'
stowin'
ballast even.

If you'd ever seen four hundred ton o'
iron set into the -"
"Hi!"
With a yell from Manuel the work began again,
and never stopped till the pen was empty.

The instant the last fish was down,
Disko Troop rolled aft
to the cabin
with his brother;
Manuel and Long Jack went forward;
Tom Platt only waited long enough
to slide home the hatch ere he too disappeared.

In half a minute Harvey heard deep snores in the cabin,
and he was staring blankly at Dan and Penn.

"I did a little better that time,
Danny,"
said Penn,
whose eyelids were heavy
with sleep.

"But I think it is my duty
to help clean."

"'Wouldn't hev your conscience fer a thousand quintal,"
said Dan.

"Turn in,
Penn.

You've no call
to do boy's work.

Draw a bucket,
Harvey.

Oh,
Penn,
dump these in the gurry-butt
'fore you sleep.

Kin you keep awake that long?"
Penn took up the heavy basket of fish-livers,
emptied them into a cask
with a hinged top lashed by the fo'c'sle;
then he too dropped out of sight in the cabin.

"Boys clean up after dressin'
down,
an'
first watch in ca'am weather is boy's watch on the 43
"CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS"
'We're Here'."

Dan sluiced the pen energetically,
unshipped the table,
set it up
to dry in the moonlight,
ran the red knife-blades through a wad of oakum,
and began
to sharpen them on a tiny grindstone,
as Harvey threw offal and backbones overboard under his direction.

At the first splash a silvery-white ghost rose bolt upright from the oily water and sighed a weird whistling sigh.

Harvey started back
with a shout,
but Dan only laughed.

"Grampus,"
said he.

"Beggin'
fer fish-heads.

They up-eend thet way when they're hungry.

Breath on him like the doleful tombs,
hain't he?"
A horrible stench of decayed fish filled the air as the pillar of white sank,
and the water bubbled oilily.

"Hain't ye never seen a grampus up-eend before?

You'll see
'em by hundreds
'fore ye're through.

Say,
it's good
to hev a boy aboard again.

Otto was too old,
an'
a Dutchy at that.

Him an'
me we fought consid'ble.

'Wouldn't ha'
keered fer thet ef he'd hed a Christian tongue in his head.

Sleepy?"
"Dead sleepy,"
said Harvey,
nodding forward.

"'Mustn't sleep on watch.

Rouse up an'
see ef our anchor-light's bright an'
shinin'.

You're on watch now,
Harve."

"Pshaw! What's
to hurt us?

Bright's day.

Sn-orrr!
"Jest when things happen,
dad says.

Fine weather's good sleepin',
an'
'fore you know,
mebbe,
you're cut in two by a liner,
an'
seventeen brass-bound officers,
all gen'elmen,
lift their hand
to it that your lights was aout an'
there was a thick fog.

Harve,
I've kinder took
to you,
but ef you nod onct more I'll lay into you
with a rope's end."

The moon,
who sees many strange things on the Banks,
looked down on a slim youth in knickerbockers and a red jersey,
staggering around the cluttered decks of a seventy-ton schooner,
while behind him,
waving a knotted rope,
walked,
after the manner of an executioner,
a boy who yawned and nodded between the blows he dealt.

The lashed wheel groaned and kicked softly,
the riding-sail slatted a little in the shifts of the light wind,
the windlass creaked,
and the miserable procession continued.

Harvey expostulated,
threatened,
whimpered,
and at last wept outright,
while Dan,
the words clotting on his tongue,
spoke of the beauty of watchfulness,
and slashed away
with the rope's end,
punishing the dories as often as he hit Harvey.

At last the clock in the cabin struck ten,
and upon the tenth stroke little Penn crept on deck.

He found two boys in two tumbled heaps side by side on the main-hatch,
so deeply asleep that he actually rolled them
to their berths.

CHAPTER III It was the forty-fathom slumber that clears the soul and eye and heart,
and sends you
to breakfast ravening.

They emptied a big tin dish of juicy fragments of fish - the blood-ends the cook had collected overnight.

They cleaned up the plates and pans of the elder mess,
who were out fishing,
sliced pork
for the midday meal,
swabbed down the fo'c'sle,
filled the lamps,
drew coal and water
for the cook,
and investigated the fore-hold,
where the boat's stores were stacked.

It was another perfect day - soft,
mild,
and clear;
and Harvey breathed
to the very bottom of his lungs.

More schooners had crept up in the night,
and the long blue seas were full of sails and dories.

Far away on the horizon,
the smoke of some liner,
her hull invisible,
smudged the blue,
and
to eastward a big ship's topgallantsails,
just lifting,
made a square nick in it.

Disko Troop was smoking by the roof of the cabin - one eye on the craft around,
and the other on the little fly at the mainmast-head.

"When dad kerflummoxes that way,"
said Dan,
in a whisper,
"he's doin'
some high-line thinkin'
fer all hands.

I'll lay my wage an'
share we'll make berth soon.

Dad he knows the cod,
an'
the fleet they know dad knows.

'See
'em comin'
up one by one,
lookin'
fer nothin'
in particular,
o'
course,
but scrowgin'
on us all the time?

There's the Prince Leboa;
she's a Chat-ham boat.

She's crep'
up sence last night.

An'
see that big one
with a patch in her foresail an'
a new jib?

She's the Carrie Pitman from West Chat- ham.

She won't keep her canvas long on less her luck's changed since last season.

She don't do much
'cep'
drift.

There ain't an anchor made'll hold her.

.

.

.

When the smoke puffs up in little rings like that,
dad's studyin'
the fish.

Ef we speak
to him now,
he'll git mad.

Las'
time I did,
he jest took an'
hove a boot at me."

Disko Troop stared forward,
the pipe between his teeth,
with eyes that saw nothing.

As his son said,
he was studying the fish - pitting his knowledge and experience on the Banks against the roving cod in his own sea.

He accepted the presence of the inquisitive schooners on the horizon as a compliment
to his powers.

But now that it was paid,
he wished
to draw away and make his berth alone,
till it was time
to go up
to the Virgin and fish in the streets of that roaring town upon the waters.

So Disko Troop thought of recent weather,
and gales,
currents,
food- supplies,
and other domestic arrangements,
from the point of view of a twenty-pound cod;
was,
in fact,
for an hour a cod himself,
and looked remarkably like one.

Then he removed the pipe from his teeth.

"Dad,"
said Dan,
"we've done our chores.

Can't we go overside a piece?

It's good catch-in'
weather."

"Not in that cherry-coloured rig ner them ha'afbaked brown shoes.

Give him suthin'
fit
to wear."

"Dad's pleased - that settles it,"
said Dan,
delightedly,
dragging Harvey into the cabin,
while Troop pitched a key down the steps.

"Dad keeps my spare rig where he kin overhaul it,
'cause ma sez I'm keerless."

He rummaged through a locker,
and in less than three minutes Harvey was adorned
with fisherman's rubber boots that came half up his thigh,
a heavy blue jersey well darned at the elbows,
a pair of flippers,
and a sou'wester.

"Naow ye look somethin'
like,"
said Dan.

"Hurry!"
"Keep nigh an'
handy,"
said Troop,
"an'
don't go visitin'
raound the fleet.

Ef any one asks you what I'm cal'latin'
to do,
speak the truth - fer ye don't know."

A little red dory,
labelled Hattie S.,
lay astern of the schooner.

Dan hauled in the painter,
and dropped lightly on
to the bottom boards,
while Harvey tumbled clumsily after.

"That's no way o'
gettin'
into a boat,"
said Dan.

"Ef there was any sea you'd go
to the bottom,
sure.

You got
to learn
to meet her."

Dan fitted the thole-pins,
took the forward thwart,
and watched Harvey's work.

The boy had rowed,
in a ladylike fashion,
on the Adirondack ponds;
but there is a difference between squeaking pins and well-balanced rowlocks - light sculls and stubby,
eight-foot sea-oars.

They stuck in the gentle swell,
and Harvey grunted.

"Short! Row short!"
said Dan.

"Ef you cramp your oar in any kind o'
sea you're liable
to turn her over.

Ain't she a daisy?

Mine,
too."

The little dory was specklessly clean.

In her bows lay a tiny anchor,
two jugs of water,
and some seventy fathoms of thin,
brown dory-roding.

A tin dinner-horn rested in cleats just under Harvey's right hand,
beside an ugly-looking maul,
a short gaff,
and a shorter wooden stick.

A couple of lines,
with very heavy leads and double cod-hooks,
all neatly coiled on square reels,
were stuck in their place by the gunwale.

"Where's the sail and mast?"
said Harvey,
for his hands were beginning
to blister.

Dan chuckled.

"Ye don't sail fishin'-dories much.

Ye pull;
but ye needn't pull so hard.

Don't you wish you owned her?"
"Well,
I guess my father might give me one or two if I asked
'em,"
Harvey replied.

He had been too busy
to think much of his family till then.

"That's so.

I forgot your dad's a millionaire.

You don't act millionary any,
naow.

But a dory an'
craft an'
gear"
- Dan spoke as though she were a whale-boat
"costs a heap.

Think your dad
'u'd give you one fer - fer a pet like?"
"Shouldn't wonder.

It would be
'most the only thing I haven't stuck him
for yet."

"Must be an expensive kinder kid
to home.

Don't slitheroo thet way,
Harve.

Short's the trick,
because no sea's ever dead still,
an'
the swells'll -"
Crack! The loom of the oar kicked Harvey under the chin and knocked him backward.

"That was what I was goin'
to say.

I hed
to learn too,
but I wasn't more than eight years old when I got my schoolin'."

Harvey regained his seat
with aching jaws and a frown.

"No good gettin'
mad at things,
dad says.

It's our own fault ef we can't handle
'em,
he says.

Le's try here.

Manuel'll give us the water."

The
"
Portugee"
was rocking fully a mile away,
but when Dan up- ended an oar he waved his left arm three times.

"Thirty fathom,"
said Dan,
stringing a salt clam on
to the hook.

"Over
with the dough-boys.

Bait same's I do,
Harve,
an'
don't snarl your reel."

Dan's line was out long before Harvey had mastered the mystery of baiting and heaving out the leads.

The dory drifted along easily.

It was not worth while
to anchor till they were sure of good ground.

"Here we come!"
Dan shouted,
and a shower of spray rattled on Harvey's shoulders as a big cod flapped and kicked alongside.

"Muckle,
Harvey,
muckle! Under your hand! Quick!"
Evidently
"muckle"
could not be the dinner-horn,
so Harvey passed over the maul,
and Dan scientifically stunned the fish before he pulled it inboard,
and wrenched out the hook
with the short wooden stick he called a
"gob-stick."

Then Harvey felt a tug,
and pulled up zealously.

"Why,
these are strawberries!"
he shouted.

"Look!"
The hook had fouled among a bunch of strawberries,
red on one side and white on the other - perfect reproductions of the land fruit,
except that there were no leaves,
and the stem was all pipy and slimy.

"Don't tech
'em! Slat
'em off.

Don't -"
The warning came too late.

Harvey had picked them from the hook,
and was admiring them.

"Ouch!"
he cried,
for his fingers throbbed as though he had grasped many nettles.

"Naow ye know what strawberry-bottom means.

Nothin'
'cep'
fish should be teched
with the naked fingers,
dad says.

Slat
'em off ag'in'
the gunnel,
an'
bait up,
Harve.

Lookin'
won't help any.

It's all in the wages."

Harvey smiled at the thought of his ten and a half dollars a month,
and wondered what his mother would say if she could see him hanging over the edge of a fishing-dory in mid-ocean.

She suffered agonies whenever he went out on Saranac Lake;
and,
by the way,
Harvey remembered distinctly that he used
to laugh at her anxieties.

Suddenly the line flashed through his hand,
stinging even through the
"flippers,"
the woolen circlets supposed
to protect it.

"He's a logy.

Give him room accordin'
to his strength,"
cried Dan.

"I'll help ye."

"No,
you won't,"
Harvey snapped,
as he hung on
to the line.

"It's my first fish.

Is - is it a whale?"
"Halibut,
mebbe."

Dan peered down into the water alongside,
and flourished the big
"muckle,"
ready
for all chances.

Something white and oval flickered and fluttered through the green.

"I'll lay my wage an'
share he's over a hundred.

Are you so everlastin'
anxious
to land him alone?"
Harvey's knuckles were raw and bleeding where they had been banged against the gunwale;
his face was purple-blue between excitement and exertion;
he dripped
with sweat,
and was half blinded from staring at the circling sunlit ripples about the swiftly moving line.

The boys were tired long ere the halibut,
who took charge of them and the dory
for the next twenty minutes.

But the big flat fish was gaffed and hauled in at last.

"Beginner's luck,"
said Dan,
wiping his forehead.

"He's all of a hundred."

Harvey looked at the huge grey-and-mottled creature
with unspeakable pride.

He had seen halibut many times on marble slabs ashore,
but it had never occurred
to him
to ask how they came inland.

Now he knew;
and every inch of his body ached
with fatigue.

"Ef dad was along,"
said Dan,
hauling up,
"he'd read the signs plain's print.

The fish arc runnin'
smaller an'
smaller,
an'
you've took baout as logy a halibut's we're apt
to find this trip.

Yesterday's catch - did ye notice it?

- was all big fish an'
no halibut.

Dad he'd read them signs right off.

Dad says everythin'
on the Banks is signs,
an'
can be read wrong er right.

Dad's deeper'n the Whale-hole."

Even as he spoke some one fired a pistol on the
"We're Here",
and a potato-basket was run up in the fore-rigging.

"What did I say,
naow?

That's the call fer the whole crowd.

Dad's onter something,
er he'd never break fishin'
this time o'
day.

Reel up,
Harve,
an'
we'll pull back."

They were
to windward of the schooner,
just ready
to flirt the dory over the still sea,
when sounds of woe half a mile off led them
to Penn,
who was careering around a fixed point,
for all the world like a gigantic water-bug.

The little man backed away and came down again
with enormous energy,
but at the end of each manoeuvre his dory swung round and snubbed herself on her rope.

"We'll hey
to help him,
else he'll root an'
seed here,"
said Dan.

"What's the matter?"
said Harvey.

This was a new world,
where he could not lay down the law
to his elders,
but had
to ask questions humbly.

And the sea was horribly big and unexcited.

"Anchor's fouled.

Penn's always losing
'em.

Lost two this trip a'ready,
- on sandy bottom,
too,
- an'
dad says next one he loses,
sure's fish-in',
he'll give him the kelleg.

That
'u'd break Penn's heart."

"What's a
'kelleg'?"
said Harvey,
who had a vague idea it might be some kind of marine torture,
like keel-hauling in the story-books.

"Big stone instid of an anchor.

You kin see a kelleg ridin'
in the bows fur's you can see a dory,
an'
all the fleet knows what it means.

They'd guy him dreadful.

Penn couldn't stand that no more'n a dog
with a dipper
to his tail.

He's so everlastin'
sensitive.

Hello,
Penn! Stuck again?

Don't try any more o'
your patents.

Come up on her,
and keep your rodin'
straight up an'
down."

"It doesn't move,"
said the little man,
panting.

"It doesn't move at all,
and indeed I tried everything."

"What's all this hurrah's-nest for'ard?"
said Dan,
pointing
to a wild tangle of spare oars and dory-roding,
all matted together by the hand of inexperience.

"Oh,
that,"
said Penn,
proudly,
"is a Spanish windlass.

Mr. Salters showed me how
to make it;
but even that doesn't move her."

Dan bent low over the gunwale
to hide a smile,
twitched once or twice on the roding,
and,
behold,
the anchor drew at once.

"Haul up,
Penn,"
he said,
laughing,
"er she
'll git stuck again."

They left him regarding the weed-hung flukes of the little anchor
with big,
pathetic blue eyes,
and thanking them profusely.

"Oh,
say,
while I think of it,
Harve,"
said Dan,
when they were out of ear-shot,
"Penn ain't quite all caulked.

He ain't nowise dangerous,
but his mind's give out.

See?"
"Is that so,
or is it one of your father's judgments?"
Harvey asked,
as he bent
to his oars.

He felt he was learning
to handle them more easily.

"Dad ain't mistook this time.

Penn's a sure'nuff loony.

No,
he ain't thet,
exactly,
so much ez a harmless ijjit.

It was this way
(you're rowin'
quite so,
Harve),
an'
I tell you
'cause it's right you orter know.

He was a Moravian preacher once.

Jacob Boller wuz his name,
dad told me,
an'
he lived
with his wife an'
four children somewheres out Pennsylvania way.

Well,
Penn he took his folks along
to a Moravian meetin',
- camp-meetin',
most like,
- an'
they stayed over jest one night in Johnstown.

You've heered talk o'
Johnstown?"
Harvey considered.

"Yes,
I have.

But I don't know why.

It sticks in my head same as Ashtabula."

"Both was big accidents - thet's why,
Harve.

Well,
that one single night Penn and his folks was
to the hotel Johnstown was wiped out.

'Dam bu'st an'
flooded her,
an'
the houses struck adrift an'
bumped into each other an'
sunk.

I've seen the pictures,
an'
they're dretful.

Penn he saw his folk drowned all
'n a heap
'fore he rightly knew what was comin'.

His mind give out from that on.

He mistrusted somethin'
hed happened up
to Johnstown,
but
for the poor life of him he couldn't remember what,
an'
he jest drifted araound smilin'
an'
wonderin'.

He didn't know what he was,
nor yit what he hed bin,
an'
thet way he run ag'in'
Uncle Salters,
who was visitin'
'n Allegheny City.

Ha'af my mother's folks they live scattered inside o'
Pennsylvania,
an'
Uncle Salters he visits araound winters.

Uncle Salters he kinder adopted Penn,
well knowin'
what his trouble wuz;
an'
he brought him East,
an'
he give him work on his farm."

"Why,
I heard him calling Penn a farmer last night when the boats bumped.

Is your Uncle Salters a farmer?"
"Farmer!"
shouted Dan.

"There ain't water enough
'tween here an'
Hatt'rus
to wash the furrer-mould off'n his boots.

He's Jest everlastin'
farmer.

Why,
Harve,
I've seen thet man hitch up a bucket,
long towards sundown,
an'
set twiddlin'
the spigot
to the scuttle-butt same's ef
'twuz a cow's bag.

He's thet much farmer.

Well,
Penn an'
he they ran the farm - up Exeter way,
'twuz.

Uncle Salters he sold it this spring
to a jay from Boston as wanted
to build a summerhaouse,
an'
he got a heap
for it.

Well,
them two loonies scratched along till,
one day,
Penn's church he'd belonged
to - the Moravians - found out where he wuz drifted an'
layin',
an'
wrote
to Uncle Salters.

'Never heerd what they said exactly;
but Uncle Salters was mad.

He's a
'piscopalian mostly - but he jest let
'em hev it both sides o'
the bow,
'sif he was a Baptist,
an'
sez he warn't goin'
to give up Penn
to any blame Moravian connection in Pennsylvania or anywheres else.

Then he come
to dad,
towin'
Penn,
- thet was two trips back,
- an'
sez he an'
Penn must fish a trip fer their health.

'Guess he thought the Moravians wouldn't hunt the Banks fer Jacob Boller.

Dad was agreeable,
fer Uncle Salters he'd been fishin'
off an'
on fer thirty years,
when he warn't inventin'
patent manures,
an'
he took quarter-share in the
'We're Here';
an'
the trip done Penn so much good,
dad made a habit o'
takin'
him.

Some day,
dad sez,
he'll remember his wife an'
kids an'
Johnstown,
an'
then,
like's not,
he'll die,
dad sez.

Don't yer talk about Johnstown ner such things
to Penn,
'r Uncle Salters he'll heave ye overboard."

"Poor Penn!"
murmured Harvey.

"I shouldn't ever have thought Uncle Salters cared
for him by the look of
'em together."

"I like Penn,
though;
we all do,"
said Dan.

"We ought
to ha'
give him a tow,
but I wanted
to tell ye first."

They were close
to the schooner now,
the other boats a little behind them.

"You needn't heave in the dories till after dinner,"
said Troop,
from the deck.

"We'll dress-daown right off.

Fix table,
boys!"
"Deeper'n the Whale-deep,"
said Dan,
with a wink,
as he set the gear
for dressing-down.

"Look at them boats that hev edged up sence mornin'.

They're all waitin'
on dad.

See
'em,
Harve?"
"They are all alike
to me."

And,
indeed,
to a landsman the nodding schooners around seemed run from the same mould.

"They ain't,
though.

That yaller,
dirty packet
with her bowsprit steeved that way,
she's the
'Hope of Prague'.

Nick Brady's her skipper,
the meanest man on the Banks.

We'll tell him so when we strike the Main Ledge.

'Way off yander's the
'Day's Eye'.

The two Jeraulds own her.

She's from Harwich;
fastish,
too,
an'
hez good luck;
but dad he'd find fish in a graveyard.

Them other three,
side along,
they're the
'Margie Smith',
'Rose',
and
'Edith S.

Walen',
all frum home.

'Guess we'll see the
'Abbie M.

Deering'
to- morrer,
dad,
won't we?

They're all slippin'
over from the shoal o'
'Queereau."

"You won't see many boats to-morrow,
Danny."

When Troop called his son Danny,
it was a sign that the old man was pleased.

"Boys,
we're too crowded,"
he went on,
addressing the crew as they clambered inboard.

"We'll leave
'em
to bait big an'
catch small."

He looked at the catch in the pen,
and it was curious
to see how little and level the fish ran.

Save
for Harvey's halibut,
there was nothing over fifteen pounds on deck.

"I'm waitin'
on the weather,"
he added.

"Ye'll have
to make it yourself,
Disko,
for there's no sign I can see,"
said Long Jack,
sweeping the clear horizon.

And yet,
half an hour later,
as they were dressing-down,
the Bank fog dropped on them,
"between fish and fish,"
as they say.

It drove steadily and in wreaths,
curling and smoking along the colourless water.

The men stopped dressing-down without a word.

Long Jack and Uncle Salters slipped the windlass-brakes into their sockets,
and began
to heave up the anchor,
the windlass jarring as the wet hempen cable strained on the barrel.

Manuel and Tom Platt gave a hand at the last.

The anchor came up
with a sob,
and the riding-sail bellied as Troop steadied her at the wheel.

"Up jib and foresail,"
said he.

"Slip
'em in the smother,"
shouted Long Jack,
making fast the jib- sheet,
while the others raised the clacking,
rattling rings of the foresail;
and the fore-boom creaked as the
"We're Here"
looked up into the wind and dived off into blank,
whirling white.

"There's wind behind this fog,"
said Troop.

It was all wonderful beyond words
to Harvey;
and the most wonderful part was that he heard no orders except an occasional grunt from Troop,
ending with,
"That's good,
my son!"
"'Never seen anchor weighed before?"
said Tom Platt,
to Harvey gaping at the damp canvas of the foresail.

"No.

Where are we going?"
"Fish and make berth,
as you'll find out
'fore you've bin a week aboard.

It's all new
to you,
but we never know what may come
to us.

Now,
take me - Tom Platt - I'd never ha'
thought -"
"It's better than fourteen dollars a month an'
a bullet in your belly,"
said Troop,
from the wheel.

"Ease your jumbo a grind."

"Dollars an'
cents better,"
returned the man-o'-war's man,
doing something
to a big jib
with a wooden spar tied
to it.

"But we didn't think o'
that when we manned the windlass-brakes on the
'Miss Jim Buck',1 outside Beaufort Harbor,
with Fort Macon heavin'
hot shot at our stern,
an'
a livin'
gale atop of all.

Where was you then,
Disko?"
"Jest here,
or hereabouts,"
Disko replied,
"earnin'
my bread on the deep waters,
and dodgin'
Reb privateers.

'Sorry I can't accommodate you
with red-hot shot,
Tom Platt;
but I guess we'll come aout all right on wind
'fore we see Eastern Point."

There was an incessant slapping and chatter at the bows now,
varied by a solid thud and a little spout of spray that clattered down on the fo'c'sle.

The rigging dripped clammy drops,
and the men lounged along the lee of the house - all save Uncle Salters,
who sat stiffly on the main-hatch nursing his stung hands.

1 The Gemsbok,
U.

S.

N.?

"'Guess she'd carry stays'l,"
said Disko,
rolling one eye at his brother.

"Guess she wouldn't
to any sorter profit.

What's the sense o'
wastin'
canvas?"
the farmer-sailor replied.

The wheel twitched almost imperceptibly in Disko's hands.

A few seconds later a hissing wave-top slashed diagonally across the boat,
smote Uncle Salters between the shoulders,
and drenched him from head
to foot.

He rose sputtering,
and went forward,
only
to catch another.

"See dad chase him,
all around the deck,"
said Dan.

"Uncle Salters he thinks his quarter-share's our canvas.

Dad's put this duckin'
act up on him two trips runnin'.

Hi! That found him where he feeds."

Uncle Salters had taken refuge by the foremast,
but a wave slapped him over the knees.

Disko's face was as blank as the circle of the wheel.

"'Guess she'd lie easier under stays'l,
Salters,"
said Disko,
as though he had seen nothing.

"Set your old kite,
then,"
roared the victim,
through a cloud of spray;
"only don't lay it
to me if anything happens.

Penn,
you go below right off an'
git your coffee.

You ought
to hev more sense than
to bum araound on deck this weather."

"Now they'll swill coffee an'
play checkers till the cows come home,"
said Dan,
as Uncle Salters hustled Penn into the fore- cabin.

"'Looks
to me like's if we'd all be doin'
so fer a spell.

There's nothin'
in creation deader-limpsey-idler'n a Banker when she ain't on fish."

"I'm glad ye spoke,
Danny,"
cried Long Jack,
who had been casting round in search of amusement.

"I'd clean forgot we'd a passenger under that T-wharf hat.

There's no idleness
for thim that don't know their ropes.

Pass him along,
Tom Platt,
an'
we'll l'arn him."

"'Tain't my trick this time,"
grinned Dan.

"You've got
to go it alone.

Dad learned me
with a rope's end."

For an hour Long Jack walked his prey up and down,
teaching,
as he said,
"things at the sea that ivry man must know,
blind,
dhrunk,
or asleep."

There is not much gear
to a seventy-ton schooner
with a stump-foremast,
but Long Jack had a gift of expression.

When he wished
to draw Harvey's attention
to the peak-halyards,
he dug his knuckles into the back of the boy's neck and kept him at gaze
for half a minute.

He emphasised the difference between fore and aft generally by rubbing Harvey's nose along a few feet of the boom,
and the lead of each rope was fixed in Harvey's mind by the end of the rope itself.

The lesson would have been easier had the deck been at all free;
but there appeared
to be a place on it
for everything and anything except a man.

Forward lay the windlass and its tackle,
with the chain and hemp cables,
all very unpleasant
to trip over;
the fo'c'sle stovepipe,
and the gurry-butts by the fo'c'sle-hatch
to hold the fish-livers.

Aft of these the fore-boom and booby of the main-hatch took all the space that was not needed
for the pumps and dressing-pens.

Then came the nests of dories lashed
to ring- bolts by the quarter-deck;
the house,
with tubs and oddments lashed all around it;
and,
last,
the sixty-foot main-boom in its crutch,
splitting things lengthwise,
to duck and dodge under every time.

Tom Platt,
of course,
could not keep his oar out of the business,
but ranged alongside
with enormous and unnecessary descriptions of sails and spars on the old Ohio.

"Niver mind fwhat he says;
attind
to me,
Innocince.

Tom Platt,
this bally-hoo's not the Ohio,
an'
you're mixing the bhoy bad."

"He'll be ruined
for life,
beginnin'
on a fore-an'-after this way,"
Tom Platt pleaded.

"Give him a chance
to know a few leadin'
principles.

Sailin's an art,
Harvey,
as I'd show you if I had ye in the foretop o'
the -"
"I know ut.

Ye'd talk him dead an'
cowld.

Silince,
Tom Platt! Now,
after all I've said,
how'd you reef the foresail,
Harve'?

Take your time answerin'."

"Haul that in,"
said Harvey,
pointing
to leeward.

"Fwhat?

The North Atlantuc?"
"No,
the boom.

Then run that rope you showed me back there -"
"That's no way,"
Tom Platt burst in.

"Quiet! He's l'arnin',
an'
has not the names good yet.

Go on,
Harve."

"Oh,
it's the reef-pennant.

I'd hook the tackle on
to the reef- pennant,
and then let down -"
"Lower the sail,
child! Lower!"
said Tom Platt,
in a professional agony.

"Lower the throat-and peak-halyards,"
Harvey went on.

Those names stuck in his head.

"Lay your hand on thim,"
said Long Jack.

Harvey obeyed.

"Lower till that rope-loop - on the after-leach - kris - no,
it's cringle - till the cringle was down on the boom.

Then I'd tie her up the way you said,
and then I'd hoist up the peak-and throat-halyards again."

"You've forgot
to pass the tack-earing,
but wid time and help ye'll l'arn.

There's good and just reason
for ivry rope aboard,
or else
'twould be overboard.

D'ye follow me?

'Tis dollars an'
cents I'm puttin'
into your pocket,
ye skinny little supercargo,
so that fwhin ye've filled out ye can ship from Boston
to Cuba an'
tell thim Long Jack l'arned you.

Now I'll chase ye around a piece,
callin'
the ropes,
an'
you'll lay your hand on thim as I call."

He began,
and Harvey,
who was feeling rather tired,
walked slowly
to the rope named.

A rope's end licked round his ribs,
and nearly knocked the breath out of him.

"When you own a boat,"
said Tom Platt,
with severe eyes,
"you can walk.

Till then,
take all orders at the run.

Once more -
to make sure!"
Harvey was in a glow
with the exercise,
and this last cut warmed him thoroughly.

Now,
he was a singularly smart boy,
the son of a very clever man and a very sensitive woman,
with a fine resolute temper that systematic spoiling had nearly turned
to mulish obstinacy.

He looked at the other men,
and saw that even Dan did not smile.

It was evidently all in the day's work,
though it hurt abominably;
so he swallowed the hint
with a gulp and a gasp and a grin.

The same smartness that led him
to take such advantage of his mother made him very sure that no one on the boat,
except,
maybe,
Penn,
would stand the least nonsense.

One learns a great deal from a mere tone.

Long Jack called over half a dozen more ropes,
and Harvey danced over the deck like an eel at ebb-tide,
one eye on Tom Platt.

"Ver'
good.

Ver'
good done,"
said Manuel.

"After supper I show you a little schooner I make,
with all her ropes.

So we shall learn."

"Fust-class fer - a passenger,"
said Dan.

"Dad he's jest allowed you'll be wuth your salt maybe
'fore you're draownded.

Thet's a heap fer dad.

I'll learn you more our next watch together."

"Taller!"
grunted Disko,
peering through the fog as it smoked over the bows.

There was nothing
to be seen ten feet beyond the surging jib-boom,
while alongside rolled the endless procession of solemn,
pale waves whispering and upping one
to the other.

"Now I'll learn you something Long Jack can't,"
shouted Tom Platt,
as from a locker by the stern he produced a battered deep-sea lead hollowed at one end,
smeared the hollow from a saucer full of mutton tallow,
and went forward.

"I'll learn you how
to fly the Blue Pigeon.

Shooo!"
Disko did something
to the wheel that checked the schooner's way,
while Manuel,
with Harvey
to help
(and a proud boy was Harvey),
let down the jib in a lump on the boom.

The lead sung a deep droning song as Tom Platt whirled it round and round.

"Go ahead,
man,"
said Long Jack,
impatiently.

"We're not drawin'
twenty-five fut off Fire Island in a fog.

There's no trick
to ut."

"Don't be jealous,
Galway."

The released lead plopped into the sea far ahead as the schooner surged slowly forward.

"Soundin'
is a trick,
though,"
said Dan,
"when your dipsey lead's all the eye you're like
to hev
for a week.

What d'you make it,
dad?"
Disko's face relaxed.

His skill and honour were involved in the march he had stolen on the rest of the fleet,
and he had his reputation as a master artist who knew the Banks blindfold.

"Sixty,
mebbe - ef I'm any judge,"
he replied,
with a glance at the tiny compass in the window of the house.

"Sixty,"
sung out Tom Platt,
hauling in great wet coils.

The schooner gathered way once more.

"Heave!"
said Disko,
after a quarter of an hour.

"What d'you make it?"
Dan whispered,
and he looked at Harvey proudly.

But Harvey was too proud of his own performances
to be impressed just then.

"Fifty,"
said the father.

"I mistrust we're right over the nick o'
Green Bank on old Sixty-Fifty."

"Fifty!"
roared Tom Platt.

They could scarcely see him through the fog.

"She's bu'st within a yard - like the shells at Fort Macon."

"Bait up,
Harve,"
said Dan,
diving
for a line on the reel.

The schooner seemed
to be straying promiscuously through the smother,
her head-sail banging wildly.

The men waited and looked at the boys,
who began fishing.

"Heugh!"
Dan's lines twitched on the scored and scarred rail.

"Now haow in thunder did dad know?

Help us here,
Harve.

It's a big un.

Poke-hooked,
too."

They hauled together,
and landed a goggle-eyed twenty-pound cod.

He had taken the bait right into his stomach.

"Why,
he's all covered
with little crabs,"
cried Harvey,
turning him over.

"By the great hook-block,
they're lousy already,"
said Long Jack.

"Disko,
ye kape your spare eyes under the keel."

Splash went the anchor,
and they all heaved over the lines,
each man taking his own place at the bulwarks.

"Are they good
to eat?"
Harvey panted,
as he lugged in another crab-covered cod.

"Sure.

When they're lousy it's a sign they've all been herdin'
together by the thousand,
and when they take the bait that way they're hungry.

Never mind how the bait sets.

They'll bite on the bare hook."

"Say,
this is great!"
Harvey cried,
as the fish came in gasping and splashing -nearly all poke-hooked,
as Dan had said.

"Why can't we always fish from the boat instead of from the dories?"
"Allus can,
till we begin
to dress-daown.

Efter thet,
the heads and offals
'u'd scare the fish
to Fundy.

Boat-fishin'
ain't reckoned progressive,
though,
unless ye know as much as dad knows.

Guess we'll run aout aour trawl to-night.

Harder on the back,
this,
than frum the dory,
ain't it?"
It was rather back-breaking work,
for in a dory the weight of a cod is water-borne till the last minute,
and you are,
so
to speak,
abreast of him;
but the few feet of a schooner's free-board make so much extra dead-hauling,
and stooping over the bulwarks cramps the stomach.

But it was wild and furious sport so long as it lasted;
and a big pile lay aboard when the fish ceased biting.

"Where's Penn and Uncle Salters?"
Harvey asked,
slapping the slime off his oilskins,
and reeling up the line in careful imitation of the others.

"Git's coffee and see."

Under the yellow glare of the lamp on the pawl-post,
the fo'c'sle table down and opened,
utterly unconscious of fish or weather,
sat the two men,
a checker-board between them,
Uncle Salters snarling at Penn's every move.

"What's the matter naow?"
said the former,
as Harvey,
one hand in the leather loop at the head of the ladder,
hung shouting
to the cook.

"Big fish and lousy-heaps and heaps,"
Harvey replied,
quoting Long Jack.

"How's the game?"
Little Penn's jaw dropped.

"Tweren't none o'
his fault,"
snapped Uncle Salters.

"Penn's deef."

"Checkers,
weren't it?"
said Dan,
as Harvey staggered aft
with the steaming coffee in a tin pail.

"That lets us out o'
cleanin'
up to-night.

Dad's a jest man.

They'll have
to do it."

"An'
two young fellers I know'll bait up a tub or so o'
trawl,
while they're cleanin',"
said Disko,
lashing the wheel
to his taste.

"Urn!
'Guess I'd ruther clean up,
dad."

"Don't doubt it.

Ye wun't,
though.

Dress-daown! Dress-daown! Penn'll pitch while you two bait up."

"Why in thunder didn't them blame boys tell us you'd struck on?"
said Uncle Salters,
shuffling
to his place at the table.

"This knife's gum-blunt,
Dan."

"Ef stickin'
out cable don't wake ye,
guess you'd better hire a boy o'
your own,"
said Dan,
muddling about in the dusk over the tubs full of trawl-line lashed
to windward of the house.

"Oh,
Harve,
don't ye want
to slip down an'
git's bait?"
"Bait ez we are,"
said Disko.

"I mistrust shag-fishin'
will pay better,
ez things go."

That meant the boys would bait
with selected offal of the cod as the fish were cleaned - an improvement on paddling barehanded in the little bait-barrels below.

The tubs were full of neatly coiled line carrying a big hook each few feet;
and the testing and baiting of every single hook,
with the stowage of the baited line so that it should run clear when shot from the dory,
was a scientific business.

Dan managed it in the dark without looking,
while Harvey caught his fingers on the barbs and bewailed his fate.

But the hooks flew through Dan's fingers like tatting on an old maid's lap.

"I helped bait up trawl ashore
'fore I could well walk,"
he said.

"But it's a putterin'
job all the same.

Oh,
dad!"
This shouted towards the hatch,
where Disko and Tom Platt were salting.

"How many skates you reckon we'll need?"
"Baout three.

Hurry!"
"There's three hundred fathom
to each tub,"
Dan explained;
"more'n enough
to lay out tonight.

Ouch!
'Slipped up there,
I did."

He stuck his finger in his mouth.

"I tell you,
Harve,
there ain't money in Gloucester'u'd hire me
to ship on a reg'lar trawler.

It may be progressive,
but,
barrin'
that,
it's the putterin'est,
slimjammest business top of earth."

"I don't know what this is,
if
'tisn't regular trawling,"
said Harvey,
sulkily.

"My fingers are all cut
to frazzles."

"Pshaw! This is jest one o'
dad's blame experiments.

He don't trawl
'less there's mighty good reason fer it.

Dad knows.

Thet's why he's baitin'
ez he is.

We'll hev her saggin'
full when we take her up er we won't see a fin."

Penn and Uncle Salters cleaned up as Disko had ordained,
but the boys profited little.

No sooner were the tubs furnished than Tom Platt and Long Jack,
who had been exploring the inside of a dory
with a lantern,
snatched them away,
loaded up the tubs and some small,
painted trawl-buoys,
and hove the boat overboard into what Harvey regarded as an exceedingly rough sea.

"They'll be drowned.

Why,
the dory's loaded like a freight-car,"
he cried.

"We'll be back,"
said Long Jack,
"an'
in case you'll not be lookin'
for us,
we'll lay into you both if the trawl's snarled."

The dory surged up on the crest of a wave,
and just when it seemed impossible that she could avoid smashing against the schooner's side,
slid over the ridge,
and was swallowed up in the damp dusk.

"Take a-hold here,
an'
keep ringin'
steady,"
said Dan,
passing Harvey the lanyard of a bell that hung just behind the windlass.

Harvey rang lustily,
for he felt two lives depended on him.

But Disko in the cabin,
scrawling in the log-book,
did not look like a murderer,
and when he went
to supper he even smiled drily at the anxious Harvey.

"This ain't no weather,"
said Dan.

"Why,
you an'
me could set thet trawl! They've only gone out jest far
'nough so's not
to foul our cable.

They don't need no bell reelly."

"Clang! cling! clang!"
Harvey kept it up,
varied
with occasional rub-a-dubs,
for another half-hour.

There was a bellow and a bump alongside.

Manuel and Dan raced
to the hooks of the dory-tackle;
Long Jack and Tom Platt arrived on deck together,
it seemed,
one half the North Atlantic at their backs,
and the dory followed them in the air,
landing
with a clatter.

"Nary snarl,"
said Tom Platt,
as he dripped.

"Danny,
you'll do yet."

"The pleasure av your comp'ny
to the banquit,"
said Long Jack,
squelching the water from his boots as he capered like an elephant and stuck an oilskinned arm into Harvey's face.

"We do be condescending
to honour the second half wid our presence."

And off they all four rolled
to supper,
where Harvey stuffed himself
to the brim on fish-chowder and fried pies,
and fell fast asleep just as Manuel produced from a locker a lovely two-foot model of the Lucy Holmes,
his first boat,
and was going
to show Harvey the ropes.

Harvey never even twiddled his fingers as Penn pushed him into his bunk.

"It must be a sad thing - a very sad thing,"
said Penn,
watching the boy's face,
"for his mother and his father,
who think he is dead.

To lose a child -
to lose a man-child!"
"Git out o'
this,
Penn,"
said Dan.

"Go aft and finish your game
with Uncle Salters.

Tell dad I'll stand Harve's watch ef he don't keer.

He's played aout."

"Ver'
good boy,"
said Manuel,
slipping out of his boots and disappearing into the black shadows of the lower bunk.

"Expec'
he make good man,
Danny.

I no see he is any so mad as your parpa he says.

Eh,
wha-at?"
Dan chuckled,
but the chuckle ended in a snore.

It was thick weather outside,
with a rising wind,
and the elder men stretched their watches.

The hours struck clear in the cabin;
the nosing bows slapped and scuffled
with the seas;
the fo'c'sle stovepipe hissed and sputtered as the spray caught it;
and the boys slept on,
while Disko,
Long Jack,
Tom Plait,
and Uncle Salters,
each in turn,
stumped aft
to look at the wheel,
forward
to see that the anchor held,
or
to veer out a little more cable against chafing,
with a glance at the dim anchor-light between each round.

CHAPTER IV Harvey waked
to find the
"first half"
at
'breakfast,
the fo'c'sle door drawn
to a crack,
and every square inch of the schooner singing its own tune.

The black bulk of the cook balanced behind the tiny galley over the glare of the stove,
and the pots and pans in the pierced wooden board before it jarred and racketed
to each plunge.

Up and up the fo'c'sle climbed,
yearning and surging and quivering,
and then,
with a clear,
sickle-like swoop,
came down into the seas.

He could hear the flaring bows cut and squelch,
and there was a pause ere the divided waters came down on the deck above,
like a volley of buck-shot.

Followed the woolly sound of the cable in the hawse-hole;
a grunt and squeal of the windlass;
a yaw,
a punt,
and a kick,
and the
"We're Here"
gathered herself together
to repeat the motions.

"Now,
ashore,"
he heard Long Jack saying,
"ye've chores,
an'
ye must do thim in any weather.

Here we're well clear of the fleet,
an'
we've no chores - an'
that's a blessin'.

Good night,
all."

He passed like a big snake from the table
to his bunk,
and began
to smoke.

Tom Platt followed his example;
Uncle Salters,
with Penn,
fought his way up the ladder
to stand his watch,
and the cook set
for the
"second half."

It came out of its bunks as the others had entered theirs,
with a shake and a yawn.

It ate till it could eat no more;
and then Manuel filled his pipe
with some terrible tobacco,
crotched himself between the pawl-post and a forward bunk,
cocked his feet up on the table,
and smiled tender and indolent smiles at the smoke.

Dan lay at length in his bunk,
wrestling
with a gaudy,
gilt-stopped accordion,
whose tunes went up and down
with the pitching of the
"We're Here".

The cook,
his shoulders against the locker where he kept the fried pies
(Dan was fond of fried pies),
peeled potatoes,
with one eye on the stove in event of too much water finding its way down the pipe;
and the general smell and smother were past all description.