"CAPTAINS 
 COURAGEOUS 
 
 RUDYARD KIPLING 
 
CORNELL .„ 
 
 UNIVEJ^JTX- 
 LIBRARY " 
 
 FROM 
 
 Jo Jan Stambaugii 
 
Cornell University Library 
 PR 4854.C25 1897b 
 
 Captains courageous", 
 
 3 1924 013 493 246 
 
The original of this book is in 
 the Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924013493246 
 
" CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 
 
Books by Rudyard Kipling 
 
 Actions and Reactions 
 
 Brushwood Boy, The 
 , Captains Courageous 
 
 Collected Verse 
 
 Day's Work, The 
 
 Departmental Ditties 
 and Ballads and Bar- 
 rack-Room Ballads 
 
 Diversity of Crea- 
 tures, A 
 
 Eyes of Asia, The 
 
 Feet of the Young 
 Men, The 
 
 Five Nations, The 
 
 France at War 
 
 Fringes ok the Fleet 
 
 From Sea to Sea 
 
 History of England, A 
 
 Jungle Book, The 
 
 Jungle Book, Second 
 
 Just So Song Book 
 
 Just So Stories 
 
 Kim 
 
 Kipling Stories and 
 Poems E .-ery Child 
 Should Know 
 
 Kipling Birthday Book, 
 The 
 
 Letters of Travel 
 
 Life's Handicap: Being 
 Stories of Mine Own 
 People 
 
 Light That Failed, The 
 
 Many Inventions 
 
 Naulahka, The (With 
 Wolcott Balestier) 
 
 Plain Tales From the 
 Hills 
 
 Puck of Poor's Hill 
 
 Rewards and Fairies 
 
 Rudyard Kipling's 
 Verse: Inclusive Edi- 
 tion, 1885-1918 
 
 Sea Warfare 
 
 Seven Seas, The 
 
 Soldier Stories 
 
 Soldiers Three, The 
 Story of the Gadsbys, 
 and In Black and 
 White 
 
 Song of the English, A 
 
 Songs from Books 
 
 Stalky & Co. 
 
 They 
 
 Traffics and Discover- 
 ies 
 
 Under the Deodars, 
 The Phantom 'Rick- 
 shaw, and Wee Willie 
 Winkie 
 
 With the Night Mail 
 
 Years Between, The 
 
>"^ 
 
 ''it was thick weather outside, with a rising wind. . 
 the nosing bows slapped and scuffled with the seas.' 
 
<c 
 
 CAPTAINS 
 COURAGEOUS" 
 
 By Rudyard Kipling 
 
 SCHOOL EDITION 
 
 GARDEN CITY NEW YORK 
 
 DOUBLEDAY, DORAN & COMPANY, INC. 
 
COPYRIGHT, 1896, 1897, BY 
 
 RUDYARD KIPLING 
 
 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 
 
 47^77 
 
 i 
 
 PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES 
 
 AT 
 
 THE COUNTRY LIFE PRESS, GARDEN CITY, N. Y. 
 
 .U'.-iKi V.UQ 
 
 V'i IfcJi/iVIMU 
 
 YViAViMJ 
 
TO 
 JAMES CONLAND, M. D., 
 
 BRATTLEBORO, VERMONT 
 
 I ploughed the land with horses, 
 
 But my heart was ill at ease, 
 For the old sea-faring men 
 Came to me now and then, 
 With their sagas of the seas. 
 
 Longfellow. 
 
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 "it was thick weather outside, with a rising 
 wind. . . . the nosing bows slapped and 
 scuffled with the seas." .... Frontispiece 
 
 PAGE 
 
 HARVEY 5 
 
 "THEN A LOW, GRAY MOTHER-WAVE SWUNG OUT OF 
 THE FOG, TUCKED HARVEY UNDER ONE ARM, SO 
 TO SPEAK, AND PULLED HIM OFF AND AWAY TO 
 LEEWARD." II 
 
 "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." 15 
 
 " 'EXCUSE !' CRIED HARVEY, 'd' YOU SUPPOSE I 'd 
 FALL OVERBOARD INTO YOUR DIRTY LITTLE BOAT 
 FOR FUN?'" 21 
 
 THE "WE 'RE HERE." 37 
 
 " 'l 'LL LAY MY WAGE AN' SHARE HE 's OVER A 
 
 HUNDRED.' " 73 
 
 "A FEW SECONDS LATER A HISSING WAVE-TOP SMOTE 
 UNCLE SALTERS BETWEEN THE SHOULDERS, AND 
 DRENCHED HIM FROM HEAD TO FOOT." .... 85 
 
 "FOR AN HOUR LONG JACK WALKED HIS PREY UP 
 AND DOWN, TEACHING, AS HE SAID, 'THINGS IVRY 
 MAN MUST KNOW, BLIND, DHRUNK, OR ASLEEP.' " 9 1 
 vii- 
 
viii LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 " "T IS A CONCERT,' SAID LONG JACK, BEAMING 
 THROUGH THE SMOKE. *A REG'LAR BOSTON 
 CONCERT.' " Ill 
 
 "THEY RAN DOWN TO WHERE ABISHAl's CRAFT HAD 
 VANISHED; FOUND TWO OR THREE TRAWL-TUBS, 
 A GIN-BOTTLE, AND A STOVE-IN DORY, BUT NOTH- 
 ING MORE." 129 
 
 "a whiteness moved in the whiteness of the 
 fog ... it was his first introduction to 
 the dread summer berg of the bank." . . 1 43 
 
 "there were days of light airs, when harvey 
 was taught how to steer the schooner 
 from one berth to another." 151 
 
 "'hi! say! arretez vous! attendez! nous 
 sommes venant pour tabac.' 'ah, tabac, 
 
 TABAC!'" 163 
 
 "IT WAS WONDERFUL FISHING. HARVEY COULD SEE 
 THE GLIMMERING COD BELOW, . . . BITING AS 
 STEADILY AS THEY SWAM. . . . BUT SO CLOSE 
 LAY THE BOATS THAT EVEN SINGLE HOOKS 
 SNARLED." t 203 
 
 DRESSING-DOWN ON THE "WE 're HERE." . . . 
 
 "DORIES CAME ALONGSIDE WITH LETTERS FOR 
 
 HOME." 233 
 
 THE "CONSTANCE." 247 
 
 MRS. CHEYNE INTRODUCES THE CREW OF THE 
 
 "WE 'RE HERE" TO THE "CONSTANCE." . . . 273 
 
 "HIS FATHER TURNED WHERE HE SAT AND THRUST 
 OUT A LONG HAND. 'You KNOW AS WELL AS I 
 DO THAT I CAN'T MAKE ANYTHING OF YOU IF 
 YOU DON'T ACT STRAIGHT BY ME.' " . . . . 289 
 
 BIDDING FAREWELL TO THE "WE 'RE HERE." . . 319 
 
" CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 
 
" CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 
 
 A STORY OF THE GRAND BANKS 
 
 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, shut- 
 ting the door with a bang. "He is n't wanted 
 here. He 's too fresh." 
 
 A white-haired German reached for a sand- 
 wich, and grunted between bites: "I know 
 der breed. Ameriga is full of dot kind. I 
 dell you you should imbort ropes' ends free 
 under your dariff." 
 
 "Pshaw! There is n't any real harm to 
 him. He 's more to be pitied than anything," 
 a man from New York drawled, as he lay at 
 
2 " CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 
 
 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 fin- 
 ish his education." 
 
 "Education is n'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 is n'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 '11 amuse him, 
 I guess. Florida, Adirondacks, Lakewood, 
 Hot Springs, New York, and round again. 
 He is n't much more than a second-hand ho- 
 tel clerk now. When he 's finished in Europe 
 he '11 be a holy terror." 
 
" CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 3 
 
 "What 's the matter with the old man at- 
 tending 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 '11 find out 
 his error a few years from now. 'Pity, be- 
 cause 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 cor- 
 ner 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, bra- 
 vado, and very cheap smartness. He was 
 dressed in a cherry-coloured blazer, knicker- 
 bockers, 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, 
 would n't it be great if we ran down one?" 
 
 "Shut the door, Harvey," said the New 
 
4 " CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 
 
 Yorker. "Shut the door and stay outside. 
 You 're not wanted here." 
 
 "Who '11 stop me?" he answered, deliber- 
 ately. "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 mama this afternoon?" a 
 man said. "I did n'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 apologize, Harvey." 
 
 "Who 's apologizing? This is the first 
 
" CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 7 
 
 time I 've crossed the ocean, gen'elmen, and, 
 except the first day, I have n'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 '11 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 '11 show 'em that when I 
 strike Europe. Pff! 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, ah' 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." 
 
8 " CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 
 
 Harvey lit the unlovely thing with a flour- 
 ish : 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. Mac- 
 tonal'?" 
 
 "Just there or thereabouts, Mr. Schaefer," 
 said the engineer. "We '11 be on the Grand 
 Bank to-night; but in a general way o' speak- 
 in', 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 lit- 
 tle, have n't we? I '11 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 
 
" CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 9 
 
 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 ex- 
 treme end of it, near the flag-pole. 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 wa- 
 vered 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 tur- 
 tle-back. Then a low, gray 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 Adiron- 
 dacks. 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 clam- 
 my chills ran down his back, and he was help- 
 lessly full of salt water. When he opened his 
 
io " CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 
 
 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, / say, that I catch you. Eh, wha-at? 
 Better good job, / say, your boat not catch 
 me. How you come to fall out?" 
 
 "I was sick," said Harvey; "sick, and 
 could n'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 — dreef t 
 
"then a low, gray mother-wave swung out of the fog, 
 
 tucked harvey under one arm, so to speak, and 
 
 pulled him off and away to leeward." 
 
" CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 13 
 
 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, what-at?" 
 
 He seemed to have two pairs of hands and 
 a head of cast-iron, for, not content with blow- 
 ing 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. Some- 
 thing 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 
 
i 4 " CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 
 
 his state-room 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 bows 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 gray 
 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 woollen 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 dis- 
 gust 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 wrig- 
 gling herself about in a silly, aimless way, 
 
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." 
 
" CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 17 
 
 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, look- 
 ing 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 direc- 
 tion, 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 
 
18 " CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 
 
 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?" 
 
 " T was n'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 '11 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 di- 
 rect order — never, at least, without long, and 
 sometimes tearful, explanations of the advan- 
 tages of obedience and the reasons for the re- 
 quest. 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 '11 
 pay him." 
 
" CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 19 
 
 Dan opened his eyes as the size and beauty 
 of this joke dawned on him. "Say, Dad!" he 
 shouted up the foc'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 him- 
 self with the thought of gradually unfolding 
 the tale of his own and his father's wealth on 
 the voyage home. This rescue would cer- 
 tainly make him a hero among his friends for 
 life. He hoisted himself on deck up a per- 
 pendicular ladder, and stumbled aft, over a 
 score of obstructions, to where a small, thick- 
 set, clean-shaven man with gray 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, 
 
20 " CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 
 
 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 res- 
 cued from drowning, expected sympathy. His 
 mother suffered agonies whenever he got his 
 feet wet; but this mariner did not seem ex- 
 cited. 
 
 "Naow let 's hear all abaout it. It 's 
 quite providential, first an' last, fer all con- 
 cerned. 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 un- 
 moved 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' 
 

 -Mr- . 
 
 "'EXCUSE!' CRIED HARVEY, 'd' YOU SUPPOSE I 'D FALL 
 OVERBOARD INTO YOUR DIRTY LITTLE BOAT FOR FUN ?' " 
 
" CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 23 
 
 packet in a flat ca'am. Least of all when his 
 excuse is that 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 would n't call the boat which, 
 under Providence, was the means o' savin' 
 ye, names. In the first place, it 's blame irreli- 
 gious. 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 '11 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 
 
24 " CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 
 
 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, dryly. 
 
 "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 '11 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 about Septem- 
 ber; 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 may 
 n't." 
 
 "Ten dollars! Why, see here, I " Har- 
 vey dived into his pocket for the wad of bills. 
 
" CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 25 
 
 All he brought up was a soggy packet of ciga- 
 rettes. 
 
 "Not lawful currency, an' bad for the lungs. 
 Heave 'em overboard, young feller, and try 
 agin." 
 
 "It 's been stolen!" cried Harvey, hotly. 
 
 "You '11 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 dollars, young feller?" 
 
 "It was part of my pocket-money — for a 
 month." This Harvey thought would be a 
 knock-down 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' any- 
 thing when you fell over, do you? Crack agin 
 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 
 
26 " CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 
 
 would hev it that the East Wind was a com- 
 merce-destroyin' man-o'-war, an' so he de- 
 clared 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 com- 
 fort to you. Naow, abaout goin' back. Al- 
 lowin' 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 hun- 
 dred dollars a month, let alone pocket-money; 
 an' with good luck we '11 be ashore again 
 somewheres abaout the first weeks o' Septem- 
 ber." 
 
 "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 
 
" CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " W 
 
 do, for Otto he went overboard on Le Have. 
 I mistrust he lost his grip in a gale we fund 
 there. Anyways, he never come back to deny 
 it. You 've turned up, plain, plumb providen- 
 tial 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 '11 give you — you ain't wuth it, but I '11 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, and you kin tell us all abaout 
 your dad an' your ma an' your money efter- 
 wards." 
 
 "She 's on the steamer," said Harvey, his 
 eyes filling with tears. "Take me to New 
 York at once." 
 
 "Poor woman — poor woman! When she 
 has you back she '11 forgit it all, though. 
 
28 " CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 
 
 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 
 would n't hev it, allowin' I was agree- 
 able." 
 '■■> "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 '11 be better in your 
 health when you see him in the fall. Go for- 
 ward an' help Dan. It's ten an' a ha'af a 
 month, ez I said, an' o' course, all fund, 
 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, anyhow." 
 
 "Ha-ow?" said Troop, the iron face dark- 
 ening. 
 
 "How? You know how, well enough. On 
 top of all that, you want me to do menial 
 work" — Harvey was very proud of that adjec- 
 
" CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 29 
 
 tive — "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 ha- 
 rangued 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, disre- 
 garding 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 0' 
 your systim. Be sure you sense what I say? 
 Ten an' a ha'af fer second boy on the schooner 
 — an' all found — 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 '11 see you " 
 
 He did not exactly remember what fol- 
 lowed. He was lying in the scuppers, holding 
 
30 " CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 
 
 on to a nose that bled while Troop looked 
 down on him serenely. 
 
 "Dan," he said to his son, "I was sot agin 
 this young feller when I first saw him on ac- 
 count 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 f er the 
 names he 's give me, nor-fer his other state- 
 ments — nor fer jumpin' overboard, which I 'm 
 abaout ha'af convinced he did. You be gentle 
 with him, Dan, 'r I '11 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 mil- 
 lions. 
 
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 agin 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 
 
 31 
 
32 " CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 
 
 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 hev 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 has n'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, cau- 
 tiously. "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 
 
" CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 33 
 
 line fence around her, an' filled her up with 
 lions an' tigers an' bears an' buffalo an' croc- 
 odiles 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 lyin'." 
 
 "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 is n'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 con- 
 vinced him that Harvey was not lying — much. 
 Besides, he had bound himself by the most 
 
34 " CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 
 
 terrible oath known to boyhood, and yet he 
 
 [sat, alive, with a red-ended nose, in the scup- 
 pers, recounting marvels upon marvels. 
 "Gosh!" said Dan at last from the very 
 bottom of his soul when Harvey had complet- 
 ed 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 med- 
 itating an early revenge. 
 
 "He '11 be mad clear through. Dad jest 
 hates to be mistook in his jedgments." Dan 
 lay back and slapped his thigh. "Oh, Har- 
 vey, don't you spile the catch by lettin' on." 
 
 "I don't want to be knocked down again. 
 I '11 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 
 
" CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 35 
 
 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 sympathizer. 
 
 "You was wrong; the wrongest kind o' 
 wrong! You take right hold an' pitch in 
 'longside o' me, or you '11 catch it, an' I '11 
 catch it fer backin' you up. Dad always gives 
 me double helps 'cause I 'm his son, an' he 
 hates f avourin' 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." 
 
 "Looks like justice, this, don't it? Harvey 
 pointed to his outraged nose. 
 
 "Thet 's nothin'. Lets the shore blood outer 
 jtou. 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 fish- 
 ermen, an' we 've shipped together for six 
 pears 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 
 [ could say what you said 'baout your pap an' 
 
36 " CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 
 
 his fixin's, I 'd say that 'baout your dollars. I 
 dunno what was in your pockets when I dried 
 your kit fer I did n't look to see; but I 'd say, 
 using the very same words ez you used just 
 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 blood letting 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 con- 
 fusedly. "Seems to me that for a fellow just 
 s£ved from drowning I have n'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, "in- 
 stead of calling everybody in sight a thief. 
 Where 's your father?" 
 
 "In the cabin. What d' you want o' him 
 again?" 
 
 "You '11 see," said Harvey, and he stepped, 
 rather groggily, for his head was still singing, 
 to the cabin steps where the little ship's clock 
 
" CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 39 
 
 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 have n't acted quite right," said Harvey, 
 surprised at his own meekness. 
 
 "What 's wrong naow?" said the skipper. 
 "Walked into Dan, hevye?" 
 
 "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 '11 make a man yet ef you go 
 on this way." 
 
 "He ought n'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 't would do you sights 
 o' good ; an' this shows I were n't mistook in 
 my jedgments." A smothered chuckle on deck 
 
*o "CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 
 
 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 '11 put a little more gristle to that 'fore 
 we 've done with you, young feller; an' I 
 don't think any worse of ye f er anythin' thet's 
 gone by. You was n't fairly responsible. Go 
 right abaout your business an' you won't take 
 no hurt." 
 
 "You 're white," said Dan, as Harvey re- 
 gained 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 '11 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, 
 
" CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 41 
 
 looking at the tangle of ropes and blocks over- 
 head. 
 
 "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 dark- 
 ness 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 hogs- 
 head 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 '11 sluice that out when 
 they 're through. 'Send we '11 hev full pens 
 
42 " CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 
 
 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 to- 
 wards 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 mack- 
 erel 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, be- 
 tween 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 fund 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 — 
 
" CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 43 
 
 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 '11 hear 
 him tune up in a minute — is Tom Piatt. 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 he has fair fishin' luck. There! What 
 did I tell you?" 
 
 A melodious bellow stole across the water 
 from the northern dory. Harvey heard some- 
 thing 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 give us 'O Captain' it 's toppin' 
 too!" 
 
44 " CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 
 
 The bellow continued: 
 
 "And naow to thee, O Capting, 
 Most earnestly I pray, 
 That they shall never bury me 
 In church or cloister gray." 
 
 "Double game for Tom Piatt. He '11 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 '11 fetch up agin 
 Uncle Salters, sure. Look how tender he 's 
 rowin'. I '11 lay my wage and share he 's the 
 only man stung up to-day — an' he 's stung up 
 good." 
 
 "What '11 sting him?" said Harvey, getting 
 interested. 
 
 "Strawberries, mostly. Pumpkins, some- 
 times, an' sometimes lemons an' cucumbers. 
 Yes, he 's stung up from his elbows down. 
 That man's luck 's perfectly paralyzin'. Naow 
 we '11 take a-holt o' the tackles an' hist '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?" 
 
" CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 45 
 
 "I 'm going to try to work, anyway," Har- 
 vey replied stoutly. "Only it 's all dead new." 
 
 "Lay a-holt 0' 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 
 with 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 Har- 
 vey 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 cross-trees!" 
 Dan laughed ; and Harvey held on, for the boat 
 lay in the air above his head. 
 
 "Lower away," Dan shouted, and as Har- 
 vey lowered, Dan swayed the light boat with 
 one hand till it landed softly just behind the 
 
46 " CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 
 
 mainmast. "They don't weigh nothin' empty. 
 Thet was right smart f er 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 dreef t, 
 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 
 
" CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 47 
 
 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 '11 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." 
 
48 " CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 
 
 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 bot- 
 tom of the boat. 
 
 "He 's caught on good," said the scarred 
 man, who was Tom Piatt, watching him criti- 
 cally. "There are two ways o' doin' every- 
 thing. 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 in- 
 terrupted, brushing into the knot of men with 
 a long board on legs. "Get out o' here, Tom 
 Piatt, 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 Piatt, laughing. 
 
" CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 49 
 
 "Guess they was swivel-eyed, then, fer it 
 did n't git home, and I know who '11 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 '11 corrupt 
 our supercargo in a week." 
 
 "His name 's Harvey," said Dan, waving 
 two strangely shaped knives, "an' he '11 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 ad- 
 mired the effect. 
 
 "I think it 's forty-two," said a small voice 
 overside, 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." 
 
5 o " CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 
 
 "Forty-two, ye said." This was Uncle Sal- 
 ters. 
 
 "I '11 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 tubby little man. "You 're comin' 
 down on me agin. 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. "Sal- 
 ters, you pitch your fish in naow at once," he 
 said in the tone of authority. 
 
 "Don't spile the catch, Dad," Dan mur- 
 mured. "Them two are on'y jest beginnin'." 
 
" CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 51 
 
 "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, look- 
 ing 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 Piatt, 
 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 Piatt. "Beat by 
 a farmer, Salters. An' you sech a sailor, 
 too!" 
 
 " 'T were n't fair caount," said he, stumbling 
 
52 " CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 
 
 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 foc'sle. Disko 
 Troop, Tom Piatt, 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 ham- 
 mer. 
 
 "Salt," he said, returning. "Soon as we 're 
 through supper we git to dressing-down. 
 You '11 pitch to Dad. Tom Piatt an' Dad they 
 stow together, an' you '11 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." 
 
" CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 53 
 
 "They '11 be through in a minute. Snff! 
 She smells good to-night. Dad ships a good 
 cook ef he do suffer with his brother. It 's a 
 full catch to-day, 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 Piatt, 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" sol- 
 emnly asked a blessing. Then they stoked 
 in silence till Dan drew a breath over his tin 
 cup and demanded of Harvey how he felt. 
 
 " 'Most full, but there 's just room for an- 
 other piece." 
 
 The cook was a huge, jet-black negro, and, 
 
54 " CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 
 
 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; an' they 're mean an' 
 humpy, an' their stummicks has to be hu- 
 moured ; 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' any- 
 thing we know. His natural tongue 's kinder 
 curious. Comes from the innards of Cape 
 Breton, he does, where the farmers speak 
 homemade Scotch. Cape Breton 's full o' 
 niggers whose folk run in there durin' aour 
 war, an' they talk like 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?" 
 
" CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 55 
 
 "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," Man- 
 uel 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 '11 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 
 
5 6 " CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 
 
 of fluid silver. In the hold there were tram- 
 plings and rumblings where Disko Troop and 
 Tom Piatt 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 Piatt down the 
 hatch, an' take keer Uncle Salters don't cut 
 yer eye out," said Dan, swinging himself into 
 the hold. "I '11 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 eyes. He laid it on 
 the edge of the pen; the knife-blade glim- 
 mered 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 
 
" CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 57 
 
 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 dex- 
 terity 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 
 
58 " CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 
 
 chain of supplies, and once Manuel howled 
 because he had caught his finger in a French- 
 man'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 knives in the pen; the 
 wrench and shloop of torn heads, dropped 
 liver, and flying offal ; the "caraaah" of Uncle 
 Salters's knife scooping away backbones; and 
 the flap of wet, open 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 the 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 him- 
 
" CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 59 
 
 self, and Long Jack leaned over the bulwarks. 
 The cook appeared, noiseless as a black shad- 
 ow, collected a mass of backbones and heads, 
 and retreated. 
 
 "Blood-ends for breakfast an' head-chow- 
 der," said Long Jack, smacking his lips. 
 
 "Knife oh!" repeated Uncle Salters, wav- 
 ing 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 dipper- 
 ful of stale brown water which tasted like nec- 
 tar, and loosed the jaws of Disko and Tom 
 Piatt. 
 
 "These are cod," said Disko. "They ain't 
 Damarskus figs, Tom Piatt, nor yet silver 
 bars. I 've told you that every single time 
 since we 've sailed together." 
 
 "A matter o' seven seasons," returned Tom 
 Piatt coolly. "Good stowin 's good stowin' all 
 the same, an' there 's a right an' a wrong way 
 
60 " CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 
 
 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 Piatt 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." 
 
 " 'Would n't hev your conscience fer a thou- 
 sand 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 foc'sle; then he too dropped out 
 of sight in the cabin. 
 
 "Boys clean up after dressin' down, an' 
 
" CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 61 
 
 first watch in ca'am weather is boy's watch on 
 the We 're Here." Dan sluiced the pen en- 
 ergetically, 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 di- 
 rection. 
 
 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. "Gram- 
 pus," 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 '11 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. 'Would n't ha' keered 
 fer that ef he'd hed a Christian tongue in his 
 head. Sleepy?" 
 
 "Dead sleepy," said Harvey, nodding for- 
 ward. 
 
62 " CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 
 
 "Must n'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' sev- 
 enteen 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 '11 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 execu- 
 tioner, a boy who yawned and nodded be- 
 tween 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 ex- 
 postulated, threatened, whimpered, and at last 
 wept outright, while Dan, the words clotting 
 
" CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 63 
 
 on his tongue, spoke of the beauty of watchful- 
 ness 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 foc- 
 '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 Har- 
 vey 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 top-gallant 
 
 6 4 
 
" CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 65 
 
 sails, 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 '11 lay my wage an' 
 share we '11 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 Leboo; 
 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 onless her luck 's 
 changed since last season. She don't do much 
 'cep' drift. There ain't an anchor made '11 
 hold her. . . . When the smoke puffs up 
 in little rings like that, Dad 's studyin' the fish. 
 Ef we speak to him now, he '11 git mad. Las' 
 time I did, he jest took an' hove a boot at me." 
 
 Disko Troop stared forward, the pipe be- 
 tween his teeth, with eyes that saw nothing. 
 As his son said, he was studying the fish — 
 pitting his knowledge and experience on the 
 
66 " CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 
 
 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 re- 
 moved the pipe from his teeth. 
 
 "Dad," said Dan, "we've done our chores. 
 Can't we go overside a piece? It 's good 
 catchin' weather." 
 
 "Not in that cherry-coloured rig ner them 
 ha'af baked 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 over- 
 haul it, 'cause Ma sez I 'm keerless." He 
 rummaged through a locker, and in less than 
 three minutes Harvey was adorned with fish- 
 
" CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 67 
 
 erman's rubber boots that came half up his 
 thigh, a heavy blue jersey well darned at the 
 elbows, a pair of nippers, 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. If 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 lady-like fashion, on the Adi- 
 rondack ponds; but there is a difference be- 
 tween squeaking pins and well-balanced 
 rullocks — 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 
 
68 " CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 
 
 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 need n'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 million- 
 aire. You don't act millionary any, naow. 
 But a dory an' craft an' gear" — Dan spoke as 
 though she were a whaleboat — "costs a heap. 
 Think your dad 'u'd give you one fer — fer a 
 pet like?" 
 
,; CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 69 
 
 "Should n't wonder. It would be 'most the 
 only thing I have n'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 '11 " 
 
 Crack ! The loom of the oar kicked Harvey 
 under the chin and knocked him backwards. 
 
 "That was what I was goin' to say. I hed 
 to learn too, but / was n'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 '11 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, Harvey, 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. 
 
70 " CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 
 
 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. 
 
"CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS" 71 
 
 "Naow ye know what strawberry-bottom 
 means. Nothin' 'cep' fish should be teched 
 with the naked fingers, Dad says. Slat 'em off 
 agin 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 re- 
 membered distinctly that he used to laugh at 
 her anxieties. Suddenly the line flashed 
 through his hand, stinging even through the 
 "nippers," the woollen circlets supposed to 
 protect it. 
 
 "He 's a logy. Give him room accordin' 
 to his strength," cried Dan. "I '11 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 '11 lay my wage an' share he 's 
 
72 " CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 
 
 over a hundred. Are you so everlastin' anx- 
 ious to land him alone?" 
 
 Harvey's knuckles were raw and bleeding 
 where they had been banged against the gun- 
 wale; his face was purple-blue between ex- 
 citement and exertion; he dripped with sweat, 
 and was half-blinded from staring at the cir- 
 cling 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 gray-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 
 are 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 no- 
 tice it? — was all big fish an' no halibut. Dad 
 he 'd read them signs right off. Dad says 
 
"'I'LL LAY MY WAGE AN 1 SHARE HE'S OVER A HUNDRED. 
 
" CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 75 
 
 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 '11 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 '11 hev to help him, else he '11 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 
 
76 " CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 
 
 'em. Lost two this trip a'ready — on sandy 
 bottom too — an' Dad says next one he loses, 
 sure 's fishin', he '11 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 could n'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 does n't move," said the little man, pant- 
 ing. "It does n'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 Span- 
 ish windlass. Mr. Salters showed me how to 
 make it; but even that does n't move her." 
 
" CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 77 
 
 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 '11 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 dan- 
 gerous, 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 Boiler wuz 
 his name, Dad told me, an' he lived with his 
 wife an' four children somewheres out Penn- 
 sylvania way. Well, Penn he took his folks 
 along to a Moravian meetin' — camp-meetin' 
 most like— an' they stayed over jest one night 
 
78 " CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 
 
 in Johnstown. You 've heered talk o' Johns- 
 town?" 
 
 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 bust 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 drown- 
 ed 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 
 could n't remember what, an' he jest drifted 
 araound smilin' an' wonderin'. He did n't 
 know what he was, nor yit what he hed bin, 
 an' thet way he run agin 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." 
 
" CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " t 79 
 
 "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-mold off'n his boots. He 's jest 
 everlastin' farmer. Why, Harve, I 've seen 
 thet man hitch up a bucket, long towards sun- 
 down, an' set twiddlin' the spigot to the 
 scuttle-butt same 's ef 't was a cow's bag. He's 
 thet much farmer. Well, Penn an' he they 
 ran the farm — up Exeter way 't wuz. Uncle 
 Salters he sold it this spring to a jay from 
 Boston as wanted to build a summer-haouse, 
 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 'piscopolian mostly — but he jest let 'em 
 hev it both sides o' the bow, 's if he was a 
 Baptist; an' sez he war n'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 
 
80 " CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 
 
 their health. 'Guess he thought the Moravi- 
 ans wouldn't hunt the Banks fer Jacob Boiler. 
 Dad was agreeable, fer Uncle Salters he 'd 
 been fishin' off an' on fer thirty years, when 
 he war n'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 '11 
 remember his wife an' kids an' Johnstown, an' 
 then, like as not, he '11 die, Dad sez. Don't 
 ye talk abaout Johnstown ner such things to 
 Penn, 'r Uncle Salters he '11 heave ye over- 
 board." 
 
 "Poor Penn!" murmured Harvey. "I 
 should n'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 need n't heave in the dories till after 
 dinner," said Troop from the deck. "We '11 
 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 
 
" CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 81 
 
 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 mold. 
 
 "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 '11 tell him so when we strike the Main 
 Ledge. 'Way off yonder '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 '11 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, ad- 
 dressing the crew as they clambered inboard. 
 "We '11 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. 
 
82 " CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 
 
 Save for Harvey's halibut, there was nothing 
 over fifteen pounds on deck. 
 
 "I 'm waitin' on the weather," he added. 
 
 "Ye '11 have to make it yourself, Disko, for 
 there 's no sign / 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 hemp- 
 en cable strained on the barrel. Manuel and 
 Tom Piatt 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. 
 
" CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 83 
 
 "There 's wind behind this fog," said 
 Troop. 
 
 It was 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 Piatt, to Harvey gaping at the damp 
 canvas of the foresail. 
 
 "No. Where are we going?" 
 
 "Fish and make berth, as you '11 find out 
 'fore you 've been a week aboard. It 's all new 
 to you, but we never know what may come to 
 us. Now, take me — Tom Piatt — 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 
 did n't think o' that when we manned the 
 windlass-brakes on the Miss Jim Buck, 1 out- 
 side Beaufort Harbour, with Fort Macon 
 heavin' hot shot at our stern, an' a livin' gale 
 atop of all. Where was you then, Disko?" 
 
 The Gemsbok, U.S.N. ? 
 
84 " CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 
 
 "Jest here, or hereabouts," Disko replied, 
 "earnin' my bread on the deep waters, an' 
 dodgin' Reb privateers. Sorry I can't accom- 
 modate you with red-hot shot, Tom Piatt; but 
 I guess we '11 come aout all right on wind 
 'fore we see Eastern Point." 
 
 There was an incessant slapping and chat- 
 ter at the bows now, varied by a solid thud and 
 a little spout of spray that clattered down on 
 the foc'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. 
 
 " 'Guess she 'd carry stays'l," said Disko, 
 rolling one eye at his brother. 
 
 " 'Guess she would n'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," 
 
It 
 
 A FEW SECONDS LATER A HISSING WAVE-TOP . . . SMOTE 
 
 UNCLE SALTERS BETWEEN THE SHOULDERS, AND 
 
 DRENCHED HIM FROM HEAD TO FOOT." 
 
" CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 87 
 
 said Dan. "Uncle Salters he thinks his quar- 
 ter 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, Sal- 
 ters," said Disko, as though he had seen noth- 
 ing. 
 
 "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 be- 
 low right off an' git your coffee. You ought 
 to hev more sense than to bum araound on deck 
 this weather." 
 
 "Now they '11 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 dead- 
 er-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 pas- 
 senger under that T-wharf hat. There 's no 
 
88 " CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 
 
 idleness for thim that don't know their ropes. 
 Pass him along, Tom Piatt, an' we '11 larn 
 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 sev- 
 enty-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 emphasized the differ- 
 ence between fore and aft generally by rub- 
 bing 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 ex- 
 cept a man. Forward lay the windlass and 
 its tackle, with the chain and hemp cables, all 
 very unpleasant to trip over ; the f oc'sle stove- 
 pipe, and the gurry-butts by the foc'sle hatch 
 
" CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 89 
 
 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 Piatt, 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 Piatt, this bally-hoo 's not 
 the Ohio, an' you 're mixing the bhoy bad." 
 
 "He '11 be ruined for life, beginnin' on a 
 fore-an'-after this way," Tom Piatt 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 fore-top 0' 
 the " 
 
 "I know ut. Ye 'd talk him dead an' cowld. 
 Silince, Tom Piatt! Now, after all I 've 
 said, how 'd you reef the foresail, Harve? 
 Take your time answerin'." 
 
go " CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 
 
 "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 Piatt burst in. 
 
 "Quiet! He's larnin', 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 
 Piatt, 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' 11 larn. There 's good 
 and just reason for ivry rope aboard, or else 't 
 would be overboard. D 'ye follow me? 'T is 
 
"for an hour long jack walked his prey up and down, 
 
 teaching, as he said, 'things ivry man must 
 
 know, blind, dhrunk, or asleep.' " 
 
" CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 93 
 
 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 larned you. Now I '11 
 chase ye around a piece, callin' the ropes, an' 
 you '11 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 Piatt, 
 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 wom- 
 an, with a fine resolute temper that systematic 
 spoiling had nearly turned to mulish obsti- 
 nacy. 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, 
 
94 "CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS" 
 
 maybe, Penn, would stand the least nonsense. 
 One learns a great deal from a mere tone. 
 Long Jack called over half a dozen ropes, 
 and Harvey danced over the deck like an eel 
 at ebb-tide, one eye on Tom Piatt. 
 
 "Ver' good. Ver' good don," 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 '11 be wuth your 
 salt maybe 'fore you 're draownded. Thet 's 
 a heap fer Dad. I '11 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 lipping one to the other. 
 
 "Now I '11 learn you something Long Jack 
 can't," shouted Tom Piatt, 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 '11 learn you how to fly the Blue 
 Pigeon. Shooo!" 
 
" CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 95 
 
 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 Piatt whirled it round andxound. 
 
 "Go ahead, man," said Long Jack, impa- 
 tiently. "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 blind- 
 fold. "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 Piatt, hauling in 
 great wet coils. 
 
 The schooner gathered way once more. 
 
96 " CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 
 
 "Heave!" said Disko, after a quarter of an 
 hour. 
 
 "What d' you make it?" Dan whispered, 
 and he looked at Harvey proudly. But Har- 
 vey 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 Piatt. They could 
 scarcely see him through the fog. "She 's bust 
 within a yard — like the shells at Fort Mac, on." 
 
 "Bait up, Harve," said Dan, diving for a 
 line on the reel. 
 
 The schooner seemed to be straying pro- 
 miscuously through the smother, her headsail 
 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 thun- 
 der 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. 
 
" CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 97 
 
 "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 thou- 
 sand, and when they take the bait that way 
 they 're hungry. Never mind how the bait 
 sets. They '11 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?" 
 
 "Alius can, till we begin to dress daown. 
 Efter thet, the heads and offals Vd scare the 
 fish to Fundy. Boat-fishin' ain't reckoned 
 progressive, though, unless ye know as much 
 as dad knows. Guess we '11 run aout aour 
 trawl to-night. Harder on the back, this, 
 than f rum the dory, ain't it?" 
 
 It was rather back-breaking work, for in a 
 dory the weight of a cod is water-borne till 
 
98 " CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 
 
 the last minute, and you are, so to speak, 
 abreast of him ; but the few feet of a schooner's 
 freeboard 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?" Har- 
 vey 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 foc'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. " 'T were n't 
 none o' his fault," snapped Uncle Salters. 
 "Penn 's deef." 
 
" CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 99 
 
 "Checkers, were n't it?" said Dan, as Har- 
 vey 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 '11 have to 
 do it." 
 
 "An' two young fellers I know '11 bait up a 
 tub or so o' trawl, while they 're cleanin'," 
 said Disko, lashing the wheel to his taste. 
 
 "Um ! Guess I 'd ruther clean up, Dad." 
 
 "Don't doubt it. Ye wun't, though. Dress 
 daown! Dress daown! Penn '11 pitch while 
 you two bait up." 
 
 "Why in thunder did n'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 select- 
 ed offal of the cod as the fish were cleaned — 
 an improvement on paddling bare-handed in 
 
ioo " CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 
 
 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 Piatt were salting. "How many skates 
 you reckon we '11 need?" 
 
 " 'Baout three. Hurry!" 
 
 "There's three hundred fathom to each 
 tub," Dan explained ; "more 'n enough to lay 
 out to-night. Ouch! 'Slipped up there, I 
 did." He stuck his finger in his mouth. "I 
 tell you, Harve, there ain't money in Glouces- 
 ter '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 't is n't regu- 
 
"CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS" 101 
 
 lar trawling," said Harvey sulkily. "My fin- 
 gers are all cut to frazzles." 
 
 "Pshaw! This is just one o' Dad's blame 
 experiments. He don't trawl 'less there 's 
 mighty good reason f er it. Dad knows. Thet 's 
 why he 's baitin' ez he is. We '11 hev her 
 saggin' full when we take her up er we won't 
 se 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 Piatt 
 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 over- 
 board into what Harvey regarded as an exceed- 
 ingly rough sea. "They '11 be drowned. Why, 
 the dory 's loaded like a freight-car," he cried. 
 
 "We '11 be back," said Long Jack, "an' in 
 case you '11 not be lookin' for us, we '11 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 ahold here, an' keep ringin' steady," 
 
102 " CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 
 
 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 dryly 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! clang! clang!" Harvey kept it up, 
 varied with occasional rub-a-dubs, for an- 
 other 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 Piatt 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 Piatt as he dripped. 
 "Danny, you '11 do yet." 
 
 "The pleasure av your comp'ny to the ban- 
 quit," said Long Jack, squelching the water 
 from his boots as he capered like an elephant 
 and stuck an oil-skinned arm into Harvey's 
 face. "We do be condescending to honour the 
 
" CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 103 
 
 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 '11 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 hour struck clear in the cabin ; 
 
104 " CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 
 
 the nosing bows slapped and scuffed with 
 the seas ; the f oc'sle stove-pipe hissed and sput- 
 tered as the spray caught it; and the boys slept 
 on, while Disko, Long Jack, Tom Piatt, and 
 Uncle Salters, each in turn, stumped aft to 
 look at the wheel, forward to see that the an- 
 chor 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 foc'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 
 foc'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 
 buckshot. Followed the woolly sound of the 
 cable in the hawse-hole ; and 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 say- 
 
106 " CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 
 
 ing, "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 bles- 
 sin'. Good night, all." He passed like a big 
 snake from the table to his bunk, and began to 
 smoke. Tom Piatt 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, wres- 
 tling with a gaudy, gilt-stopped accordion, 
 whose tunes went up and down with the pitch- 
 ing of the We 're Here. The cook, his shoul- 
 ders 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. 
 
 Harvey considered affairs, wondered that 
 
" CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 107 
 
 he was not deathly sick, and crawled into his 
 bunk again, as the softest and safest place, 
 while Dan struck up, "I don't want to play in 
 your yard," as accurately as the wild jerks 
 allowed. 
 
 "How long is this for?" Harvey asked of 
 Manuel. 
 
 "Till she get a, little quiet, and we can row 
 to trawl. Perhaps to-night. Perhaps two 
 days more. You do not like? Eh, wha-at?" 
 
 "I should have been crazy sick a week ago, 
 but it does n't seem to upset me now — much." 
 
 "That is because we make you fisherman, 
 these days. If I was you, when I come to 
 Gloucester I would give two, three big candles 
 for my good luck." 
 
 "Give who?" 
 
 "To be sure — the Virgin of our Church on 
 the Hill. She is very good to fishermen all 
 the time. That is why so few of us Portugee 
 men ever are drowned." 
 
 "You 're a Roman Catholic, then?" v*> 
 
 "I am a Madeira man. I am not a Porto-- 
 Pico boy. Shall I be Baptist, then? Eh,<% 
 wha-at? I always give candles — two, three 
 more when I come to Gloucester. The good 
 Virgin she never forgets me, Manuel." 
 
108 " CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 
 
 "I don't sense it that way," Tom Piatt put in 
 from his bunk, his scarred face lit up by the 
 glare of a match as he sucked at his pipe. "It 
 stands to reason the sea 's the sea ; and you '11 
 get jest about what 's goin', candles or kero- 
 sene, f er that matter." 
 
 " 'T is a mighty good thing," said Long 
 Jack, "to have a frind at coort, though. I 'm 
 o' Manuel's way o' thinkin'. About tin years 
 back I was crew to a Sou' Boston market- 
 boat. We was off Minot's Ledge wid a north- 
 easter, butt first, atop of us, thicker 'n burgoo. 
 The ould man was dhrunk, his chin waggin' 
 on the tiller, an' I sez to myself, 'If iver I stick 
 my boat-huk into T-wharf again, I '11 show 
 the saints fwhat manner o' craft they saved 
 me out av.' Now, I 'm here, as ye can well 
 see, an' the model of the dhirty ould Kathleen, 
 that took me a month to make, I gave ut to 
 the priest, an' he hung ut up forninst the altar. 
 There 's more sense in givin' a model that 's 
 by way o' bein' a work av art than any candle. 
 Ye can buy candles at store, but a model shows 
 the good saints ye 've tuk trouble an' are 
 grateful." 
 
 "D' you believe that, Irish?" said Tom 
 Piatt, turning on his elbow. 
 
" CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 109 
 
 "Would I do ut if I did not, Ohio?" 
 
 "Wa-al, Enoch Fuller he made a model o' 
 
 the old Ohio, and she 's to Calem museum 
 
 now. Mighty pretty model, too, but I guess 
 
 Enoch he never done it fer no sacrifice; an' 
 
 the way I take it is " 
 
 There were the makings of an hour-long 
 discussion of the kind that fishermen love, 
 where the talk runs in shouting circles and 
 no one proves anything at the end, had not 
 Dan struck up this cheerful rhyme : 
 
 "Up jumped the mackerel with his striped back. 
 Reef in the mainsail, and haul on the tack; 
 For it 's windy weather " 
 
 Here Long Jack joined in : 
 
 "And it 's blowy weather ; 
 When the winds begin to blow, pipe all hands together !" 
 
 Dan went on, with a cautious look at Tom 
 Piatt, holding the accordion low in the 
 bunk: 
 
 "Up jumped the cod with his chuckle-head, 
 Went to the main-chains to heave at the lead ; 
 For it 's windy weather," etc. 
 
i io " CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 
 
 Tom Piatt seemed to be hunting for some- 
 thing. Dan crouched lower, but sang louder : 
 
 "Up jumped the flounder that swims to the ground. 
 Chuckle-head! Chuckle-head! Mind where ye sound!" 
 
 Tom Piatt's huge rubber boot whirled 
 across the foc'sle and caught Dan's uplifted 
 arm. There was war between the man and 
 the boy ever since Dan had discovered that 
 the mere whistling of that tune would make 
 him angry as he heaved the lead. 
 
 "Thought I 'd fetch yer," said Dan, return- 
 ing the gift with precision. "Ef you don't 
 like my music, git out your fiddle. I ain't 
 goin' to lie here all day an' listen to you an' 
 Long Jack arguin' 'baout candles. Fiddle, 
 Tom Piatt; or I '11 learn Harve here the 
 tune!" 
 
 Tom Piatt leaned down to a locker and 
 brought up an old white fiddle. Manuel's eye 
 glistened, and from somewhere behind the 
 pawl-post he drew out a tiny, guitar-like thing 
 with wire strings, which he called a machette. 
 
 " 'T is a concert," said Long Jack, beaming 
 through the smoke. "A reg'lar Boston con- 
 cert." 
 
a 
 P 
 
 a 
 o 
 o 
 o 
 u 
 a : 
 
 H . 
 
 O 
 
 2 
 
 S 
 
 « s 
 
 2 < 
 ►J O 
 
 O 
 
 2 
 O 
 O 
 
" CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 113 
 
 There was a burst of spray as the hatch 
 opened, and Disko, in yellow oilskins, de- 
 scended. 
 
 "Ye 're just in time, Disko. Fwhat 's she 
 doin' outside?" 
 
 "Jest this!" He dropped on to the lock- 
 ers with the push and heave of the We 're 
 Here. 
 
 "We 're singin' to kape our breakfasts down. 
 Ye '11 lead, av course, Disko," said Long 
 Jack. 
 
 "Guess there ain't more 'n 'baout two old 
 songs I know, an' ye 've heerd them both." 
 
 His excuses were cut short by Tom Piatt 
 launching into a most dolorous tune, like un- 
 to the moaning of winds and the creaking of 
 masts. With his eyes fixed on the beams 
 above, Disko began this ancient, ancient ditty, 
 Tom Piatt flourishing all round him to make 
 the tune and words fit a little : 
 
 "There is a crack packet — crack packet o' fame, 
 She hails from Noo York, an' the Dreadnought 's her 
 
 name. 
 You may talk o' your fliers — Swallow-tail and Black 
 
 Ball— 
 But the Dreadnought 's the packet that can beat them 
 
 all. 
 
1 14 " CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 
 
 "Now the Dreadnought she lies in the River Mersey, 
 Because of the tug-boat to take her to sea ; 
 But when she 's off soundings you shortly will know 
 
 {Chorus.) 
 She 's the Liverpool packet — O Lord, let her go! 
 
 "Now the Dreadnought she 's howlin' crost the Banks o' 
 
 Newfoundland, 
 Where the water 's all shallow and the bottom 's all sand. 
 Sez all the little fishes that swim to and fro : 
 
 {Chorus.) 
 'She's the Liverpool packet — O Lord, let her go!' " 
 
 There were scores of verses, for he worked 
 the Dreadnought every mile of the way be- 
 tween Liverpool and New York as conscien- 
 tiously as though he were on her deck, and the 
 accordion pumped and the fiddle squeaked 
 beside him. Tom Piatt followed with some- 
 thing about "the rough and tough McGinn, 
 who would pilot the vessel in." Then they 
 called on Harvey, who felt very flattered, to 
 contribute to the entertainment; but all that 
 he could remember were some pieces of 
 "Skipper Ireson's Ride" that he had been 
 taught at the camp-school in the Adirondacks. 
 It seemed that they might be appropriate to 
 the time and place, but he had no more than 
 
" CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 115 
 
 mentioned the title when Disko brought down 
 one foot with a bang, and cried, "Don't go on, 
 young feller. That 's a mistaken jedgment — 
 one o' the worst kind, too, becaze it 's catchin' 
 to the ear." 
 
 "I orter ha' warned you," said Dan. "Thet 
 alius fetches Dad." 
 
 "What 's wrong?" said Harvey, surprised 
 and a little angry. 
 
 "All you 're goin' to say," said Disko. "All 
 dead wrong from start to finish, an' Whittier 
 he 's to blame. I have no special call to right 
 any Marblehead man, but 't were n't no fault 
 o' Ireson's. My father he told me the tale 
 time an' again, an' this is the way 't wuz." 
 
 "For the wan hundredth time," put in Long 
 Jack under his breath. 
 
 "Ben Ireson he was skipper o' the Betty, 
 young feller, comin' home frum the Banks — 
 that was before the war of 1812, but jestice 
 is jestice at all times. They fund the Active 
 o' Portland, an' Gibbons o' that town he was 
 her skipper; they fund her leakin' off Cape 
 Cod Light. There was a terr'ble gale on, an' 
 they was gettin' the Betty home 's fast as they 
 could craowd her. Well, Ireson he said there 
 war n't any sense to reskin' a boat in that sea ; 
 
n6 " CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 
 
 the men they would n't hev it; and he laid it 
 before them to stay by the Active till the sea 
 run daown a piece. They would n't hev that 
 either, hangin' araound the Cape in any sech 
 weather, leak or no leak. They jest up stays'l 
 an' quit, nat'rally takin' Ireson with 'em. 
 Folks to Marblehead was mad at him not 
 runnin' the risk, and becaze nex' day, when the 
 sea was ca'am (they never stopped to think o' 
 that) , some of the Active 's folks was took off 
 by a Truro man. They come into Marblehead 
 with their own tale to tell, sayin' how Ireson 
 had shamed his town, an' so forth an' so on; 
 an' Ireson's men they was scared, seein' public 
 feelin' agin' 'em, an' they went back on Ireson, 
 an' swore he was respons'ble for the hull act. 
 'T were n't the women neither that tarred and 
 feathered him — Marblehead women don't act 
 that way — 't was a passel o' men an' boys, an' 
 they carted him araxmnd town in an old dory 
 till the bottom fell aout, and Ireson he told 'em 
 they 'd be sorry for it some day. Well, the 
 facts come aout later, same 's they usually do, 
 too late to be any ways useful to an honest 
 man ; an' Whittier he come along an' picked 
 up the slack eend of a lyin' tale, an' tarred and 
 feathered Ben Ireson all over onct more after 
 
" CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 117 
 
 he was dead. 'T was the only time Whittier 
 ever slipped up, an' 't were n't fair. I whaled 
 Dan good when he brought that piece back 
 from school. You don't know no better, o' 
 course ; but I 've give you the facts, hereafter 
 an' evermore to be remembered. Ben Ireson 
 were n't no sech kind o' man as Whittier makes 
 aout; my father he knew him well, before an' 
 after that business, an' you beware o' hasty 
 jedgments, young feller. Next!" 
 
 Harvey had never heard Disko talk so long, 
 and collapsed with burning cheeks; but, as 
 Dan said promptly, a boy could only learn 
 what he was taught at school, and life was too 
 short to keep track of every lie along the coast. 
 
 Then Manuel touched the jangling, jarring 
 little machette to a queer tune, and sang some- 
 thing in Portuguese about "Nina, innocente/" 
 ending with a full-handed sweep that brought 
 the song up with a jerk. Then Disko obliged 
 with his second song, to an old-fashioned 
 creaky tune, and all joined in the chorus. This 
 is one stanza : 
 
 "Now Aprile is over and melted the snow, 
 And outer Noo Bedford we shortly must tow ; 
 Yes, out o' Noo Bedford we shortly must clear, 
 We 're the whalers that never see wheat in the ear." 
 
n8 " CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 
 
 Here the fiddle went very softly for a whil 
 by itself, and then : 
 
 "Wheat-in-the-ear, my true-love's posy blowin' ; 
 Wheat-in-the-ear, we 're goin' off to sea ; 
 Wheat-in-the-ear, I left you fit for sowin' ; 
 When I come back a loaf o' bread you '11 be !" 
 
 That made Harvey almost weep, though h 
 could not tell why. But it was much wors 
 when the cook dropped the potatoes and hel 
 out his hands for the fiddle. Still leanin 
 against the locker door, he struck into a tun 
 that was like something very bad but sure t 
 happen whatever you did. After a little h 
 sang, in an unknown tongue, his big chin dow 
 on the fiddle-tail, his white eyeballs glaring i 
 the lamp-light. Harvey swung out of h 
 bunk to hear better ; and amid the straining c 
 the timbers and the wash of the waters the tun 
 crooned and moaned on, like lee surf in a blin 
 fog, till it ended with a wail. 
 
 "Jiminy Christmas! Thet gives me th 
 blue creevles," said Dan. "What in thundt 
 is it?" 
 
 "The song of Fin McCoul," said the cool 
 "when he wass going to Norway." His Enj 
 
" CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 119 
 
 lish was not thick, but all clear-cut, as though 
 it came from a phonograph. 
 
 "Faith, I 've been to Norway, but I did n't 
 make that unwholesim noise. 'T is like some 
 of the old songs, though," said Long Jack, 
 sighing. 
 
 "Don't let 's hev another 'thout somethin' 
 between," said Dan ; and the accordion struck 
 up a rattling, catchy tune that ended : 
 
 "It 's six an' twenty Sundays sence las' we saw the land, 
 With fifteen hunder quintal, 
 An' fifteen hunder quintal, 
 'Teen hunder toppin' quintal, 
 'Twix' old 'Queereau an' Grand !" 
 
 "Hold on!" roared Tom Piatt. "D' ye 
 want to nail the trip, Dan? That 's Jonah 
 sure, 'less you sing it after all our salt 's wet." 
 
 "No, 't ain't. Is it, Dad? Not unless you 
 sing the very las' verse. You can't learn me 
 anything on Jonahs!" 
 
 "What 's that?" said Harvey. "What 's 
 a Jonah?" 
 
 "A Jonah 's anything that spoils the luck. 
 Sometimes it 's a man — sometimes it 's a boy 
 — or a bucket. I 've known a splittin'-knife 
 Jonah two trips till we was on to her," said 
 
120 " CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 
 
 Tom Piatt. "There 's all sorts o' Jonahs. Jirr 
 Bourke was one till he was drowned on 
 Georges. I 'd never ship with Jim Bourke, 
 not if I was starvin'. There wuz a green dorj 
 on the Ezra Flood. Thet was a Jonah, too, 
 the worst sort o' Jonah. Drowned four men, 
 she did, an' used to shine fiery o' nights in 
 the nest." 
 
 "And you believe that?" said Harvey, re- 
 membering what Tom Piatt had said about 
 candles and models. "Have n't we all got to 
 take what 's served?" 
 
 A mutter of dissent ran round the bunks. 
 "Outboard, yes; inboard, things can happen," 
 said Disko. "Don't you go makin' a mock of 
 Jonahs, young feller." 
 
 "Well, Harve ain't no Jonah. Day after 
 we catched him," Dan cut in, "we had a top- 
 pin' good catch." 
 
 The cook threw up his head and laughed 
 suddenly — a queer, thin laugh. He was a 
 most disconcerting nigger. 
 
 "Murder !" said Long Jack. "Don't do that 
 again, doctor. We ain't used to ut." 
 
 "What's wrong?" said Dan. "Ain't he our 
 mascot, and did n't they strike on good after 
 we 'd struck him?" 
 
" CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 121 
 
 "Oh! yess," said the cook. "I know that, 
 but the catch iss not finish yet." 
 
 "He ain't goin' to do us any harm," said 
 Dan, hotly. "Where are ye hintin' an' edgin' 
 to? He's all right." 
 
 "No harm. No. But one day he will be 
 your master, Danny." 
 
 "That all?" said Dan, placidly. "He 
 wun't — not by a jugful." 
 
 "Master!" said the cook, pointing to Har- 
 vey. "Man!" and he pointed to Dan. 
 
 "That 's news. Haow soon?" said Dan, 
 with a laugh. 
 
 "In some years, and I shall see it. Master 
 and man — man and master." 
 
 "How in thunder d' ye work that out?" 
 said Tom Piatt. 
 
 "In my head, where I can see." 
 
 "Haow?" This from all the others at once. 
 
 "I do not know, but so it will be." He 
 dropped his head, and went on peeling the 
 potatoes, and not another word could they get 
 out of him. 
 
 "Well," said Dan, "a heap o' things '11 hev 
 to come abaout 'fore Harve 's any master o' 
 mine; but I 'm glad the doctor ain't choosen 
 to mark him for a Jonah. Now, I mistrust 
 
122 " CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 
 
 Uncle Salters fer the Jonerest Jonah in the 
 Fleet regardin' his own special luck. Dunno 
 ef it 's spreadin' same 's smallpox. He ought 
 to be on the Carrie Pitman. That boat 's her 
 own Jonah, sure — crews an' gear made no 
 differ to her driftin'. Jiminy Christmas! 
 She '11 etch loose in a flat ca'am." 
 
 "We 're well clear o' the Fleet, anyway," 
 said Disko. "Carrie Pitman an' all." There 
 was a rapping on the deck. 
 
 "Uncle Salters has catched his luck," said 
 Dan as his father departed. 
 
 "It 's blown clear," Disko cried, and all the 
 f oc'sle tumbled up for a bit of fresh air. The 
 fog had gone, but a sullen sea ran in greal 
 rollers behind it. The We 're Here slid, as il 
 were, into long, sunk avenues and ditches 
 which felt quite sheltered and homelike if 
 they would only stay still ; but they changed 
 without rest or mercy, and flung up the schoon- 
 er to crown one peak of a thousand gray hills 
 while the wind hooted through her rigging a; 
 she zigzagged down the slopes. Far away a 
 sea would burst into a sheet of foam, and the 
 others would follow suit as at a signal, til] 
 Harvey's eyes swam with the vision of inter- 
 lacing whites and grays. Four or five Mothei 
 
" CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 123 
 
 Carey's chickens stormed round in circles, 
 shrieking as they swept past the bows. A 
 rain-squall or two strayed aimlessly over the 
 hopeless waste, ran down wind and back again, 
 and melted away. 
 
 "Seems to me I saw somethin' flicker jest 
 naow over yonder," said Uncle Salters, point- 
 ing to the northeast. 
 
 "Can't be any of the fleet," said Disko, peer- 
 ing under his eyebrows, a hand on the foc'sle 
 gangway as the solid bows hatcheted into the 
 troughs. "Sea 's oilin' over dretful fast. Dan- 
 ny, don't you want to skip up a piece an' see 
 how aour trawl-buoy lays?" 
 
 Danny, in his big boots, trotted rather than 
 climbed up the main rigging (this consumed 
 Harvey with envy) , hitched himself around 
 the reeling cross-trees, and let his eye rove 
 till it caught the tiny black buoy-flag on the 
 shoulder of a mile-away swell. 
 
 "She 's all right," he hailed. "Sail O! 
 Dead to the no'th'ard, comin' down like 
 smoke ! Schooner she be, too." 
 
 They waited yet another half-hour, the sky 
 clearing in patches, with a flicker of sickly 
 sun from time to time that made patches of 
 olive-green water. Then a stump-foremast 
 
124 " CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 
 
 lifted, ducked, and disappeared, to be followec 
 on the next wave by a high stern with old 
 fashioned wooden snail's-horn davits. The 
 sails were red-tanned. 
 
 "Frenchmen!" shouted Dan. "No, 't ain't 
 neither. Da-ad!" 
 
 "That 's no French," said Disko. "Salters 
 your blame luck holds tighter 'n a screw in a 
 keg-head." 
 
 "I 've eyes. It 's Uncle Abishai." 
 
 "You can't nowise tell fer sure." 
 
 "The head-king of all Jonahs," groaned 
 Tom Piatt. "Oh, Salters, Salters, why was n'l 
 you abed an' asleep?" 
 
 "How could I tell?" said poor Salters, as 
 the schooner swung up. 
 
 She might have been the very Flying 
 Dutchman, so foul, draggled, and unkempl 
 was every rope and stick aboard. Her old- 
 style quarterdeck was some four or five feel 
 high, and her rigging flew knotted and tan- 
 gled like weed at a wharf-end. She was run- 
 ning before the wind — yawing frightfully— 
 her staysail let down to act as a sort of extra 
 foresail, — "scandalized," they call it, — and hei 
 f oreboom guyed out over the side. Her bow- 
 sprit cocked up like an old-fashioned frigate's : 
 
" CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 125 
 
 her jib-boom had been fished and spliced and 
 nailed and clamped beyond further repair; 
 and as she hove herself forward, and sat down 
 on her broad tail, she looked for all the world 
 like a blouzy, frouzy, bad old woman sneer- 
 ing at a decent girl. 
 
 "That 's Abishai," said Salters. "Full o' 
 gin an' Judique men, an' the judgments o' 
 Providence layin' fer him an' never takin' 
 good holt. He 's run in to bait, Miquelon 
 way." 
 
 "He '11 run her under," said Long Jack. 
 "That 's no rig fer this weather." 
 
 "Not he, 'r he 'd 'a' done it long ago," Disko 
 replied. "Looks 's if he cal'lated to run us 
 under. Ain't she daown by the head more 'n 
 natural, Tom Piatt?" 
 
 "Ef it 's his style o' loadin' her she ain't 
 safe," said the sailor slowly. "Ef she 's 
 spewed her oakum he 'd better git to his 
 pumps mighty quick." 
 
 The creature threshed up, wore round with 
 a clatter and rattle, and lay head to wind 
 within ear-shot. 
 
 A gray-beard wagged over the bulwark, 
 and a thick voice yelled something Harvey 
 could not understand. But Disko's face dark- 
 
'i26 " CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 
 
 ened. "He 'd resk every stick he hez to carry 
 bad news. Says we 're in fer a shift o' wind. 
 He 's in fer worse. Abishai! Abi-shai/" He 
 waved his arm up and down with the gesture 
 of a man at the pumps, and pointed forward. 
 The crew mocked him and laughed. 
 
 "Jounce ye, an' strip ye an' trip ye!" yelled 
 Uncle Abishai. "A livin' gale — a livin' gale. 
 Yah! Cast up fer your last trip, all you 
 Gloucester haddocks. You won't see Glouces- 
 ter no more, no more!" 
 
 "Crazy full — as usual," said Tom Piatt. 
 "Wish he had n't spied us, though." 
 
 She drifted out of hearing while the gray- 
 head yelled something about a dance at the 
 Bay of Bulls and a dead man in the foc'sle. 
 Harvey shuddered. He had seen the sloven 
 tilled decks and the savage-eyed crew. 
 
 "An' that 's a fine little floatin' hell fer her 
 draught," said Long Jack. "I wondher what 
 mischief he 's been at ashore." 
 
 "He 's a trawler," Dan explained to Har- 
 vey, "an' he runs in fer bait all along the 
 coast. Oh, no, not home, he don't go. He 
 deals along the south an' east shore up yon- 
 der." He nodded in the direction of the piti- 
 less Newfoundland beaches. "Dad won't 
 
" CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 127 
 
 never take me ashore there. They 're a mighty 
 tough crowd — an' Abishai 's the toughest. 
 You saw his boat? Well, she 's nigh seventy 
 year old, they say; the last o' the old Marble- 
 head heel-tappers. They don't make them 
 quarterdecks any more. Abishai don't use 
 Marblehead, though. He ain't wanted there. 
 He jes' drif s araound, in debt, trawlin' an' 
 cussin' like you 've heard. Bin a Jonah fer 
 years an' years, he hez. 'Gits liquor frum the 
 Feecamp boats fer makin' spells an' selling 
 winds an' such truck. Crazy, I guess." 
 
 " 'T won't be any use underrunnin' the 
 trawl to-night," said Tom Piatt, with quiet 
 despair. "He come alongside special to cuss 
 us. I 'd give my wage an' share to see him at 
 the gangway o' the old Ohio 'fore we quit Hog- 
 gin'. Jest abaout six dozen, an' Sam Mocatta 
 layin' 'em on criss-cross!" 
 
 The dishevelled "heel-tapper" danced 
 drunkenly down wind, and all eyes followed 
 her. Suddenly the cook cried in his phono- 
 graph voice : "It wass his own death made him 
 speak so! He iss fey — fey, I tell you! Look!" 
 She sailed into a patch of watery sunshine 
 three or four miles distant. The patch dulled 
 and faded out, and even as the light passed so 
 
128 l ' CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 
 
 did the schooner. She dropped into a hollow 
 and — was not. 
 
 "Run under, by the Great Hook-Block!" 
 shouted Disko, jumping aft. "Drunk or sober, 
 we 've got to help 'em. Heave short and break 
 her out! Smart!" 
 
 Harvey was thrown on the deck by the 
 shock that followed the setting of the jib and 
 foresail, for they hove short on the cable, and 
 to save time, jerked the anchor bodily from 
 the bottom, heaving in as they moved away. 
 This is a bit of brute force seldom resorted to 
 except in matters of life and death, and the 
 little We 're Here complained like a human. 
 They ran down to where Abishai's craft had 
 vanished; found two or three trawl-tubs, a 
 gin-bottle, and a stove-in dory, but nothing 
 more. "Let 'em go," said Disko, though no one 
 had hinted at picking them up. "I would n't 
 hev a match that belonged to Abishai aboard. 
 Guess she run clear under. Must ha' been 
 spewin' her oakum fer a week, an' they never 
 thought to pump her. That 's one more boat 
 gone along o' leavin' port all hands drunk." 
 
 "Glory be!" said Long Jack. "We 'd ha' 
 been obliged to help 'em if they was top o' 
 water." 
 
° s 
 
 *- S 
 
 a 
 z 
 O 
 o 
 
 be 
 
 s 
 
 H 
 
 S S 
 
" CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 131 
 
 " 'Thinkin' o' that myself," said Tom Piatt. 
 
 "Fey! Fey!" said the cook, rolling his 
 eyes. "He haas taken his own luck with 
 him." 
 
 "Ver' good thing, I think, to tell the Fleet 
 when we see. Eh, wha-at?" said Manuel. 
 "If you runna that way before the wind, and 
 
 she work open her seams " He threw out 
 
 his hands with an indescribable gesture, while 
 Penn sat down on the house and sobbed at the 
 sheer horror and pity of it all. Harvey could 
 not realize that he had seen death on the open 
 waters, but he felt very sick. 
 
 Then Dan went up the cross-trees, and 
 Disko steered them back to within sight of 
 their own trawl-buoys just before the fog 
 blanketed the sea once again. 
 
 "We go mighty quick hereabouts when we 
 do go," was all he said to Harvey. "You 
 think on that fer a spell, young feller. That 
 was liquor." 
 
 After dinner it was calm enough to fish 
 from the decks, — Penn and Uncle Salters were 
 very zealous this time, — and the catch was 
 large and large fish. 
 
 "Abishai has shorely took his luck with 
 him," said Salters. "The wind hain't backed 
 
i 3 2 "CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS" 
 
 ner riz ner nothin'. How abaout the trawl r 
 I despise superstition, anyway." 
 
 Tom Piatt insisted that they had much bet- 
 ter haul the thing and make a new berth. Bui 
 the cook said: "The luck iss in two pieces 
 You will find it so when you look. / know.' 
 This so tickled Long Jack that he overbore 
 Tom Piatt and the two went out together. 
 
 Underrunning a trawl means pulling it in 
 on one side of the dory, picking off the fish 
 rebaiting the hooks, and passing them back tc 
 the sea again — something like pinning and 
 unpinning linen on a wash-line. It is a 
 lengthy business and rather dangerous, foi 
 the long, sagging line may twitch a boat undei 
 in a flash. But when they heard, "And naow 
 to thee, O Capting," booming out of the fog 
 the crew of the We 're Here took heart. Th( 
 dory swirled alongside well loaded, Torr 
 Piatt yelling for Manuel to act as relief -boat 
 
 "The luck 's cut square in two pieces," saic 
 Long Jack, forking in the fish, while Harvey 
 stood open-mouthed at the skill with which th< 
 plunging dory was saved from destruction 
 "One half was jest punkins. Tom Piatt want 
 ed to haul her an' ha' done wid ut; but ] 
 said, "I '11 back the doctor that has the seconc 
 
" CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 133 
 
 sight,' an' the other half come up sagging full 
 0' big uns. Hurry, Man'nle, an' bring 's a 
 tub 0' bait. There 's luck afloat to-night." 
 
 The fish bit at the newly baited hooks from 
 which their brethren had just been taken, and 
 Tom Piatt and Long Jack moved methodi- 
 cally up and down the length of the trawl, the 
 boat's nose surging under the wet line of hooks, 
 stripping the sea-cucumbers that they called 
 pumpkins, slatting off the fresh-caught cod 
 against the gunwale, rebaiting, and loading 
 Manuel's dory till dusk. 
 
 "I '11 take no risks," said Disko then — "not 
 with him floatin' around so near. Abishai 
 won't sink fer a week. Heave in the dories 
 an' we '11 dress daown after supper." 
 
 That was a mighty dressing-down, attended 
 by three or four blowing grampuses. It lasted 
 till nine o'clock, and Disko was thrice heard 
 to chuckle as Harvey pitched the split fish 
 into the hold. 
 
 "Say, you 're haulin' ahead dretful fast," 
 said Dan, when they ground the knives after 
 the men had turned in. "There's somethin' 
 of a sea to-night, an' I hain't heard you make 
 no remarks on it." 
 
 "Too busy," Harvey replied, testing a 
 
i 3 4 " CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 
 
 blade's edge. "Come to think of it, she is 
 high-kicker." 
 
 The little schooner was gambolling i 
 around her anchor among the silver-tippi 
 waves. Backing with a start of affected su 
 prise at the sight of the strained cable, si 
 pounced on it like a kitten, while the spray 
 her descent burst through the hawse-hol 
 with the report of a gun. Shaking her hea 
 she would say: "Well, I 'm sorry I can't st; 
 any longer with you. I 'm going North," at 
 would sidle off, halting suddenly with a dr 
 matic rattle of her rigging. "As I was ju 
 going to observe," she would begin, as grav 
 ly as a drunken man addressing a lamp-poi 
 The rest of the sentence (she acted her wor 
 in dumb-show, of course) was lost in a fit i 
 the fidgets, when she behaved like a pupj 
 chewing a string, a clumsy woman in a sid 
 saddle, a hen with her head cut off, or a co 
 stung by a hornet, exactly as the whims of tl 
 sea took her. 
 
 "See her sayin' her piece. She 's Patrii 
 Henry naow," said Dan. 
 
 She swung sideways on a roller, and gesti 
 ulated with her jib-boom from port to sta 
 board. 
 
" CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 135 
 
 "But — ez — fer me, give me liberty — er 
 give me — death!" 
 
 Wop ! She sat down in the moon-path on 
 the water, courtesying with a flourish of pride 
 impressive enough had not the wheel-gear 
 sniggered mockingly in its box. 
 
 Harvey laughed aloud. "Why, it 's just as 
 if she was alive," he said. 
 
 "She 's as stiddy as a haouse an' as dry as 
 a herrin'," said Dan enthusiastically, as he was 
 slung across the deck in a batter of spray. 
 "Fends 'em off an' fends 'em off, an' 'Don't 
 ye come anigh me,' she sez. Look at her — 
 jest look at her! Sakes! You should see one 
 o' them toothpicks histin' up her anchor on 
 her spike outer fifteen-fathom water." 
 
 "What's a toothpick, Dan?" 
 
 "Them new haddockers an' herrin'-boats. 
 Fine 's a yacht forward, with yacht sterns to 
 'em, an' spike bowsprits, an' a haouse that 'u'd 
 take our hold. I 've heard that Burgess him- 
 self he made the models fer three or four of 
 'em. Dad 's sot agin 'em on account o' their 
 pitchin' an' joltin', but there 's heaps o' money 
 in 'em. Dad can find fish, but he ain't no 
 ways progressive — he don't go with the march 
 o' the times. They 're chock-full o' labour- 
 
136 " CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 
 
 savin' jigs an' sech all. 'Ever seed the Electc 
 o' Gloucester? She 's a daisy, ef she is 
 toothpick." 
 
 "What do they cost, Dan?" 
 
 "Hills o' dollars. Fifteen thousand, p'haps 
 more, mebbe. There 's gold-leaf an' ever] 
 thing you kin think of." Then to himsel 
 half under his breath, "Guess I 'd call he 
 Hattie S., too." 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 THAT was the first of many talks with 
 Dan, who told Harvey why he would 
 transfer his dory's name to the imaginary Bur- 
 gess-modelled haddocker. Harvey heard a 
 good deal about the real Hattie at Gloucester ; 
 saw a lock of her hair — which Dan, finding 
 fair words of no avail, had "hooked" as she 
 sat in front of him at school that winter — and 
 a photograph. Hattie was about fourteen 
 years old, with an awful contempt for boys, 
 and had been trampling on Dan's heart 
 through the winter. All this was revealed 
 under oath of solemn secrecy on moonlit decks, 
 in the dead dark, or in choking fog; the whin- 
 ing wheel behind them, the climbing deck be- 
 fore, and without, the unresting, clamorous 
 sea. Once, of course, as the boys came to 
 know each other, there was a fight, which 
 raged from bow to stern till Penn came up 
 and separated them, but promised not to tell 
 
 "37 
 
i 3 8 " CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 
 
 Disko, who thought fighting on watch rathe 
 worse than sleeping. Harvey was no matcl 
 for Dan physically, but it says a great deal f o 
 his new training that he took his defeat am 
 did not try to get even with his conqueror b; 
 underhand methods. 
 
 That was after he had been cured of a strinj 
 of boils between his elbows and wrists, wrier 
 the wet jersey and oilskins cut into the flesh 
 The salt water stung them unpleasantly, bu 
 when they were ripe Dan treated them wit! 
 Disko's razor, and assured Harvey that now h 
 was a "blooded Banker"; the affliction o 
 gurry-sores being the mark of the caste tha 
 claimed him. 
 
 Since he was a boy and very busy, he di< 
 not bother his head with too much thinking 
 He was exceedingly sorry for his mother, am 
 often longed to see her and above all to tel 
 her of this wonderful new life, and how bril 
 liantly he was acquitting himself in it. Other 
 wise he preferred not to wonder too mucl 
 how she was bearing the shock of his sup 
 posed death. But one day, as he stood on th 
 foc'sle ladder, guying the cook, who had ac 
 cused him and Dan of hooking fried pies, i 
 occurred to him that this was a vast improve 
 
" CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 139 
 
 ment on being snubbed by strangers in the 
 smoking-room of a hired liner. 
 
 He was a recognized part of the scheme of 
 things on the We 're Here; had his place at 
 the table and among the bunks ; and could hold 
 his own in the long talks on stormy days, when 
 the others were always ready to listen to what 
 they called his "fairy-tales" of his life ashore. 
 It did not take him more than two days and a 
 quarter to feel that if he spoke of his own life 
 — it seemed very far away — no one except 
 Dan (and even Dan's belief was sorely tried ){ 
 credited him. So he invented a friend, a boy 
 he had heard of, who drove a miniature four- 
 pony drag in Toledo, Ohio, and ordered five 
 suits of clothes at a time and led things called 
 "germans" at parties where the oldest girl was 
 not quite fifteen, but all the presents were 
 solid silver. Salters protested that this kind 
 of yarn was desperately wicked, if not indeed 
 positively blasphemous, but he listened as 
 greedily as the others ; and their criticisms at 
 the end gave Harvey entirely new notions on 
 "germans," clothes, cigarettes with gold-leaf 
 tips, rings, watches, scent, small dinner-parties, 
 champagne, card-playing, and hotel accom- 
 modation. Little by little he changed his tone 
 
Ho " CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 
 
 when speaking of his "friend," whom Long 
 Jack had christened "the Crazy Kid," "the 
 Gilt-edged Baby," "the Suckin' Vanderpoop,' : 
 and other pet names ; and with his sea-booted 
 feet cocked up on the table would even invent 
 histories about silk pajamas and specially im- 
 ported neckwear, to the "friend's" discredit. 
 Harvey was a very adaptable person, with a 
 keen eye and ear for every face and tone about 
 him. 
 
 Before long he knew where Disko kept the 
 old green-crusted quadrant that they called 
 the "hog-yoke" — under the bed-bag in his 
 bunk. When he took the sun, and with the 
 help of "The Old Farmer's" almanac found 
 the latitude, Harvey would jump down into 
 the cabin and scratch the reckoning and date 
 with a nail on the rust of the stove-pipe. Now, 
 the chief engineer of the liner could have done 
 no more, and no engineer of thirty years' 
 service could have assumed one half of the 
 ancient-mariner air with which Harvey, first 
 careful to spit over the side, made public the 
 schooner's position for that day, and then 
 and not till then relieved Disko of the quad- 
 rant. There is an etiquette in all these things 
 
 The said "hog-yoke," an Eldridge chart, the 
 
" CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 141 
 
 farming almanac, Blunt's "Coast Pilot," and 
 Bowditch's "Navigator" were all the weapons 
 Disko needed to guide him, except the deep- 
 sea lead that was his spare eye. Harvey nearly 
 slew Penn with it when Tom Piatt taught him 
 first how to "fly the blue pigeon" ; and, though 
 his strength was not equal to continuous 
 sounding in any sort of a sea, for calm weather 
 with a seven-pound lead on shoal water Disko 
 used him freely. As Dan said : " 'T ain't 
 soundin's dad wants. It 's samples. Grease 
 her up good, Harve." Harvey would tallow 
 the cup at the end, and carefully bring the 
 sand, shell, sludge, or whatever it might be, to 
 Disko, who fingered and smelt it and gave 
 judgment. As has been said, when Disko 
 thought of cod he thought as a cod ; and 
 by some long-tested mixture of instinct and 
 experience, moved the We 're Here from 
 berth to berth, always with the fish, as a 
 blindfolded chess-player moves on the unseen 
 board. 
 
 But Disko's board was the Grand Bank — 
 a triangle two hundred and fifty miles on each 
 side — a waste of wallowing sea, cloaked with 
 dank fog, vexed with gales, harried with 
 drifting ice, scored by the tracks of the reck- 
 
Ha " CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 
 
 less liners, and dotted with the sails of the 
 fishing-fleet. 
 
 For days they worked in fog — Harvey at 
 the bell — till, grown familiar with the thick 
 airs, he went out with Tom Piatt, his heart 
 rather in his mouth. But the fog would not 
 lift, and the fish were biting, and no one can 
 stay helplessly afraid for six hours at a time. 
 Harvey devoted himself to his lines and the 
 gaff or gob-stick as Tom Piatt called for them ; 
 and they rowed back to the schooner guided 
 by the bell and Tom's instinct; Manuel's 
 conch sounding thin and faint beside them. 
 But it was an unearthly experience, and, for 
 the first time in a month, Harvey dreamed of 
 the shifting, smoking floors of water round 
 the dory, the lines that strayed away into noth- 
 ing, and the air above that melted on the sea 
 below ten feet from his straining eyes. A 
 few days later he was out with Manuel on what 
 should have been forty-fathom bottom, but the 
 whole length of the roding ran out, and still 
 the anchor found nothing, and Harvey grew 
 mortally afraid, for that his last touch with 
 earth was lost. "Whale-hole," said Manuel, 
 hauling in. "That is good joke on Disko. 
 Cornel" and he rowed to the schooner to find 
 
"A WHITENESS MOVED IN THE WHITENESS OF THE FOG. 
 IT WAS HIS FIRST INTRODUCTION TO THE DREAD 
 SUMMER BERG OF THE BANK." 
 
" CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 145 
 
 Tom Piatt and the others jeering at the skip- 
 per because, for once, he had led them to the 
 edge of the barren Whale-deep, the blank 
 hole of the Grand Bank. They made another 
 berth through the fog, and that time the hair 
 of Harvey's head stood up when he went out 
 in Manuel's dory. A whiteness moved in the 
 whiteness of the fog with a breath like the 
 breath of the grave, and there was a roaring, 
 a plunging, and spouting. It was his first in- 
 troduction to the dread summer berg of the 
 Banks, and he cowered in the bottom of the 
 boat while Manuel laughed. There were 
 days, though, clear and soft and warm, when 
 it seemed a sin to do anything but loaf over 
 the hand-lines and spank the drifting "sun- 
 scalds" with an oar; and there were days of 
 light airs, when Harvey was taught how to 
 steer the schooner from one berth to another. 
 It thrilled through him when he first felt 
 the keel answer to his hand on the spokes and 
 slide over the long hollows as the foresail 
 scythed back and forth against the blue sky. 
 That was magnificent, in spite of Disko saying 
 that it would break a snake's back to follow his 
 wake. But, as usual, pride ran before a fall. 
 They were sailing on the wind with the stay- 
 
146 " CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 
 
 sail — an old one, luckily — set, and Harvey 
 jammed her right into it to show Dan how 
 completely he had mastered the art. The 
 foresail went over with a bang, and the fore- 
 gaff stabbed and ripped through the staysail, 
 which was, of course, prevented from going 
 over by the mainstay. They lowered the 
 wreck in awful silence, and Harvey spent his 
 leisure hours for the next few days under Tom 
 Piatt's lee, learning to use a needle and palm. 
 Dan hooted with joy, for, as he said, he had 
 made the very same blunder himself in his 
 early days. 
 
 Boylike, Harvey imitated all the men by 
 turns, till he had combined Disko's peculiar 
 stoop at the wheel, Long Jack's swinging 
 overhand when the lines were hauled, Manu- 
 el's round-shouldered but effective stroke in a 
 dory, and Tom Piatt's generous Ohio stride 
 along the deck. 
 
 " 'T is beautiful to see how he takes to ut," 
 said Long Jack, when Harvey was looking 
 out by the windlass one thick noon. "I '11 lay 
 my wage an' share 't is more 'n half play-actin' 
 to him, an' he consates himself he 's a bowld 
 mariner. Watch his little bit av a back now 1" 
 
 "That 's the way we all begin," said Tom 
 
" CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 147 
 
 Piatt. "The boys they make believe all the 
 time till they 've cheated 'emselves into bein' 
 men, an' so till they die — pretendin' an' pre- 
 tendin'. / done it on the old Ohio, I know. 
 Stood my first watch — harbour-watch — f eelin' 
 finer 'n Farragut. Dan 's full o' the same 
 kind 0' notions. See 'em now, actin' to be 
 genewine moss-backs — every hair a rope- 
 yarn an' blood Stockholm tar." He spoke 
 down the cabin stairs. "Guess you 're mistook 
 in your judgments fer once, Disko. What in 
 Rome made ye tell us all here the kid was 
 crazy?" 
 
 "He wuz," Disko replied. "Crazy ez a 
 loon when he come aboard ; but I '11 say he 's 
 sobered up consid'ble sence. I cured him." 
 
 "He yarns good," said Tom Piatt. "T' other 
 night he told us abaout a kid of his own size 
 steerin' a cunnin' little rig an' four ponies up 
 an' down Toledo, Ohio, I think 't was, an' 
 givin' suppers to a crowd o' sim'lar kids. Cur'- 
 us kind o' fairy-tale, but blame interestin'. He 
 knows scores of 'em." 
 
 "Guess he strikes 'em outen his own head," 
 Disko called from the cabin, where he was 
 busy with the log-book. "Stands to reason 
 that sort is all made up. It don't take in no 
 
i 4 8 " CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 
 
 one but Dan, an' he laughs at it. I 've heard 
 him, behind my back." 
 
 "Y' ever hear what Sim'on Peter Ca'houn 
 said when they whacked up a match 'twix' his 
 sister Hitty an' Lorin' Jerauld, an' the boys 
 put up that joke on him daown to Georges?" 
 drawled Uncle Salters, who was dripping 
 peaceably under the lee of the starboard dory- 
 nest. 
 
 Tom Piatt puffed at his pipe in scornful 
 silence: he was a Cape Cod man, and had not 
 known that tale more than twenty years. Un- 
 cle Salters went on with a rasping chuckle: 
 
 "Sim'on Peter Ca'houn he said, an' he was 
 jest right, abaout Lorin', 'Ha'af on the taown,' 
 he said, 'an' t' other ha'af blame fool ; an' they 
 told me she 's married a 'ich man.' Sim'on 
 Peter Ca'houn he hed n't no roof to his mouth, 
 an' talked that way." 
 
 "He did n't talk any Pennsylvania Dutch," 
 Tom Piatt replied. "You 'd better leave a 
 Cape man to tell that tale. The Ca'houns was 
 gypsies f rum 'way back." 
 
 "Wal, I don't profess to be any elocution- 
 ist," Salters said. "I 'm comin' to the moral 
 o' things. That 's jest abaout what aour Harve 
 be! Ha'af on the taown, an' t' other ha'af 
 
"CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS" 149 
 
 blame fool ; an' there 's some '11 believe he 's 
 a rich man. Yah!" 
 
 "Did ye ever think how sweet 't would be 
 to sail wid a full crew o' Salterses?" said Long 
 Jack. "Ha'af in the furrer an' other ha'af in 
 the muck-heap, as Ca'houn did not say, an' 
 makes out he 's a fisherman!" 
 
 A little laugh went round at Salters's ex- 
 pense. 
 
 Disko held his tongue, and wrought over 
 the log-book that he kept in a hatchet-faced, 
 square hand ; this was the kind of thing that 
 ran on, page after soiled page : 
 
 "July ij. This day thick fog and few fish. 
 Made berth to northward. So ends this day. 
 
 "July 18. This day comes in with thick 
 fog. Caught a few fish. 
 
 "July 19. This day comes in with light 
 breeze from N. E. and fine weather. Made 
 a berth to eastward. Caught plenty fish. 
 
 "July 20. This, the Sabbath, comes in with 
 fog and light winds. So ends this day. Total 
 fish caught this week, 3,478." 
 
 They never worked on Sundays, but shaved, 
 and washed themselves if it were fine, and 
 Pennsylvania sang hymns. Once or twice he 
 suggested that, if it was not an impertinence, 
 
i5o " CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 
 
 he thought he could preach a little. Uncle 
 Salters nearly jumped down his throat at the 
 mere notion, reminding him that he was not £ 
 preacher and must n't think of such things 
 "We 'd hev him rememberin' Johnstowr 
 next," Salters explained, "an' what would 
 happen then?" So they compromised on his 
 reading aloud from a book called "Josephus.' 
 It was an old leather-bound volume, smelling 
 of a hundred voyages, very solid and very like 
 the Bible, but enlivened with accounts oi 
 battles and sieges ; and they read it nearly f rorr 
 cover to cover. Otherwise Penn was a sileni 
 little body. He would not utter a word foi 
 three days on end sometimes, though he played 
 checkers, listened to the songs, and laughed ai 
 the stories. When they tried to stir him up, he 
 would answer: "I don't wish to seem unneigh- 
 bourly, but it is because I have nothing to say 
 My head feels quite empty. I 've almost for- 
 gotten my name." He would turn to Uncle 
 Salters with an expectant smile. 
 
 "Why, Pennsylvania Pratt," Salters woulc 
 shout. "You '11 fergit me nextl" 
 
 "No — never," Penn would say, shutting hi: 
 lips firmly. "Pennsylvania Pratt, of course,' 
 he would repeat over and over. Sometimes i 
 
" CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 153 
 
 was Uncle Salters who forgot, and told him 
 he was Haskins or Rich or McVitty ; but Penn 
 was equally content — till next time. 
 
 He was always very tender with Harvey, 
 whom he pitied both as a lost child and as a 
 lunatic ; and when Salters saw that Penn liked 
 the boy, he relaxed, too. Salters was not an 
 amiable person (he esteemed it his business 
 to keep the boys in order) ; and the first time 
 Harvey, in fear and trembling, on a still day, 
 managed to shin up to the main-truck (Dan 
 was behind him ready to help), he esteemed 
 it his duty to hang Salters's big sea-boots up 
 there — a sight of shame and derision to the 
 nearest schooner. With Disko, Harvey took 
 no liberties; not even when the old man 
 dropped direct orders, and treated him, like 
 the rest of the crew, to "Don't you want to do 
 so and so?" and "Guess you 'd better," and 
 so forth. There was something about the 
 clean-shaven lips and the puckered corners of 
 the eyes that was mightily sobering to young 
 blood. 
 
 Disko showed him the meaning of the 
 thumbed and pricked chart, which, he said, 
 laid over any government publication whatso- 
 ever; led him, pencil in hand, from berth to 
 
154 " CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 
 
 berth over the whole string of banks — L 
 Have, Western, Banquereau, St. Piern 
 Green, and Grand — talking "cod" meantime 
 Taught him, too, the principle on which th 
 "hog-yoke" was worked. 
 
 In this Harvey excelled Dan, for he hai 
 inherited a head for figures, and the notion c 
 stealing information from one glimpse of th 
 sullen Bank sun appealed to all his keen witi 
 For other sea-matters his age handicappd 
 him. As Disko said, he should have begu 
 when he was ten. Dan could bait up traw 
 or lay his hand on any rope in the dark; an 
 at a pinch, when Uncle Salters had a gurry 
 sore on his palm, could dress down by sense o 
 touch. He could steer in anything short o 
 half a gale from the feel of the wind on hi 
 face, humouring the We 're Here just whe 
 she needed it. These things he did as autc 
 matically as he skipped about the rigging, o 
 made his dory a part of his own will and bodj 
 But he could not communicate his knowledg 
 to Harvey. 
 
 Still there was a good deal of general inf 01 
 mation flying about the schooner on storm 
 days, when they lay up in the foc'sle or sat o 
 the cabin lockers, while spare eye-bolts, lead; 
 
" CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 155 
 
 and rings rolled and rattled in the pauses of 
 the talk. Disko spoke of whaling voyages in 
 the Fifties; of great she-whales slain beside 
 their young; of death agonies on the black toss- 
 ing seas, and blood that spurted forty feet in 
 the air ; of boats smashed to splinters ; of patent 
 rockets that went off wrong-end-first and 
 bombarded the trembling crews ; of cutting-in 
 and boiling-down, and that terrible "nip" of 
 '71, when twelve hundred men were made 
 homeless on the ice in three days — wonderful 
 tales, all true. But more wonderful still were 
 his stories of the cod, and how they argued 
 and reasoned on their private businesses deep 
 down below the keel. 
 
 Long Jack's tastes ran more to the super- 
 natural. He held them silent with ghastly 
 stories of the "Yo-hoes" on Monomoy Beach, 
 that mock and terrify lonely clam-diggers ; of 
 sand-walkers and dune-haunters who were 
 never properly buried ; of hidden treasure on 
 Fire Island guarded by the spirits of Kidd's 
 men; of ships that sailed in the fog straight 
 over Truro township; of that harbour in 
 Maine where no one but a stranger will lie at 
 anchor twice in a certain place because of a 
 dead crew who row alongside at midnight with 
 
156 " CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 
 
 the anchor in the bow of their old-fashioned 
 boat, whistling — not calling, but whistling— 
 for the soul of the man who broke their rest. 
 
 Harvey had a notion that the east coast oi 
 his native land, from Mount Desert south, 
 was populated chiefly by people who took 
 their horses there in the summer and enter- 
 tained in country-houses with hardwood floors 
 and Vantine portieres. He laughed at the 
 ghost-tales, — not as much as he would have 
 done a month before, — but ended by sitting 
 still and shuddering. 
 
 Tom Piatt dealt with his interminable trip 
 round the Horn on the old Ohio in the flogging 
 days, with a navy more extinct than the dodc 
 — the navy that passed away in the great war 
 He told them how red-hot shot are droppec 
 into a cannon, a wad of wet clay between 
 them and the cartridge; how they sizzle anc 
 reek when they strike wood, and how the littlf 
 ship-boys of the Miss Jim Buck hove watei 
 over them and shouted to the fort to try again 
 And he told tales of blockade — long weeks o 
 swaying at anchor, varied only by the depart 
 ure and return of steamers that had used uj 
 their coal (there was no chance for the sailing 
 ships) ; of gales and cold — cold that kept tw< 
 
" CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 157 
 
 hundred men, night and day, pounding and 
 chopping at the ice on cable, blocks, and rig- 
 ging, when the galley was as red-hot as the 
 fort's shot, and men drank cocoa by the bucket. 
 Tom Piatt had no use for steam. His service 
 closed when that thing was comparatively 
 new. He admitted that it was a specious in- 
 vention in time of peace, but looked hopefully 
 for the day when sails should come back again 
 on ten-thousand-ton frigates with hundred- 
 and-ninety-foot booms. 
 
 Manuel's talk was slow and gentle — all 
 about pretty girls in Madeira washing clothes 
 in the dry beds of streams, by moonlight, 
 under waving bananas; legends of saints, and 
 tales of queer dances or fights away in the 
 cold Newfoundland baiting-ports. Salters 
 was mainly agricultural ; for, though he read 
 "Josephus" and expounded it, his mission in 
 life was to prove the value of green manures, 
 and specially of clover, against every form 
 of phosphate whatsoever. He grew libellous 
 about phosphates; he dragged greasy "Orange 
 Judd" books from his bunk and intoned them, 
 wagging his finger at Harvey, to whom it was 
 all Greek. Little Penn was so genuinely 
 pained when Harvey made fun of'Salters's 
 
158 " CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 
 
 lectures that the boy gave it up, and suffered in 
 polite silence. That was very good for Har- 
 vey. 
 
 The cook naturally did not join in these con- 
 versations. As a rule, he spoke only when it 
 was absolutely necessary ; but at times a queer 
 gift of speech descended on him, and he held 
 forth, half in Gaelic, half in broken English, 
 an hour at a time. He was especially com- 
 municative with the boys, and he never with- 
 drew his prophecy that one day Harvey would 
 be Dan's master, and that he would see it. 
 He told them of mail-carrying in the winter 
 up Cape Breton way, of the dog-train that 
 goes to Coudray, and of the ram-steamer 
 Arctic, that breaks the ice between the main- 
 land and Prince Edward Island. Then he told 
 them stories that his mother had told him, of 
 life far to the southward, where water never 
 froze; and he said that when he died his soul 
 would go to lie down on a warm white beach 
 of sand with palm-trees waving above. That 
 seemed to the boys a very odd idea for a man 
 who had never seen a palm in his life. Then, 
 too, regularly at each meal, he would ask 
 Harvey, and Harvey alone, whether the cook- 
 ing was to his taste ; and this always made the 
 
" CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 159 
 
 "second half" laugh. Yet they had a great 
 respect for the cook's judgment, and in their 
 hearts considered Harvey something of a mas- 
 cot by consequence. 
 
 And while Harvey was taking in knowl- 
 edge of new things at each pore and hard 
 health with every gulp of the good air, the 
 We 're Here went her ways and did her busi- 
 ness on the Bank, and the silvery-gray kenches 
 of well-pressed fish mounted higher and 
 higher in the hold. No one day's work was 
 out of common, but the average days were 
 many and close together. 
 
 Naturally, a man of Disko's reputation was 
 closely watched — "scrowged upon," Dan 
 called it — by his neighbours, but he had a very 
 pretty knack of giving them the slip through 
 the curdling, glidy fog-banks. Disko avoided 
 company for two reasons. He wished to 
 make his own experiments, in the first place; 
 and in the second, he objected to the mixed 
 gatherings of a fleet of all nations. The bulk 
 of them were mainly Gloucester boats, with 
 a scattering from Provincetown, Harwich, 
 Chatham, and some of the Maine ports, but 
 the crews drew from goodness knows where. 
 Risk breeds recklessness, and when greed is 
 
J0O 
 
 " CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 
 
 added there are fine chances for every kind of 
 accident in the crowded fleet, which, like a 
 mob of sheep, is huddled round some unrec- 
 ognized leader. "Let the two Jeraulds lead 
 'em," said Disko. "We 're baound to lay 
 among 'em for a spell on the Eastern Shoals ; 
 though ef luck holds, we won't hev to lay long. 
 Where we are naow, Harve, ain't considered 
 noways good graound." 
 
 "Ain't it?" said Harvey, who was drawing 
 water (he had learned just how to wiggle the 
 bucket), after an unusually long dressing- 
 down. "Should n't mind striking some poor 
 ground for a change, then." 
 
 "All the graound I want to see — don't want 
 to strike her — is Eastern Point," said Dan. 
 "Say, Dad, it looks 's if we would n't hev to 
 lay more 'n two weeks on the Shoals. You '11 
 meet all the comp'ny you want then, Harve. 
 That 's the time we begin to work. No reg'- 
 lar meals fer no one then. 'Mug-up when 
 ye 're hungry, an' sleep when ye can't keep 
 awake. Good job you was n't picked up a 
 month later than you was, or we 'd never ha' 
 had you dressed in shape fer the Old Virgin." 
 
 Harvey understood from the Eldridge chart 
 that the Old Virgin and a nest of curiously 
 
" CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 161 
 
 named shoals were the turning-point of the 
 cruise, and that with good luck they would 
 wet the balance of their salt there. But see- 
 ing the size of the Virgin (it was one tiny 
 dot), he wondered how even Disko with the 
 hog-yoke and the lead could find her. He 
 learned later that Disko was entirely equal to 
 that and any other business and could even 
 help others. A big four-by-five blackboard 
 hung in the cabin, and Harvey never under- 
 stood the need of it till, after some blinding 
 thick days, they heard the unmelodious tooting 
 of a foot-power fog-horn — a machine whose 
 note is as that of a consumptive elephant. 
 
 They were making a short berth, towing the 
 anchor under their foot to save trouble. 
 "Square-rigger bellowin' fer his latitude," 
 said Long Jack. The dripping red headsails 
 of a bark glided out of the fog, and the We 're 
 Here rang her bell thrice, using sea short- 
 hand. 
 
 The larger boat backed her topsail with 
 shrieks and shoutings. 
 
 "Frenchman," said Uncle Salters, scorn- 
 fully. "Miquelon boat from St. Malo." The 
 farmer had a weatherly sea-eye. "I 'm 'most 
 outer 'baccy, too, Disko." 
 
i62 " CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 
 
 "Same here," said Tom Piatt. "Hi! 
 Backez vous — backez vousf Standez awayez, 
 you butt-ended mucho-bono! Where you from 
 —St. Malo, eh?" 
 
 "Ah, ha! Mucho bono! Out! ouif Clos 
 Poulet — St. Malo! St. Pierre et Miquelon," 
 cried the other crowd, waving woollen caps 
 and laughing. Then all together, "Bord! 
 Bord!" 
 
 "Bring up the board, Danny. Beats me 
 how them Frenchmen fetch anywheres, ex- 
 ceptin' America's fairish broadly. Forty-six 
 forty-nine 's good enough fer them; an' I 
 guess it 's abaout right, too." 
 
 Dan chalked the figures on the board, and 
 they hung it in the main-rigging to a chorus 
 of mercis from the bark. 
 
 "Seems kinder unneighbourly to let 'em 
 swedge off like this," Salters suggested, feel- 
 ing in his pockets. 
 
 "Hev ye learned French then sence last 
 trip?" said Disko. "I don't want no more 
 stone-ballast hove at us 'long o' your callin' 
 Miquelon boats 'footy cochins,' same 's you 
 did off Le Have." 
 
 "Harmon Rush he said that was the way 
 to rise 'em. Plain United States is good 
 
s 
 s 
 
 fa 5- 
 
 < < 
 
" CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 165 
 
 enough fer me. We 're all dretful short on 
 tearakker. Young feller, don't you speak 
 French?" 
 
 "Oh, yes," said Harvey valiantly; and he 
 bawled: "Hi! Say! Arretez vousf Atten- 
 dez! Nous sommes venant pour tabac." 
 
 "Ah, tabac, tabac!" they cried, and laughed 
 again. 
 
 "That hit 'em. Let 's heave a dory over, 
 anyway," said Tom Piatt. "I don't exactly 
 hold no certificates on French, but I know 
 another lingo that goes, I guess. Come on, 
 Harve, an' interpret." 
 
 The raffle and confusion when he and Har- 
 vey were hauled up the bark's black side was 
 indescribable. Her cabin was all stuck round 
 with glaring coloured prints of the Virgin — 
 the Virgin of Newfoundland, they called her. 
 Harvey found his French of no recognized 
 Bank brand, and his conversation was limited 
 to nods and grins. But Tom Piatt waved his 
 arms and got along swimmingly. The cap- 
 tain gave him a drink of unspeakable gin, 
 and the opera-comique crew, with their hairy 
 throats, red caps, and long knives, greeted 
 him as a brother. Then the trade began. 
 They had tobacco, plenty of it — American, 
 
166 " CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 
 
 that had never paid duty to France. They 
 wanted chocolate and crackers. Harvey 
 rowed back to arrange with the cook and 
 Disko, who owned the stores, and on his re- 
 turn the cocoa-tins and cracker-bags were 
 counted out by the Frenchman's wheel. It 
 looked like a piratical division of loot; but 
 Tom Piatt came out of it roped with black 
 pigtail and stuffed with cakes of chewing and 
 smoking tobacco. Then those jovial mariners 
 swung off into the mist, and the last Harvey 
 heard was a gay chorus : 
 
 "Par derriere chez ma tante, 
 II y a un bois joli, 
 Et le rossignol y chante 
 Et le jour et la nuit . . . 
 
 Que donneriez vous, belle, 
 Qui l'amenerait ici? 
 Je donnerai Quebec, 
 Sorel et Saint Denis." 
 
 "How was it my French did n't go, and 
 your sign-talk did?" Harvey demanded when 
 the barter had been distributed among the 
 We 're Meres. 
 
 "Sign-talk!" Piatt guffawed. "Well, yes, 
 't was sign-talk, but a heap older 'n your 
 
" CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 167 
 
 French, Harve. Them French boats are 
 chock-full o' Freemasons, an' that 's why." 
 
 "Are you a Freemason, then?" 
 
 "Looks that way, don't it?" said the man- 
 o'-war's man, stuffing his pipe; and Harvey 
 had another mystery of the deep sea to brood 
 upon. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 THE thing that struck him most was the 
 exceedingly casual way in which some 
 craft loafed about the broad Atlantic. Fish- 
 ing-boats, as Dan said, were naturally depen- 
 dent on the courtesy and wisdom of their 
 neighbours ; but one expected better things of 
 steamers. That was after another interesting 
 interview, when they had been chased for 
 three miles by a big lumbering old cattle-boat, 
 all boarded over on the upper deck, that smelt 
 like a thousand cattle-pens. A very excited 
 officer yelled at them through a speaking- 
 trumpet, and she lay and lollopped helplessly 
 on the water while Disko ran the We 're Here 
 under her lee and gave the skipper a piece of 
 his mind. "Where might ye be — eh? Ye 
 don't deserve to be anywheres. You barn-yard 
 tramps go hoggin' the road on the high seas 
 with no blame consideration fer your neigh- 
 bours, an' your eyes in your coffee-cups instid 
 o' in your silly heads." 
 
 168 
 
" CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 169 
 
 At this the skipper danced on the bridge 
 and said something about Disko's own eyes. 
 "We have n't had an observation for three 
 days. D' you suppose we can run her blind?" 
 he shouted. 
 
 " Wa-al, / can," Disko retorted. "What 's 
 come to your lead? Et it? Can't ye smell 
 bottom, or are them cattle too rank?" 
 
 "What d' ye feed 'em?" said Uncle Salters 
 with intense seriousness, for the smell of the 
 pens woke all the farmer in him. "They say 
 they fall off dretf ul on a v'yage. Dunno as it 's 
 any o' my business, but I 've a kind 0' notion 
 that oil-cake broke small an' sprinkled " 
 
 "Thunder !" said a cattle-man in a red jer- 
 sey as he looked over the side. "What asylum 
 did they let His Whiskers out of?" 
 
 "Young feller," Salters began, standing up 
 in the fore-rigging, "let me tell yeou 'fore we 
 go any further that I 've " 
 
 The officer on the bridge took off his cap 
 with immense politeness. "Excuse me," he 
 said, "but I 've asked for my reckoning. If 
 the agricultural person with the hair will 
 kindly shut his head, the sea-green barnacle 
 with the wall-eye may per-haps condescend to 
 enlighten us." 
 
170 " CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 
 
 "Naowyou 've made a show o' me, Salters," 
 said Disko, angrily. He could not stand up to 
 that particular sort of talk, and snapped out 
 the latitude and longitude without more lec- 
 tures. 
 
 "Well, that 's a boat-load of lunatics, sure," 
 said the skipper, as he rang up the engine- 
 room and tossed a bundle of newspapers into 
 the schooner. 
 
 "Of all the blamed fools, next to you, Salt- 
 ers, him an' his crowd are abaout the likeliest 
 I 've ever seen," said Disko as the We 're 
 Here slid away. "I was jest givin' him my 
 jedgment on lullsikin' round these waters like 
 a lost child, an' you must cut in with your fool 
 f armin'. Can't ye never keep things sep'rate?" 
 
 Harvey, Dan, and the others stood back, 
 winking one to the other and full of joy; but 
 Disko and Salters wrangled seriously till eve- 
 ning, Salters arguing that a cattle-boat was 
 practically a barn on blue water, and Disko 
 insisting that, even if this were the case, de- 
 cency and fisher-pride demanded that he 
 should have kept "things sep'rate." Long Jack 
 stood it in silence for a time, — an angxy-skip- 
 -— per makes an unhappy crew. — and then he 
 spoke across the table after supper : 
 
" CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 171 
 
 "Fwhat 's the good o' bodderin' fwhat 
 they '11 say?" said he. 
 
 "They '11 tell that tale agin us fer years — 
 that 's all," said Disko. "Oil-cake sprinkled !" 
 
 "With salt, o' course," said Salters, impeni- 
 tent, reading the farming reports from a week- 
 old New York paper. 
 
 "It 's plumb mortifyin' to all my feelin's," 
 the skipper went on. 
 
 "Can't see ut that way," said Long Jack, 
 the peacemaker. "Look at here, Disko! Is 
 there another packet afloat this day in this 
 weather cud ha' met a tramp an', over an' 
 above givin' her her reckonin', — over an' 
 above that, I say, — cud ha' discoorsed wid 
 her quite intelligent on the management av 
 steers an' such at sea? Forgitut! Av coorse 
 they will not. 'T was the most compenjus 
 conversation that iver accrued. Double game 
 an' twice runnin' — all to us." Dan kicked 
 Harvey under the table, and Harvey choked 
 in his cup. 
 
 "Well," said Salters, who felt that his honour 
 had been somewhat plastered, "I said I did n't 
 know as 't wuz any business o' mine, 'fore I 
 spoke." 
 
 "An' right there," said Tom Piatt, experi- 
 
172 " CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 
 
 enced in discipline and etiquette — "right 
 there, I take it, Disko, you should ha' asked 
 him to stop ef the conversation wuz likely, in 
 your jedgment, to be anyways — what it 
 should n't." 
 
 " 'Dunno but that 's so," said Disko, who 
 saw his way to an honourable retreat from a 
 fit of the dignities. 
 
 "Why, o' course it was so," said Salters, 
 "you bein' skipper here; an' I 'd cheerful 
 hev stopped on a hint — not from any lead- 
 in' or conviction, but fer the sake o' bearin' 
 an example to these two blame boys of 
 aours." 
 
 "Did n't I tell you, Harve, 't would come 
 araound to us 'fore we 'd done? Always those 
 blame boys. But I would n't have missed the 
 show fer a half-share in a halibutter," Dan 
 whispered. 
 
 "Still, things should ha' been kep' sep'rate," 
 said Disko, and the light of new argument 
 lit in Salters's eye as he crumbled cut plug 
 into his pipe. 
 
 "There 's a power av vartue in keepin' 
 things sep'rate," said Long Jack, intent on 
 stilling the storm. "That's fwhat Steyning 
 of Steyning and Hare's fund when he sent 
 
" CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 173 
 
 Counahan fer skipper on the Marilla D. 
 Kuhn, instid o' Cap. Newton that was took 
 with inflam'try rheumatism an' could n't go. 
 Counahan the Navigator we called him." 
 
 "Nick Counahan he never went aboard fer 
 a night 'thout a pond o' rum somewheres in 
 the manifest," said Tom Piatt, playing up to 
 the lead. "He used to bum araound the Amis- 
 sion houses to Boston lookin' fer the Lord to 
 make him captain of a tow-boat on his merits. 
 Sam Coy, up to Atlantic Avenoo, give him 
 his board free fer a year or more on account 
 of his stories. Counahan the Navigator! 
 Tck! Tck! Dead these fifteen year, ain't 
 he?" 
 
 "Seventeen, I guess. He died the year 
 the Caspar McVeagh was built; but he could 
 niver keep things sep'rate. Steyning tuk him 
 fer the reason the thief tuk the hot stove — 
 bekaze there was nothin' else that season. 
 The men was all to the Banks, and Counahan 
 he whacked up an iverlastin' hard crowd fer 
 crew. Rum ! Ye cud ha' floated the Marilla, 
 insurance an' all, in fwhat they stowed aboard 
 her. They lef Boston Harbour for the great 
 Grand Bank wid a roarin' nor'wester behind 
 'em an' all hands full to the bung. An' the 
 
174 " CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 
 
 hivens looked after thim, for divil a watch 
 did they set, an' divil a rope did they lay hand 
 to, till they 'd seen the bottom av a fifteen-gal- 
 lon cask o' bug-juice. That was about wan 
 week, so far as Counahan remembered. ( If I 
 cud only tell the tale as he told ut!) All that 
 whoile the wind blew like ould glory, an' the 
 Marilla — 't was summer, and they 'd give her 
 a foretopmast — struck her gait and kept ut. 
 Then Counahan tuk the hog-yoke an' threm- 
 bled over it for a whoile, an' made out, be- 
 twix' that an' the chart an' the singin' in his 
 head, that they was to the south'ard o' Sable 
 Island, gettin' along glorious, but speakin' 
 nothin'. Then they broached another keg, an' 
 quit speculatin' about anythin' fer another 
 spell. The Marilla she lay down whin she 
 dropped Boston Light, and she never lufted 
 her lee-rail up to that time — hustlin' on one 
 an' the same slant. But they saw no weed, nor 
 gulls, nor schooners; an' prisintly they ob- 
 sarved they 'd bin out a matter o' fourteen 
 days and they mistrusted the Bank has suspind- 
 ed payment. So they sounded, an' got sixty 
 fathom. 'That 's me,' sez Counahan. 'That 's 
 me iv'ry time! I 've run her slat on the Bank 
 fer you, an' when we get thirty fathom we '11 
 
" CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 175 
 
 turn in like little men. Counahan is the b'y,' 
 sez he. 'Counahan the Navigator !' 
 
 "Nex' cast they got ninety. Sez Counahan : 
 'Either the lead-line 's tuk to stretchin' or else 
 the Bank 's sunk.' 
 
 "They hauled ut up, bein' just about in 
 that state when ut seemed right an' reasonable, 
 and sat down on the deck countin' the knots, 
 an' gettin' her snarled up hijjus. The Mani- 
 la she 'd struck her gait, an' she hild ut, an' 
 prisintly along come a tramp, an' Counahan 
 spoke her. 
 
 " 'Hev ye seen any fishin'-boats now?' sez 
 he, quite casual. 
 
 " 'There 's lashin's av them off the Irish 
 coast,' sez the tramp. 
 
 "'Aah! go shake yerself,' sez Counahan. 
 'Fwhat have I to do wid the Irish coast?' 
 
 " 'Then fwhat are ye doin' here?' sez the 
 tramp. 
 
 " 'Sufferin' Christianity!' sez Counahan (he 
 always said that whin his pumps sucked an' 
 he was not feelin' good) — 'Sufferin' Christian- 
 ity!' he sez, 'where am I at?' 
 
 " 'Thirty-five mile west-sou'west o' Cape 
 Clear,' sez the tramp, 'if that's any consola- 
 tion to you.' 
 
176 " CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 
 
 "Counahan fetched wan jump, four feet 
 sivin inches, measured by the cook. 
 
 " 'Consolation!' sez he, bould as brass. 'D' 
 ye take me fer a dialect? Thirty-five mile 
 from Cape Clear, an' fourteen days from Bos- 
 ton Light. Sufferin' Christianity, 't is a 
 record, an' by the same token I 've a mother 
 to Skibbereen!' Think av ut! The gall av 
 um! But ye see he could niver keep things 
 sep'rate. 
 
 "The crew was mostly Cork an' Kerry men, 
 barrin' one Marylander that wanted to go 
 back, but they called him a mutineer, an' they 
 ran the ould Marilla into Skibbereen, an' they 
 had an illigant time visitin' around with 
 f rinds on the ould sod fer a week. Thin they 
 wint back, an' it cost 'em two an' thirty days 
 to beat to the Banks again. 'T was gettin' on 
 towards fall, and grub was low, so Counahan 
 ran her back to Boston, wid no more bones to 
 ut." 
 
 "And what did the firm say?" Harvey 
 demanded. 
 
 "Fwhat could they? The fish was on the 
 Banks, an' Counahan was at T-wharf talkin' 
 av his record trip east! They tuk their satis- 
 faction out av that, an' ut all came av not 
 
" CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 177 
 
 keepin' the crew and the rum sep'rate in the 
 first place; an' confusin' Skibbereen wid 
 'Queereau, in the second. Counahan the 
 Navigator, rest his sowl! He was an im- 
 prompju citizen!" 
 
 "Once I was in the Lucy Holmes," said 
 Manuel, in his gentle voice. "They not want 
 any of her feesh in Gloucester. Eh, wha-at? 
 Give us no price. So we go across the water, 
 and think to sell to some Fayal man. Then 
 it blow fresh, and we cannot see well. Eh, 
 wha-at? Then it blow some more fresh, and 
 we go down below and drive very fast — no one 
 know where. By and by we see a land, and 
 it get some hot. Then come two, three nigger 
 in a brick. Eh, wha-at? We ask where we 
 are, and they say — now, what you all think?" 
 
 "Grand Canary," said Disko, after a mo- 
 ment. Manuel shook his head, smiling. 
 
 "Blanco," said Tom Piatt. 
 
 "No. Worse than that. We was below 
 Bezagos, and the brick she was from Liberia! 
 So we sell our feesh there! Not bad, so? Eh, 
 wha-at?" 
 
 "Can a schooner like this go right across to 
 Africa?" said Harvey. 
 
 "Go araound the Horn ef there 's anythin' 
 
178 " CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 
 
 worth goin' fer, and the grub holds aout," said 
 Disko. "My father he run his packet, an' 
 she was a kind o' pinkey, abaout fifty ton, I 
 guess, — the Rupert, — he run her over to 
 Greenland's icy mountains the year ha'af our 
 fleet was tryin' after cod there. An' what 's 
 more, he took my mother along with him, — 
 to show her haow the money was earned, I 
 presoom, — an' they was all iced up, an' I was 
 born at Disko. Don't remember nothin' 
 abaout it, o' course. We come back when the 
 ice eased in the spring, but they named me fer 
 the place. Kinder mean trick to put up on a 
 baby, but we 're all baound to make mistakes 
 in aour lives." 
 
 "Sure! Sure!" said Salters, wagging his 
 head. "All baound to make mistakes, an' I 
 tell you two boys here thet after you 've made 
 a mistake — ye don't make fewer 'n a hundred 
 a day — the next best thing 's to own up to it 
 like men." 
 
 Long Jack winked one tremendous wink 
 that embraced all hands except Disko and 
 Salters, and the incident was closed. 
 
 Then they made berth after berth to the 
 northward, the dories out almost every day, 
 running along the east edge of the Grand 
 
" CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 179 
 
 Bank in thirty- to forty-fathom water, and 
 fishing steadily. 
 
 It was here Harvey first met the squid, who 
 is one of the best cod-baits, but uncertain in 
 his moods. They were waked out of their 
 bunks one black night by yells of "Squid O!" 
 from Salters, and for an hour and a half every 
 soul aboard hung over his squid-jig — a piece 
 of lead painted red and armed at the lower 
 end with a circle of pins bent backward like 
 half-opened umbrella ribs. The squid — for 
 some unknown reason — likes, and wraps him- 
 self round, this thing, and is hauled up ere he 
 can escape from the pins. But as he leaves 
 his home he squirts first water and next ink 
 into his captor's face; and it was curious to 
 see the men weaving their heads from side to 
 side to dodge the shot. They were as black 
 as sweeps when the flurry ended; but a pile 
 of fresh squid lay on the deck, and the large 
 cod thinks very well of a little shiny piece of 
 squid tentacle at the tip of a clam-baited hook. 
 Next day they caught many fish, and met the 
 Carrie Pitman, to whom they shouted their 
 luck, and she wanted to trade — seven cod for 
 one fair-sized squid; but Disko would not 
 agree at the price, and the Carrie dropped 
 
180 " CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 
 
 sullenly to leeward and anchored half a mile 
 away, in the hope of striking on to some for 
 herself. 
 
 Disko said nothing till after supper, when 
 he sent Dan and Manuel out to buoy the 
 We 're Here's cable and announced his inten- 
 tion of turning in with the broad-axe. Dan 
 naturally repeated these remarks to a dory 
 from the Carrie, who wanted to know why 
 they were buoying their cable, since they were 
 not on rocky bottom. 
 
 "Dad sez he would n't trust a ferryboat 
 within five mile o' you," Dan howled cheer- 
 fully. 
 
 "Why don't he git out, then? Who 's hin- 
 derin'?" said the other. 
 
 " 'Cause you 've jest the same ez lee-bowed 
 him, an' he don't take that from any boat, not 
 to speak o' sech a driftin' gurry-butt as you 
 be." 
 
 "She ain't driftin' any this trip," said the 
 man angrily, for the Carrie Pitman had an 
 unsavory reputation for breaking her ground- 
 tackle. 
 
 "Then haow d' you make berths?" said Dan. 
 "It 's her best p'int o' sailin'. An' ef she 's 
 quit driftin', what in thunder are you doin' 
 
" CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 181 
 
 with a new jib-boom?" That shot went 
 home. 
 
 "Hey, you Portugoosy organ-grinder, take 
 your monkey back to Gloucester. Go back 
 to school, Dan Troop," was the answer. 
 
 "O-ver-alls! O-ver-alls!" yelled Dan, who 
 knew that one of the Carrie's crew had worked 
 in an overall factory the winter before. 
 
 "Shrimp! Gloucester shrimp! Git aout, 
 you Novy!" 
 
 To call a Gloucester man a Nova Scotian 
 is not well received. Dan answered in kind. 
 
 "Novy yourself, ye Scrabble-towners! ye 
 Chatham wreckers ! Git aout with your brick 
 in your stockin' !" And the forces separated, 
 but Chatham had the worst of it. 
 
 "I knew haow 't would be," said Disko. 
 "She's drawed the wind raound already. 
 Some one oughter put a </e<?sist on thet packet. 
 She '11 snore till midnight, an' jest when we 're 
 gittin' our sleep she '11 strike adrift. Good 
 job we ain't crowded with craft hereaways. 
 But I ain't goin' to up anchor fer Chatham. 
 She may hold." 
 
 The wind, which had hauled round, rose at 
 sundown and blew steadily. There was not 
 enough sea, though, to disturb even a dory's 
 
i82 " CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 
 
 tackle, but the Carrie Pitman was a law unto 
 herself. At the end of the boys' watch they 
 heard the crack-crack-crack of a huge muz- 
 zle-loading revolver aboard her. 
 
 "Glory, glory, hallelujah!" sung Dan. 
 "Here she comes, Dad ; butt-end first, walkin' 
 in her sleep same 's she done on 'Queereau." 
 
 Had she been any other boat Disko would 
 have taken his chances, but now he cut the 
 cable as the Carrie Pitman, with all the North 
 Atlantic to play in, lurched down directly 
 upon them. The We 're Here, under jib and 
 riding-sail, gave her no more room than was 
 absolutely necessary, — Disko did not wish to 
 spend a week hunting for his cable, — but 
 scuttled up into the wind as the Carrie passed 
 within easy hail, a silent and angry boat, at 
 the mercy of a raking broadside of Bank 
 chaff. 
 
 "Good evenin','' said Disko, raising his 
 head-gear, "an' haow does your garden grow?" 
 
 "Go to Ohio an' hire a mule," said Uncle 
 Salters. "We don't want no farmers here." 
 
 "Will I lend you my dory-anchor?" cried 
 Long Jack. 
 
 "Unship your rudder an' stick it in the 
 mud," said Tom Piatt. 
 
" CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 183 
 
 "Say!" Dan's voice rose shrill and high, 
 as he stood on the wheel-box. "Sa-ay! Is 
 there a strike in the o-ver-all factory; or hev 
 they hired girls, ye Shackamaxons?" 
 
 "Veer out the tiller-lines," cried Harvey, 
 "and nail 'em to the bottom." That was a 
 salt-flavoured jest he had been put up to by 
 Tom Piatt. Manuel leaned over the stern 
 and yelled : "Johanna Morgan play the organ! 
 Ahaaaa!" He flourished his broad thumb 
 with a gesture of unspeakable contempt and 
 derision, while little Penn covered himself 
 with glory by piping up : "Gee a little ! Hssh ! 
 Come here. Haw!" 
 
 They rode on their chain for the rest of 
 the night, a short, snappy, uneasy motion, as 
 Harvey found, and wasted half the forenoon 
 recovering the cable. But the boys agreed 
 the trouble was cheap at the price of triumph 
 and glory, and they thought with grief over 
 all the beautiful things that they might have 
 said to the discomfited Carrie. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 NEXT day they fell in with more sails, 
 all circling slowly from the east north- 
 erly towards the west. But just, when they 
 expected to make the shoals by the Virgin 
 the fog shut down, and they anchored, sur- 
 rounded by the tinklings of invisible bells. 
 There was not much fishing, but occasionally 
 dory met dory in the fog and exchanged news. 
 
 That night, a little before dawn, Dan and 
 Harvey, who had been sleeping most of the 
 day, tumbled out to "hook" fried pies. There 
 was no reason why they should not have taken 
 them openly ; but they tasted better so, and it 
 made the cook angry. The heat and smell be- 
 low drove them on deck with their plunder, 
 and they found Disko at the bell, which he 
 handed over to Harvey. 
 
 "Keep her goin','' said he. "I mistrust I 
 hear somethin'. Ef it 's anything, I 'm best 
 where I am so 's to get at things." 
 
" CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 185 
 
 It was a forlorn little jingle ; the thick air 
 seemed to pinch it off; and in the pauses Har- 
 vey heard the muffled shriek of a liner's siren, 
 and he knew enough of the Banks to know 
 what that meant. It came to him, with horri- 
 ble distinctness, how a boy in a cherry-coloured 
 jersey — he despised fancy blazers now with 
 all a fisherman's contempt — how an ignorant, 
 rowdy boy had once said it would be "great" 
 if a steamer ran down a fishing-boat. That 
 boy had a stateroom with a hot and cold bath, 
 and spent ten minutes each morning picking 
 over a gilt-edged bill of fare. And that same 
 boy — no, his very much older brother — was 
 up at four of the dim dawn in streaming, 
 crackling oilskins, hammering, literally for 
 the dear life, on a bell smaller than the stew- 
 ard's breakfast-bell, while somewhere close at 
 hand a thirty-foot steel stem was storming 
 along at twenty miles an hour! The bitterest 
 thought of all was that there were folks asleep 
 in dry, upholstered cabins who would never 
 learn that they had massacred a boat before 
 breakfast. So Harvey rang the bell. 
 
 "Yes, they slow daown one turn o' their 
 blame propeller," said Dan, applying himself 
 to Manuel's conch, "fer to keep inside the law, 
 
186 " CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 
 
 an' that 's consolin' when we 're all at the bot- 
 tom. Hark to her! She 's a humper!" 
 
 "Aoooo — whoooo — whupp!" went the siren. 
 "Wingle — tingle — link" went the bell. 
 "Graaa — ouch!" went the conch, while sea and 
 sky were all milled up in milky fog. Then 
 Harvey felt that he was near a moving body, 
 and found himself looking up and up at the 
 wet edge of a cliff -like bow, leaping, it seemed, 
 directly over the schooner. A jaunty little 
 feather of water curled in front of it, and as 
 it lifted it showed a long ladder of Roman 
 numerals— XV., XVI., XVII., XVIII., and 
 so forth — on a salmon-coloured gleaming side. 
 It tilted forward and downward with a heart- 
 stilling "Ssssooo"; the ladder disappeared; a 
 line of brass-rimmed port-holes flashed past; a 
 jet of steam puffed in Harvey's helplessly up- 
 lifted hands ; a spout of hot water roared along 
 the rail of the We 're ' Here, and the little 
 schooner staggered and shook in a rush of 
 screw-torn water, as a liner's stern vanished 
 in the fog. Harvey got ready to faint or be 
 sick, or both, when he heard a crack like a 
 trunk thrown on a sidewalk, and, all small in 
 his ear, a far-away telephone voice drawling: 
 "Heave to! You 've sunk us!" 
 
" CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 187 
 
 "Is it us?" he gasped. 
 
 "No! Boat out yonder. Ring! We're 
 goin' to look," said Dan, running out a 
 dory. 
 
 In half a minute all except Harvey, Penn, 
 and the cook were overside and away. Pres- 
 ently a schooner's stump-foremast, snapped 
 clean across, drifted past the bows. Then an 
 empty green dory came by, knocking on the 
 We 're Here's side, as though she wished to 
 be taken in. Then followed something, face 
 down, in a blue jersey, but — it was not the 
 whole of a man. Penn changed colour and 
 caught his breath with a click. Harvey 
 pounded despairingly at the bell, for he feared 
 they might be sunk at any minute, and he 
 jumped at Dan's hail as the crew came back. 
 
 "The Jennie Cushman," said Dan, hysteri- 
 cally, "cut clean in half — graound up an' 
 trompled on at that! Not a quarter of a mile 
 away. Dad 's got the old man. There ain't 
 any one else, and — there was his son, too. Oh, 
 Harve, Harve, I can't stand it! I 've seen 
 
 " He dropped his head on his arms and 
 
 sobbed while the others dragged a gray- 
 headed man aboard. 
 
 "What did you pick me up for?" the stran- 
 
188 " CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 
 
 ger groaned. "Disko, what did you pick me 
 up for?" 
 
 Disko dropped a heavy hand on his shoul- 
 der, for the man's eyes were wild and his lips 
 trembled as he stared at the silent crew. Then 
 up and spoke Pennsylvania Pratt, who was 
 also Haskins or Rich or McVitty when Uncle 
 Salters forgot; and his face was changed on 
 him from the face of a fool to the countenance 
 of an old, wise man, and he said in a strong 
 voice: "The Lord gave, and the Lord hath 
 taken away ; blessed be the name of the Lord ! 
 I was — I am a minister of the Gospel. Leave 
 him to me." 
 
 "Oh, you be, be you?" said the man. "Then 
 pray my son back to me ! Pray back a nine- 
 thousand-dollar boat an' a thousand quintal of 
 fish. If you 'd left me alone my widow could 
 ha' gone on to the Provident an' worked fer 
 -her board, an' never known — an' never known. 
 Now I '11 hev to tell her." 
 
 "There ain't nothin' to say," said Disko. 
 "Better lie down a piece, Jason Olley." 
 
 When a man has lost his only son, his sum- 
 mer's work, and his means of livelihood, in 
 thirty counted seconds, it is hard to give con- 
 solation. 
 
" CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 189 
 
 "All Gloucester men, was n't they?" said 
 Tom Piatt, fiddling helplessly with a dory- 
 becket. 
 
 "Oh, that don't make no odds," said Jason, 
 wringing the wet from his beard. "I '11 be 
 rowin' summer boarders araound East Glou- 
 cester this fall." He rolled heavily to the rail, 
 singing: 
 
 "Happy birds that sing and fly 
 Round thine altars, O Most High!" 
 
 "Come with me. Come below!" said Penn, 
 as though he had a right to give orders. Their 
 eyes met and fought for a quarter of a minute. 
 
 "I dunno who you be, but I '11 come," said 
 Jason submissively. "Mebbe I '11 get back 
 some o' the — some o' the — nine thousand dol- 
 lars." Penn led him into the cabin and slid 
 the door behind. 
 
 "That ain't Penn," cried Uncle Salters. 
 "It 's Jacob Boiler, an' — he 's remembered 
 Johnstown! I never seed such eyes in any 
 livin' man's head. What 's to do naow? 
 What '11 I do naow?" 
 
 They could hear Penn's voice and Jason's 
 together. Then Penn's went on alone, and 
 
igo " CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 
 
 Salters slipped off his hat, for Penn was pray- 
 ing. Presently the little man came up the 
 steps, huge drops of sweat on his face, and 
 looked at the crew. Dan was still sobbing by 
 the wheel. 
 
 "He don't know us," Salters groaned. "It 's 
 all to do over again, checkers and everything 
 — an' what '11 he say to me?" 
 
 Penn spoke ; they could hear that it was to 
 strangers. "I have prayed," said he. "Our 
 people believe in prayer. I have prayed for 
 the life of this man's son. Mine were drowned 
 before my eyes — she and my eldest and — the 
 others. Shall a man be more wise than his 
 Maker? I prayed never for their lives, but I 
 have prayed for this man's son, and he will 
 surely be sent him." 
 
 Salters looked pleadingly at Penn to see if 
 he remembered. 
 
 "How long have I been mad?" Penn asked 
 suddenly. His mouth was twitching. 
 
 "Pshaw, Penn! You were n't never mad," 
 Salters began. "Only a little distracted 
 like." 
 
 "I saw the houses strike the bridge before 
 the fires broke out. I do not remember any 
 more. How long ago is that?" 
 
" CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 191 
 
 "I can't stand it! I can't stand it!" 
 cried Dan, and Harvey whimpered in sym- 
 pathy. 
 
 "Abaout five year," said Disko, in a shaking 
 voice. 
 
 "Then I have been a charge on some one 
 for every day of that time. Who was the 
 man?" 
 
 Disko pointed to Salters. 
 
 "Ye hain't — ye hain't!" cried the sea-far- 
 mer, twisting his hands together. "Ye 've 
 more 'n earned your keep twice-told ; an' 
 there 's money owin' you, Penn, besides ha'af 
 o' my quarter-share in the boat, which is yours 
 fer value received." 
 
 "You are good men. I can see that in your 
 faces. But " 
 
 "Mother av Mercy," whispered Long Jack, 
 "an' he's been wid us all these trips! He's 
 clean bewitched." 
 
 A schooner's bell struck up alongside, and 
 a voice hailed through the fog: "O Disko! 
 'Heard abaout the Jennie Cushman?" 
 
 "They have found his son," cried Penn. 
 "Stand you still and see the salvation of the 
 Lord!" 
 
 "Got Jason aboard here," Disko answered, 
 
192 " CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 
 
 but his voice quavered. "There — war n't any 
 one else?" 
 
 "We 've fund one, though. 'Run acrost 
 him snarled up in a mess o' lumber thet might 
 ha' bin a foc'sle. His head 's cut some." 
 
 "Who is he?" 
 
 The We 're Here's heart-beats answered 
 one another. 
 
 "Guess it 's young Olley," the voice 
 drawled. 
 
 Penn raised his hands and said something 
 in German. Harvey could have sworn that 
 a bright sun was shining upon his lifted face; 
 but the drawl went on: "Sa-ay! You fellers 
 guyed us consid'rable t' other night." 
 
 "We don't feel like guyin' any now," said 
 Disko. 
 
 "t know it; but to tell the honest truth we 
 was kinder — kinder driftin' when we run agin 
 young Olley." 
 
 It was the irrepressible Carrie Pitman, and 
 a roar of unsteady laughter went up from the 
 deck of the We 're Here. 
 
 "Hed n't you 'baout 's well send the old 
 man aboard? We're runnin' in fer more 
 bait an' graound-tackle. Guess you won't 
 want him, anyway, an' this blame windlass 
 
" CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 193 
 
 work makes us short-handed. We '11 take care 
 of him. He married my woman's aunt." 
 
 "I '11 give you anything in the boat," said 
 Troop. 
 
 "Don't want nothin', 'less, mebbe, an anchor 
 that'll hold. Say! Young Olley 's gittin' 
 kinder baulky an' excited. Send the old man 
 along." 
 
 Penn waked him from his stupor of despair, 
 and Tom Piatt rowed him over. He went 
 away without a word of thanks, not knowing 
 what was to come ; and the fog closed over all. 
 
 "And now," said Penn, drawing a deep 
 breath as though about to preach. "And 
 now"— the erect body sank like a sword driven 
 home into the scabbard ; the light faded from 
 the overbright eyes ; the voice returned to its 
 usual pitiful little titter — "and now," said 
 Pennsylvania Pratt, "do you think it's too 
 early for a little game of checkers, Mr. 
 Salters?" 
 
 "The very thing — the very thing I was 
 goin' to say myself," cried Salters promptly. 
 "It beats all, Penn, how ye git on to what 's 
 in a man's mind." 
 
 The little fellow blushed and meekly fol- 
 lowed Salters forward. 
 
194 " CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 
 
 "Up anchor! Hurry! Let's quit these 
 crazy waters," shouted Disko, and never was 
 he more swiftly obeyed. 
 
 "Now what in creation d 'ye suppose is the 
 meanin' o' that all?" said Long Jack, when 
 they were working through the fog once 
 more, damp, dripping, and bewildered. 
 
 "The way I sense it," said Disko, at the 
 wheel, "is this: The Jennie Cushman business 
 comin' on an empty stummick " 
 
 "He — we saw one of them go by," sobbed 
 Harvey. 
 
 "An' that, o' course, kinder hove him outer 
 water, julluk runnin' a craft ashore ; hove him 
 right aout, I take it, to rememberin' Johns- 
 town an' Jacob Boiler an' such-like reminis- 
 cences. Well, consolin' Jason there held him 
 up a piece, same's shorin' up a boat. Then, 
 bein' weak, them props slipped an' slipped, 
 an' he slided down the ways, an' naow he 's 
 water-borne agin. That 's haow I sense 
 it." 
 
 They decided that Disko was entirely cor- 
 rect. 
 
 " 'T would ha' bruk Salters all up," said 
 Long Jack, "if Penn had stayed Jacob Bol- 
 lerin'. Did ye see his face when Penn asked 
 
" CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 195 
 
 who he'd been charged on all these years? 
 How is ut, Salters?" 
 
 "Asleep — dead asleep. Turned in like a 
 child," Salters replied, tiptoeing aft. "There 
 won't be no grub till he wakes, natural. Did 
 ye ever see sech a gift in prayer? He ever- 
 lastin'ly hiked young Olley outer the ocean. 
 Thet 's my belief. Jason was tur'ble praoud 
 of his boy, an' I mistrusted all along 't was a 
 jedgment on worshippin' vain idols." 
 
 "There 's others jest as sot," said Disko. 
 
 "That 's dif'runt," Salters retorted quickly. 
 "Penn 's not all caulked, an' I ain't only but 
 doin' my duty by him." 
 
 They waited, those hungry men, three 
 hours, till Penn reappeared with a smooth 
 face and a blank mind. He said he believed 
 that he had been dreaming. Then he wanted 
 to know why they were so silent, and they 
 could not tell him. 
 
 Disko worked all hands mercilessly for the 
 next three or four days ; and when they could 
 not go out, turned them into the hold to stack 
 the ship's stores into smaller compass, to make 
 more room for the fish. The packed mass ran 
 from the cabin partition to the sliding door 
 behind the foc'sle stove; and Disko showed 
 
ig6 " CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 
 
 how there is great art in stowing cargo so 
 as to bring a schooner to her best draft. The 
 crew were thus kept lively till they recovered 
 their spirits ; and Harvey was tickled with a 
 rope's end by Long Jack for being, as the Gal- 
 way man said, "sorrowful as a sick cat over 
 fwhat could n't be helped." He did a great 
 deal of thinking in those weary days, and told 
 Dan what he thought, and Dan agreed with 
 him — even to the extent of asking for fried 
 pies instead of hooking them. 
 
 But a week later the two nearly upset the 
 Hattie S. in a wild attempt to stab a shark with 
 an old bayonet tied to a stick. The grim brute 
 rubbed alongside the dory begging for small 
 fish, and between the three of them it was 
 a mercy they all got off alive. 
 
 At last, after playing blindman's-buff in the 
 fog, there came a morning when Disko shout- 
 ed down the foc'sle : "Hurry, boys ! We 're in 
 taown!" 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 TO THE end of his days, Harvey will 
 never forget that sight. The sun was just 
 clear of the horizon they had not seen for 
 nearly a week, and his low red light struck 
 into the riding-sails of three fleets of anchored 
 schooners — one to the north, one to the west- 
 ward, and one to the south. There must have 
 been nearly a hundred of them, of every pos- 
 sible make and build, with, far away, a 
 square-rigged Frenchman, all bowing and 
 courtesying one to the other. From every boat 
 dories were dropping away like bees from a 
 crowded hive, and the clamour of voices, the 
 rattling of ropes and blocks, and the splash of 
 the oars carried for miles across the heaving 
 water. The sails turned all colours, black, 
 pearly-gray, and white, as the sun mounted; 
 and more boats swung up through the mists 
 to the southward. 
 The dories gathered in clusters, separated, 
 197 
 
198 " CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 
 
 reformed, and broke again, all heading one 
 way; while men hailed and whistled and cat- 
 called and sang, and the water was speckled 
 with rubbish thrown overboard. 
 
 "It 's a town," said Harvey. "Disko was 
 right. It is a town!" 
 
 "I 've seen smaller," said Disko. "There 's 
 about a thousand men here ; an' yonder 's the 
 Virgin." He pointed to a vacant space of 
 greenish sea, where there were no dories. 
 
 The We 're Here skirted round the north- 
 ern squadron, Disko waving his hand to friend 
 after friend, and anchored as neatly as a pac- 
 ing yacht at the end of the season. The Bank 
 fleet pass good seamanship in silence; but a 
 bungler is jeered all along the line. 
 
 "Jest in time fer the caplin," cried the 
 Mary Chilton. 
 
 " 'Salt 'most wet?" asked the King Philip. 
 
 "Hey, Tom Piatt! Come t' supper to- 
 night?" said the Henry Clay; and so questions 
 and answers flew back and forth. Men had 
 met one another before, dory-fishing in the 
 fog, and there is no place for gossip like the 
 Bank fleet. They all seemed to know about 
 Harvey's rescue, and asked if he were worth 
 his salt yet. The young bloods jested with 
 
" CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 199 
 
 Dan, who had a lively tongue of his own, and 
 inquired after their health by the town-nick- 
 names they least liked. Manuel's country- 
 men jabbered at him in their own language ; 
 and even the silent cook was seen riding the 
 jib-boom and shouting Gaelic to a friend as 
 black as himself. After they had buoyed the 
 cable — all around the Virgin is rocky bottom, 
 and carelessness means chafed ground-tackle 
 and danger from drifting — after they had 
 buoyed the cable, their dories went forth to 
 join the mob of boats anchored about a mile 
 away. The schooners rocked and dipped at 
 a safe distance, like mother ducks watching 
 their brood, while the dories behaved like 
 mannerless ducklings,/ 
 
 As they drove into the confusion, boat bang- 
 ing boat, Harvey's ears tingled at the com- 
 ments on his rowing. Every dialect from 
 Labrador to Long Island, with Portuguese, 
 Neapolitan, Lingua Franca, French, and 
 Gaelic, with songs and shoutings and new 
 oaths, rattled round him, and he seemed to 
 be the butt of it all. For the first time in his 
 life he felt shy — perhaps that came from liv- 
 ing so long with only the We 're Heres — 
 among the scores of wild faces that rose and 
 
200 " CAPJRINS COURAGEOUS " 
 
 fell with dfe reeling small craft. A gentle, 
 breathipgswell, three furlongs from trough to 
 barrel^ would quietly shoulder up a string of 
 Vj^iously painted dories. They hung for an 
 fnstant, a wonderful frieze against the sky-line, 
 and their men pointed and hailed. Next mo- 
 ment the open mouths, waving arms, and bare 
 chests disappeared, while on another swell 
 carrie up an entirely new line of characters like 
 paper figures in a toy theatre. So Harvey 
 stared. "Watch out!" said Dan, flourishing a 
 dip-net. "When I tell you dip, you dip. The 
 caplin '11 school any time from naow on. 
 Where '11 we lay, Tom Piatt?" 
 
 Pushing, shoving, and hauling, greeting old 
 friends here and warning old enemies there, 
 Commodore Tom Piatt led his little fleet well 
 to leeward of the general crowd, and immedi- 
 ately three or four men began to haul on their 
 anchors with intent to lee-bow the We 're 
 Heres. But a yell of laughter went up as a 
 dory shot from her station with exceeding 
 speed, its occupant pulling madly on the rod- 
 ing. 
 
 "Give her slack!" roared twenty voices. 
 "Let him shake it out." 
 
 "What's the matter?" said Harvey, as the 
 
" CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 201 
 
 boat flashed away to the southward. "He 's 
 anchored, is n't he?" 
 
 "Anchored, sure enough, but his graound- 
 tackle 's kinder shifty," said Dan, laughing. 
 "Whale's fouled it. . . . Dip, Harve! 
 Here they come!" 
 
 The sea round them clouded and darkened, 
 and then frizzed up in showers of tiny silver 
 fish, and over a space of five or six acres the 
 cod began to leap like trout in May; while be- 
 hind the cod three or four broad gray-backs 
 broke the water into boils. 
 
 Then everybody shouted and tried to haul 
 up his anchor to get among the school, and 
 fouled his neighbour's line and said what was 
 in his heart, and dipped furiously with his 
 dip-net, and shrieked cautions and advice to 
 his companions, while the deep fizzed like 
 freshly opened soda-water, and cod, men, and 
 whales together flung in upon the luckless bait. 
 Harvey was nearly knocked overboard by the 
 handle of Dan's net. But in all the wild tu- 
 mult he noticed, and never forgot, the wicked, 
 set little eye — something like a circus ele- 
 phant's eye— of a whale that drove along al- 
 most level with the water, and, so he said, 
 winked at him. Three boats found their rod- 
 
202 " CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 
 
 ings fouled by these reckless mid-sea hunters, 
 and were towed half a mile ere their horses 
 shook the line free. 
 
 Then the caplin moved off, and five minutes 
 later there was no sound except the splash of 
 the sinkers overside, the flapping of the cod, 
 and the whack of the muckles as the men 
 stunned them. It was wonderful fishing. 
 Harvey could see the glimmering cod below, 
 swimming slowly in droves, biting as steadily 
 as they swam. Bank law strictly forbids more 
 than one hook on one line when the dories are 
 on the Virgin or the Eastern Shoals; but so 
 close lay the boats that even single hooks 
 snarled, and Harvey found himself in hot 
 argument with a gentle, hairy Newfoundland- 
 er on one side and a howling Portuguese on 
 the other. 
 
 Worse than any tangle of fishing-lines was 
 the confusion of the dory-rodings below water. 
 Each man had anchored where it seemed good 
 to him, drifting and rowing round his fixed 
 point. As the fish struck on less quickly, each 
 man wanted to haul up and get to better 
 ground; but every third man found himself 
 intimately connected with some four or five 
 neighbours. To cut another's roding is crime 
 
IT WAS WONDERFUL FISHING. HARVEY COULD SEE THE GLIM- 
 MERING COD BELOW, . . . BITING AS STEADILY AS THEY 
 SWAM. . . . BUT SO CLOSE LAY THE BOATS 
 THAT EVEN SINGLE HOOKS SNARLED." 
 
" CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 205 
 
 unspeakable on the Banks ; yet it was done, and 
 done without detection, three or four times 
 that day. Tom Piatt caught a Maine man in 
 the black act and knocked him over the gun- 
 wale with an oar, and Manuel served a fellow- 
 countryman in the same way. But Harvey's 
 anchor-line was cut, and so was Penn's, and 
 they were turned into relief-boats to carry 
 fish to the We 're Here as the dories filled. 
 The caplin schooled once more at twilight, 
 when the mad clamour was repeated ; and at 
 dusk they rowed back to dress down by the 
 light of kerosene-lamps on the edge of the 
 pen. 
 
 It was a huge pile, and they went to sleep 
 while they were dressing. Next day several 
 boats fished right above the cap of the Virgin f 
 and Harvey, with them, looked down on the 
 very weed of that lonely rock, which rises to 
 within twenty feet of the surface. The cod 
 were there in legions, marching solemnly over 
 the leathery kelp. When they bit, they bit all 
 together; and so when they stopped. There 
 was a slack time at noon, and the dories began 
 to search for amusement. It was Dan who 
 sighted the Hope of Prague just coming up, 
 and as her boats joined the company they were 
 
ao6 " CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 
 
 greeted with the question : "Who 's the mean- 
 est man in the Fleet?" 
 
 Three hundred voices answered cheerily: 
 "Nick Bra-ady." It sounded like an organ 
 chant. 
 
 "Who stole the lamp-wicks?" That was 
 Dan's contribution. 
 
 "Nick Bra-ady," sang the boats. 
 
 "Who biled the salt bait fer soup?" This 
 was an unknown backbiter a quarter of a mile 
 away. 
 
 Again the joyful chorus. Now, Brady was 
 not especially mean, but he had that reputa- 
 tion, and the Fleet made the most of it. Then 
 they discovered a man from a Truro boat who, 
 six years before, had been convicted of using 
 a tackle with five or six hooks — a "scrowger," 
 they call it — on the Shoals. Naturally, he had 
 been christened "Scrowger Jim"; and though 
 he had hidden himself on the Georges ever 
 since, he found his honours waiting for him 
 full blown. They took it up in a sort of fire- 
 cracker chorus: "Jim! O Jim! Jim! O Jim! 
 Sssscrowger Jim!" That pleased everybody. 
 And when a poetical Beverly man — he had 
 been making it up all day, and talked about it 
 for weeks — sang, "The Carrie Pitman's an- 
 
" CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 207 
 
 chor does n't hold her for a cent" the dories 
 felt that they were indeed fortunate. Then 
 they had to ask that Beverly man how he was 
 off for beans, because even poets must not 
 have things all their own way. Every schoon- 
 er and nearly every man got it in turn. Was 
 there a careless or dirty cook anywhere? 
 The dories sang about him and his food. Was 
 a schooner badly found? The Fleet was told 
 at full length. Had a man hooked tobacco 
 from a messmate? He was named in meeting ; 
 the name tossed from roller to roller. Disko's 
 infallible judgments, Long Jack's market-boat 
 that he had sold years ago, Dan's sweetheart 
 (oh, but Dan was an angry boy!), Penn's bad 
 luck with dory-anchors, Salter's views on 
 manure, Manuel's little slips from virtue 
 ashore, and Harvey's ladylike handling of the 
 oar — all were laid before the public; and as 
 the fog fell around them in silvery sheets be- 
 neath the sun, the voices sounded like a bench 
 of invisible judges pronouncing sentence. 
 
 The dories roved and fished and squabbled 
 till a swell underran the sea. Then they drew 
 more apart to save their sides, and some one 
 called that if the swell continued the Virgin 
 would break. A reckless Galway man with 
 
208 " CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 
 
 his nephew denied this, hauled up anchor, and 
 rowed over the very rock itself. Many voices 
 called them to come away, while others dared 
 them to hold on. As the smooth-backed roll- 
 ers passed to the southward, they hove the 
 dory high and high into the mist, and dropped 
 her in ugly, sucking, dimpled water, where 
 she spun round her anchor, within a foot or 
 two of the hidden rock. It was playing with 
 death for mere bravado ; and the boats looked 
 on in uneasy silence till Long Jack rowed up 
 behind his countrymen and quietly cut their 
 roding. 
 
 "Can't ye hear ut knockin' ?" he cried. "Pull 
 for your miserable lives! Pull!" 
 
 The men swore and tried to argue as the 
 boat drifted; but the next swell checked a 
 little, like a man tripping on a carpet. There 
 was a deep sob and a gathering roar, and the 
 Virgin flung up a couple of acres of foaming 
 water, white, furious, and ghastly over the 
 shoal sea. Then all the boats greatly applaud- 
 ed Long Jack, and the Galway men held their 
 tongue. 
 
 "Ain't it elegant?" said Dan, bobbing like 
 a young seal at home. "She '11 break about 
 once every ha'af hour now, 'less the swell piles 
 
" CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 209 
 
 up good. What 's her reg'lar time when she 's 
 at work, Tom Piatt?" 
 
 "Once ivry fifteen minutes, to the tick. 
 Harve, you 've seen the greatest thing on the 
 Banks ; an' but for Long Jack you 'd seen some 
 dead men too." 
 
 There came a sound of merriment where 
 the fog lay thicker and the schooners were 
 ringing their bells. A big bark nosed cau- 
 tiously out of the mist, and was received with 
 shouts and cries of, "Come along, darlin'," 
 from the Irishry. 
 
 "Another Frenchman?" said Harvey. 
 
 "Hain't you eyes? She 's a Baltimore boat; 
 goin' in fear an' tremblin'," said Dan. "We '11 
 guy the very sticks out of her. Guess it 's the 
 fust time her skipper ever met up with the 
 Fleet this way." 
 
 ^She was a black, buxom, eight-hundred-ton 
 craft. Her mainsail was. looped up, and her 
 topsail flapped undecidedly in what little wind 
 was moving, j Now a bark is feminine beyond 
 all other daughters of the sea, and this tall, 
 hesitating creature, with her white and gilt 
 figurehead, looked just like a bewildered wom- 
 an half lifting her skirts to cross a muddy 
 street under the jeers of bad little boys. That 
 
210 " CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 
 
 was very much her situation. She knew she 
 was somewhere in the neighbourhood of the 
 Virgin, had caught the roar of it, and was, 
 therefore, asking her way. This is a small 
 part of what she heard from the dancing 
 dories : 
 
 "The Virgin? Fwhat are you talkin' of? 
 This is Le Have on a Sunday mornin'. Go 
 home an' sober up." 
 
 "Go home, ye tarrapin! Go home an' tell 
 'em we 're comin'." 
 
 Half a dozen voices together, in a most 
 tuneful chorus, as her stern went down with a 
 roll and a bubble into the troughs : "Thiy-aah 
 — she — strikes!" 
 
 "Hard up! Hard up fer your life! You're 
 on top of her now." 
 
 "Daown! Hard daown! Let go every- 
 thing!" 
 
 "All hands to the pumps!" 
 
 "Daown jib an' pole her!" 
 
 Here the skipper lost his temper and said 
 things. Instantly fishing was suspended to 
 answer him, and he heard many curious facts 
 about his boat and her next port of call. They 
 asked him if he were insured ; and whence he 
 had stolen his anchor, because, they said, it 
 
" CAPTAI NS COURAGEOUS " 211 
 
 belonged to the Carrie Pitman; they called 
 his boat a mud-scow, and accused him of 
 dumping garbage to frighten the fish; they 
 offered to tow him and charge it to his wife ; 
 and one audacious youth slipped up almost 
 under the counter, smacked it with his open 
 palm, and yelled: "Gid up, Buck!" 
 
 The cook emptied a pan of ashes on him, 
 and he replied with cod-heads. The bark's 
 crew fired small coal from the galley, and the 
 dories threatened to come aboard and "razee" 
 her. They would have warned her at once 
 had she been in real peril; but, seeing her 
 well clear of the Virgin, they made the most 
 of their chances. The fun" was spoilt when 
 the rock spoke again, a half-mile to windward, 
 and the tormented bark set everything that 
 would draw and went her ways ; but the dories 
 felt that the honours lay with them. 
 
 All that night the Virgin roared hoarsely; 
 and next morning, over an angry, white-head- 
 ed sea, Harvey saw the Fleet with flickering 
 masts waiting for a lead. Not a dory was hove 
 out till ten o'clock, when the two Jeraulds of 
 the Day's Eye, imagining a lull which did not 
 exist, set the example. In a minute half the 
 boats were out and bobbing in the cockly 
 
2i2 " CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 
 
 swells, but Troop kept the We 're Heres at 
 work dressing down. He saw no sense in 
 "dares" ; and as the storm grew that evening 
 they had the pleasure of receiving wet stran- 
 gers only too glad to make any refuge in the 
 gale. The boys stood by the dory-tackles with 
 lanterns, the men ready to haul, one eye cocked 
 for the sweeping wave that would make them 
 drop everything and hold on for dear life. 
 Out of the dark would come a yell of "Dory, 
 dory!" They would hook up and haul in a 
 drenched man and a half-sunk boat, till their 
 decks were littered down with nests of dories 
 and the bunks were full. Five times in their 
 watch did Harvey, with Dan, jump at the fore- 
 gaff where it lay lashed on the boom, and cling 
 with arms, legs, and teeth to rope and spar and 
 sodden canvas as a big wave filled the decks. 
 One dory was smashed to pieces, and the sea 
 pitched the man head first on to the decks, 
 cutting his forehead open; and about dawn, 
 when the racing seas glimmered white all 
 along their cold edges, another man, blue 
 and ghastly, crawled in with a broken hand, 
 asking news of his brother. Seven extra 
 mouths sat down to breakfast: a Swede; 
 a Chatham skipper; a boy from Hancock, 
 
" CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 213 
 
 Maine; one Duxbury, and three Province- 
 town men. 
 
 There was a general sorting out among the 
 Fleet next day ; and though no one said any- 
 thing, all ate with better appetites when boat 
 after boat reported full crews aboard. Only 
 a couple of Portuguese and an old man from 
 Gloucester were drowned, but many were cut 
 or bruised ; and two schooners had parted their 
 tackle and been blown to the southward, three 
 days' sail. A man died on a Frenchman — it 
 was the same bark that had traded tobacco 
 with the We 're Heres. She slipped away 
 quite quietly one wet, white morning, moved 
 to a patch of deep water, her sails all hanging 
 anyhow, and Harvey saw the funeral through 
 Disko's spy-glass. It was only an oblong 
 bundle slid overside. They did not seem to 
 have any form of service, but in the night, at 
 anchor, Harvey heard them across the star- 
 powdered black water, singing something that 
 sounded like a hymn. It went to a very slow 
 tune. 
 
 "La brigantine 
 Qui va tourner, 
 Roule et s'incline 
 Pour m'entrainer. 
 
214 CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS ' 
 
 Oh, Vierge Marie, 
 Pour moi priez Dieu ! 
 Adieu, patrie; 
 Quebec, adieu!" 
 
 Tom Piatt visited her, because, he said, the 
 dead man was his brother as a Freemason. 
 It came out that a wave had doubled the poor 
 fellow over the heel of the bowsprit and bro- 
 ken his back. The news spread like a flash, 
 for, contrary to general custom, the French- 
 man held an auction of the dead man's kit, — 
 he had no friends at St. Malo or Miquelon, — 
 "3fi3r everything was spread out on the top of 
 the house, from his red knitted cap to the 
 leather belt with the sheath-knife at the back. 
 Dan and Harvey were out on twenty-fathom 
 water in the Hattie S., and naturally rowed 
 over to join the crowd. It was a long 
 pull, and they stayed some little time while 
 Dan bought the knife, which had a curi- 
 ous brass handle. When they dropped over- 
 side and pushed off into a drizzle of rain 
 and a lop of sea, it occurred to them that 
 they might get into trouble for neglecting the. 
 lines. 
 
 "Guess 't won't hurt us any to be warmed 
 
" CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 215 
 
 up," said Dan, shivering under his oilskins, 
 and they rowed on into the heart of a white 
 fog, which, as usual, dropped on them with- 
 out warning. 
 
 "There 's too much blame tide hereabouts 
 to trust to your instinks," he said. "Heave 
 over the anchor, Harve, and we '11 fish a piece 
 till the thing lifts. Bend on your biggest lead. 
 Three pound ain't any too much in this water. 
 See how she 's tightened on her rodin' al- 
 ready." 
 
 There was quite a little bubble at the bows, 
 where some irresponsible Bank current held 
 the dory full stretch on her rope; but they 
 could not see a boat's length in any direction. 
 Harvey turned up his collar and bunched 
 himself over his reel with the air of a wearied 
 navigator. Fog had no special terrors for 
 him now. They fished a while in silence, and 
 found the cod struck on well. Then Dan 
 drew the sheath-knife and tested the edge of 
 it on the gunwale. 
 
 "That 's a daisy," said Harvey. "How did 
 you get it so cheap ?" 
 
 "On account o' their blame Cath'lic super- 
 stitions," said Dan, jabbing with the bright 
 blade. "They don't fancy takin' iron frum 
 
2i6 " CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 
 
 off a dead man, so to speak. 'See them Arichat 
 Frenchmen step back when I bid?" 
 
 "But an auction ain't taking anythink off a 
 dead man. It's business." 
 
 "We know it ain't, but there 's no goin' in 
 the teeth o' superstition. That 's one o' the ad- 
 vantages o' livin' in a progressive country." 
 And Dan began whistling : 
 
 "Oh, Double Thatcher, how are you ? 
 Now Eastern Point comes inter view. 
 The girls an' boys we soon shall see, 
 At anchor off Cape Ann !" 
 
 "Why did n't that Eastport man bid, then? 
 He bought his boots. Ain't Maine progres- 
 sive?" 
 
 "Maine? Pshaw! They don't know 
 enough, or they hain't got money enough, to 
 paint their haouses in Maine. I 've seen 'em. 
 The Eastport man he told me that the knife 
 had been used — so the French captain told 
 him — used up on the French coast last 
 year." 
 
 "Cut a man? Heave 's the muckle." Har- 
 vey hauled in his fish, rebaited, and threw 
 over. 
 
" CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 217 
 
 "Killed him! Course, when I heard that I 
 was keener 'n ever to get it." 
 
 "Christmas! I did n't know it," said Har- 
 vey, turning round. "I'll give you a dollar 
 for it when I — get my wages. Say, I '11 give 
 you two dollars." 
 
 "Honest? D' you like it as much as all 
 that?" said Dan, flushing. "Well, to tell the 
 truth, I kinder got it for you — to give ; but I 
 did n't let on till I saw how you 'd take it. 
 It 's yours and welcome, Harve, because we 're 
 dory-mates, and so on and so forth, an' so fol- 
 lowin'. Catch a-holt!" 
 
 He held it out, belt and all. 
 
 "But look at here. Dan, I don't see " 
 
 "Take it. 'T ain't no use to me. I wish 
 you to hev it." 
 
 The temptation was irresistible. "Dan, 
 you 're a white man," said Harvey. "I '11 
 keep it as long as I live." 
 
 "That 's good hearin'," said Dan, with a 
 pleasant laugh; and then, anxious to change 
 the subject: "'Look 's if your line was fast 
 to somethin'." 
 
 "Fouled, I guess," said Harve, tugging. 
 Before he pulled up he fastened the belt round 
 him, and with deep delight heard the tip of 
 
r 
 
 218 " CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 
 
 the sheath click on the thwart. "Concern the 
 thing!" he cried. iiShe acts as though she 
 were on strawh^p^y-bottom. It's all sand 
 here, ain't it ?L 
 
 Dan reamed over and gave a judgmatic 
 tweak. yfHolibut '11 act that way 'f he 's sulky. 
 Thet ^no strawberry-bottom. Yank her once 
 or ™ce. She gives, sure. Guess we 'd better 
 h^il up an' make certain." 
 
 They pulled together, making fast at each 
 iurn on the cleats, and the hidden weight rose 
 sluggishly. 
 
 '^Prize, oh! Haul!" shouted Dan, but the 
 shout ended in a shrill, double shriek of hor- 
 ror, for out of the sea came — the body of the 
 dead Frenchman buried two days before! 
 The hook had caught him under the right 
 armpit, and he swayed, erect and horrible, 
 head and shoulders above water. His arms 
 were tied to his side, and — he had no face. 
 The boys fell over each other in a heap at the 
 bottom of the dory, and there they lay while 
 the thing bobbed alongside, held on the short- 
 ened line. 
 
 "The tide — the tide brought him!" said 
 Harvey with quivering lips, as he fumbled at 
 the clasp of the belt. 
 
" CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 219 
 
 "Oh, Lord! Oh, Harve!" groaned Dan, 
 "be quick. He 's come for it. Let him have 
 it. Take it off." 
 
 "I don't want it! I don't want it!" cried 
 Harvey. "I can't find the bu-buckle." 
 
 "Quick, Harve ! He 's on your line !" 
 
 Harvey sat up to unfasten the belt, facing 
 the head that had no face under its streaming 
 hair. "He 's fast still," he whispered to Dan, 
 who slipped out his knife and cut the line, as 
 Harvey flung the belt far overside. The body 
 shot down with a plop, and Dan cautiously 
 rose to his knees, whiter than the fog. 
 
 "He come for it. He come for it. I 've 
 seen a stale one hauled up on a trawl and I 
 did n't much care, but he come to us special." 
 
 "I wish — I wish I had n't taken the knife. 
 Then he 'd have come on your line." 
 
 "Dunno as thet would ha' made any differ. 
 We 're both scared out o' ten years' growth. 
 Oh, Harve, did ye see his head?" 
 
 "Did I? I '11 never forget it. But look at 
 here, Dan; it could n't have been meant. It 
 was only the tide." 
 
 "Tide! He come for it, Harve. Why, they 
 sunk him six miles to south'ard o' the Fleet, an' 
 we 're two miles from where she 's lyin' now. 
 
220 " CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 
 
 They told me he was weighted with a fathom 
 an' a half o' chain-cable." 
 
 " 'Wonder what he did with the knife — up 
 on the French coast?" 
 
 "Something bad. 'Guess he 's bound to take 
 
 it with him to the Judgment, an' so What 
 
 are you doin' with the fish?" 
 
 "Heaving 'em overboard," said Harvey. 
 
 "What for? We sha'n't eat 'em." 
 
 "I don't care. I had to look at his face 
 while I was takin' the belt off. You can keep 
 your catch if you like. I 've no use for mine." 
 
 Dan said nothing, but threw his fish over 
 again. 
 
 "Guess it 's best to be on the safe side," he 
 murmured at last. "I 'd give a month's pay 
 if this fog 'u'd lift. Things go abaout in a fog 
 that ye don't see in clear weather — yo-hoes 
 an' hollerers and such like. I 'm sorter re- 
 lieved he come the way he did instid o' walkin'. 
 He might ha' walked." 
 
 "Do-on't, Dan! We 're right on top of him 
 now. 'Wish I was safe aboard, bein' pounded 
 by Uncle Salters." 
 
 "They '11 be lookin' fer us in a little. Gim- 
 me the tooter." Dan took the tin dinner-horn, 
 but paused before he blew. 
 
" CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 221 
 
 "Go on," said Harvey. "I don't want to 
 stay here all night." 
 
 "Question is, haow he 'd take it. There 
 was a man f rum down the coast told me once 
 he was in a schooner where they darse n't ever 
 blow a horn to the dories, becaze the skipper 
 — not the man he was. with, but a captain 
 that had run her five years before — he 'd 
 drownded a boy alongside in a drunk fit; an' 
 ever after, that boy he 'd row alongside too 
 and shout, 'Dory! dory!' with the rest." 
 
 "Dory! dory!" a muffled voice cried 
 through the fog. They cowered again, and 
 the horn dropped from Dan's hand. 
 
 "Hold on!" cried Harvey; "it's the cook." 
 
 "Dunno what made me think o' thet fool 
 tale, either," said Dan. "It 's the doctor, sure 
 enough." 
 
 "Dan! Danny! Oooh, Dan! Harve! 
 Harvey! Oooh, Haarveee!" 
 
 "We 're here," sung both boys together. 
 They heard oars, but could see nothing till 
 the cook, shining and dripping, rowed into 
 them. 
 
 "What iss happened?" said he. "You will 
 be beaten at home." 
 
 "Thet 's what we want. Thet 's what we 're 
 
222 " CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 
 
 sufferin' for," said Dan. "Anything homey 's 
 good enough fer us. We 've had kinder de- 
 pressin' company." As the cook passed them 
 a line, Dan told him the tale. 
 
 "Yess! He come for hiss knife," was all 
 he said at the end. 
 
 Never had the little rocking We're Here 
 looked so deliciously home-like as when the 
 cook, born and bred in fogs, rowed them back 
 to her. There was a warm glow of light from 
 the cabin and a satisfying smell of food for- 
 ward, and it was heavenly to hear Disko and 
 the others, all quite alive and solid, leaning 
 over the rail and promising them a first-class 
 pounding. But the cook was a black master 
 of strategy. He did not get the dories aboard 
 till he had given the more striking points of the 
 tale, explaining as he backed and bumped 
 round the counter how Harvey was the mascot 
 to destroy any possible bad luck. So the boys 
 came overside as rather uncanny heroes, and 
 every one asked them questions instead of 
 pounding them for making trouble. Little 
 Penn delivered quite a speech on the folly of 
 superstitions; but public opinion was against 
 him and in favour of Long Jack, who told the 
 most excruciating ghost-stories, till nearly 
 
"CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS" 223 
 
 midnight. Under that influence no one except 
 Salters and Penn said anything about "idola- 
 try," when the cook put a lighted candle, a cake 
 of flour and water, and a pinch of salt on a 
 shingle, and floated them out astern to keep the 
 Frenchman quiet in case he was still restless. 
 Dan lit the candle because he had bought 
 the belt, and the cook grunted and muttered 
 charms as long as he could see the ducking 
 point of flame. 
 
 Said Harvey to Dan, as they turned in after 
 watch: "How about progress and Catholic 
 superstitions?" 
 
 "Huh ! I guess I 'm as enlightened and pro- 
 gressive as the next man, but when it comes 
 to a dead St. Malo deck-hand scarin' a couple 
 o' pore boys stiff fer the sake of a thirty-cent 
 knife, why, then, the cook can take hold fer all 
 o' me. I mistrust f urriners, livin' or dead." 
 
 Next morning all, except the cook, were 
 rather ashamed of the ceremonies, and went 
 to work double tides, speaking gruffly to one 
 another. 
 
 The We 're Here was racing neck and neck 
 for her last few loads against the Parry Nor- 
 man; and so close was the struggle that the 
 Fleet took side and betted tobacco. All hands 
 
224 " CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS '* 
 
 worked at the lines or dressing-down till they 
 fell asleep where they stood — beginning be- 
 fore dawn and ending when it was too dark to 
 see. They even used the cook as pitcher, and 
 turned Harvey into the hold to pass salt, while 
 Dan helped to dress down. Luckily a Parry 
 Norman man sprained his ankle falling down 
 the foc'sle, and the We 're Heres gained. 
 Harvey could not see how one more fish could 
 be crammed into her, but Disko and Tom 
 Piatt stowed and stowed, and planked the mass 
 down with big stones from the ballast, and 
 there was always "jest another day's work." 
 Disko did not tell them when all the salt was 
 wetted. He rolled to the lazarette aft the cab- 
 in and began hauling out the big mainsail. 
 This was at ten in the morning. The riding- 
 sail was down and the main- and topsail were 
 up by noon, and dories came alongside with 
 letters for home, envying their good fortune. 
 At last she cleared decks, hoisted her flag, — as 
 is the right of the first boat off the Banks, — 
 up-anchored, and began to move. Disko pre- 
 tended that he wished to accommodate folk 
 who had not sent in their mail, and so worked 
 her gracefully in and out among the schooners. 
 In reality, that was his little triumphant pro- 
 
DRESSING DOWN ON THE "WE'RE HERE.' 
 
" CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 227 
 
 cession, and for the fifth year running it 
 showed what kind of mariner he was. Dan's 
 accordion and Tom Piatt's fiddle supplied 
 the music of the magic verse you must not 
 sing till all the salt is wet : 
 
 "Hih! Yih! Yoho! Send your letters raound! 
 All our salt is wetted, an' the anchor 's off the graound ! 
 Bend, oh, bend your mains'I, we 're back to Yankee- 
 land — 
 
 With fifteen hunder' quintal, 
 An' fifteen hunder' quintal, 
 'Teen hunder' toppin' quintal, 
 'Twix' old 'Queereau an' Grand." 
 
 The last letters pitched on deck wrapped 
 round pieces of coal, and the Gloucester men 
 shouted messages to their wives and women- 
 folks and owners, while the We 're Here fin- 
 ished the musical ride through the Fleet, her 
 headsails quivering like a man's hand when 
 he raises it to say good-by. 
 
 Harvey very soon discovered that the 
 We 're Here, with her riding-sail, strolling 
 from berth to berth, and the We 're Here 
 headed west by south under home canvas, were 
 two very different boats. There was a bite 
 and kick to the wheel even in "boy's" weather ; 
 
'228 s " CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 
 
 he could feel the dead weight in the hold flung 
 forward mightily across the surges, and the 
 streaming line of bubbles overside made his 
 eyes dizzy. 
 
 Disko kept them busy fiddling with the 
 sails; and when those were flattened like a 
 racing yacht's, Dan had to wait on the big 
 topsail, which was put over by hand every 
 time she went about. In spare moments they 
 pumped, for the packed fish dripped brine, 
 which does not improve a cargo. But since 
 there was no fishing, Harvey had time to look 
 at the sea from another point of view. The 
 low-sided schooner was naturally on most in- 
 timate terms with her surroundings. They 
 saw little of the horizon save when she topped 
 a swell ; and usually she was elbowing, fidget- 
 ing, and coaxing her steadfast way through 
 gray, gray-blue, or black hollows laced across 
 and across with streaks of shivering foam; or 
 rubbing herself caressingly along the flank of 
 some bigger water-hill. It was as if she said : 
 "You would n't hurt me, surely? I 'm only 
 the little We 're Here." Then she would slide 
 away chuckling softly to herself till she was 
 brought up by some fresh obstacle. The 
 dullest of folk cannot see this kind of thing 
 
" CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 229 
 
 hour after hour through long days without 
 noticing it; and Harvey, being anything but 
 dull, began to comprehend and enjoy the dry 
 chorus of wave-tops turning over with a sound 
 of incessant tearing; the hurry of the winds 
 working across open spaces and herding the 
 purple-blue cloud-shadows; the splendid up- 
 heaval of the red sunrise; the folding and 
 packing away of the morning mists, wall after 
 wall withdrawn across the white floors; the 
 salty glare and blaze of noon ; the kiss of rain 
 falling over thousands of dead, flat square 
 miles; the chilly blackening of everything at 
 the day's end ; and the million wrinkles of the 
 sea under the moonlight, when the jib-boom 
 solemnly poked at the low stars, and Harvey 
 went down to get a doughnut from the cook. 
 
 But the best fun was when the boys were 
 put on the wheel together, Tom Piatt within 
 hail, and she cuddled her lee-rail down to the 
 crashing blue, and kept a little home-made 
 rainbow arching unbroken over her windlass. 
 Then the jaws of the booms whined against 
 the masts, and the sheets creaked, and the sails 
 filled with roaring; and when she slid into a 
 hollow she trampled like a woman tripped 
 in her own silk dress, and came out, her jib 
 
230 " CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 
 
 wet half-way up, yearning and peering for 
 the tall twin-lights of Thatcher's Island. 
 
 They left the cold gray of the Bank sea, 
 saw the lumber-ships making for Quebec by 
 the Straits of St. Lawrence, with the Jersey 
 salt-brigs from Spain and Sicily; found a 
 friendly northeaster off Artimon Bank that 
 drove them within view of the East light of 
 Sable Island, — a sight Disko did not linger 
 over, — and stayed with them past Western and 
 Le Have, to the northern fringe of George's. 
 From there they picked up the deeper water, 
 and let her go merrily. 
 
 "Hattie 's pulling on the string," Dan con- 
 fided to Harvey. "Hattie an' Ma. Next Sun- 
 day you '11 be hirin' a boy to throw water on 
 the windows to make ye go to sleep. 'Guess 
 you '11 keep with us till your folks come. Do 
 you know the best of gettin' ashore again?" 
 
 "Hot bath?" said Harvey. His eyebrows 
 were all white with dried spray. 
 
 "That 's good, but a night-shirt 's better. 
 I 've been dreamin' o' night-shirts ever since 
 we bent our mainsail. Ye can wiggle your 
 toes then. Ma '11 hev a new one fer me, all 
 washed soft. It 's home, Harve. It 's home! 
 Ye can sense it in the air. We 're runnin' 
 
" CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 231 
 
 into the aidge of a hot wave naow, an' I can 
 smell the bayberries. Wonder if we '11 get 
 in fer supper. Port a trifle." 
 
 The hesitating sails flapped and lurched in 
 the close air as the deep smoothed out, blue 
 and oily, round them. When they whistled 
 for a wind only the rain came in spiky rods, 
 bubbling and drumming, and behind the rain 
 the thunder and the lightning of mid-August. 
 They lay on the deck with bare feet and arms, 
 telling one another what they would order at 
 their first meal ashore ; for now the land was 
 in plain sight. A Gloucester swordfish-boat 
 drifted alongside, a man in the little pulpit on 
 the bowsprit flourished his harpoon, his bare 
 head plastered down with the wet. "And all 's 
 well!" he sang cheerily, as though he were 
 watch on a big liner. "Wouverman 's waiting 
 fer you, Disko. What 's the news o' the 
 Fleet?" 
 
 Disko shouted it and passed on, while the 
 wild summer storm pounded overhead and 
 the lightning flickered along the capes from 
 four different quarters at once. It gave the 
 low circle of hills round Gloucester Harbor, 
 Ten Pound Island, the fish-sheds, with the 
 broken line of house-roofs, and each spar and 
 
232 " CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 
 
 buoy on the water, in blinding photographs 
 that came and went a dozen times to the 
 minute as the We 're Here crawled in on half- 
 flood, and the whistling-buoy moaned and 
 mourned behind her. Then the storm died 
 out in long, separated, vicious dags of blue- 
 white flame, followed by a single roar like the 
 roar of a mortar-battery, and the shaken air 
 tingled under the stars as it got back to silence. 
 
 "The flag, the flag!" said Disko, suddenly, 
 pointing upward. 
 
 "What is ut?" said Long Jack. 
 
 "Otto ! Ha'af mast. They can see us f rum 
 shore now." 
 
 "I 'd clean forgot. He 's no folk to Glou- 
 cester, has he?" 
 
 "Girl he was goin' to be married to this 
 fall." 
 
 "Mary pity her!" said Long Jack, and 
 lowered the little flag half-mast for the sake 
 of Otto, swept overboard in a gale off Le 
 Have three months before. 
 
 Disko wiped the wet from his eyes and led 
 the We 're Here to Wouverman's wharf, giv- 
 ing his orders in whispers, while she swung 
 round moored tugs and night-watchmen 
 hailed her from the ends of inky-black piers. 
 
"dories came alongside with letters for home. 
 
" CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 235 
 
 Over and above the darkness and the mys- 
 tery of the procession, Harvey could feel the 
 land close round him once more, with all its 
 thousands of people asleep, and the smell of 
 earth after rain, and the familiar noise of a 
 switching-engine coughing to herself in a 
 freight-yard; and all those things made his 
 heart beat and his throat dry up as he stood 
 by the foresheet. They heard the anchor- 
 watch snoring on a lighthouse-tug, nosed into 
 a pocket of darkness where a lantern glim- 
 mered on either side ; somebody waked with a 
 grunt, threw them a rope, and they made fast 
 to a silent wharf flanked with great iron- 
 roofed sheds full of warm emptiness, and lay 
 there without a sound. 
 
 Then Harvey sat down by the wheel, and 
 sobbed and sobbed as though his heart would 
 break, and a tall woman who had been sit- 
 ting on a weigh-scale dropped down into the 
 schooner and kissed Dan once on the cheek; 
 for she was his mother, and she had seen the 
 We 're Here by the lightning flashes. She took 
 no notice of Harvey till he had recovered 
 himself a little and Disko had told her his 
 story. Then they went to Disko's house to- 
 gether as the dawn was breaking; and until the 
 
236 " CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 
 
 telegraph office was open and he could wire 
 his folk, Harvey Cheyne was perhaps the 
 loneliest boy in all America. But the curious 
 thing was that Disko and Dan seemed to think 
 none the worse of him for crying. 
 
 Wouverman was not ready for Disko's 
 prices till Disko, sure that the We're Here 
 was at least a week ahead of any other Glou- 
 cester boat, had given him a few days to swal- 
 low them ; so all hands played about the streets, 
 and Long Jack stopped the Rocky Neck trol- 
 ley, on principle, as he said, till the conductor 
 let him ride free. But Dan went about with 
 his freckled nose in the air, bung-full of mys- 
 tery and most haughty to his family. 
 
 "Dan, I '11 hev to lay inter you ef you act 
 this way," said Troop, pensively. "Sence 
 we 've come ashore this time you 've bin a 
 heap too fresh." 
 
 "I 'd lay into him naow ef he was mine," 
 said Uncle Salters, sourly. He and Penn 
 boarded with the Troops. 
 
 "Oho!" said Dan, shuffling with the accor- 
 dion round the backyard, ready to leap the 
 fence if the enemy advanced "Dan, you 're 
 welcome to your own judgment, but remem- 
 ber I 've warned ye. Your own flesh an' 
 
" CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 237 
 
 blood ha' warned ye! 'T ain't any o' my 
 fault ef you 're mistook, but I '11 be on deck 
 to watch ye. An' ez fer yeou, Uncle Salters, 
 Pharaoh's chief butler ain't in it 'longside o' 
 you ! You watch aout an' wait. You '11 be 
 plowed under like your own blamed clover; 
 but me — Dan Troop — I '11 flourish like a 
 green bay-tree because I war n't stuck on my 
 own opinion." 
 
 Disko was smoking in all his shore dignity 
 and a pair of beautiful carpet-slippers. 
 'You 're gettin' ez crazy as poor Harve. 
 You two go araound gigglin' an' squinchin' 
 an' kickin' each other under the table till 
 there 's no peace in the haouse," said he. 
 
 "There 's goin' to be a heap less — fer some 
 folks," Dan replied. "You wait an' see." 
 
 He and Harvey went out on the trolley to 
 East Gloucester, where they tramped through 
 the bayberry bushes to the lighthouse, and lay 
 down on the big red boulders and laughed 
 themselves hungry. Harvey had shown Dan 
 a telegram, and the two swore to keep silence 
 till the shell burst. 
 
 "Harve's folk?" said Dan, with an unruffled 
 face after supper. "Well, I guess they don't 
 amount to much of anything, or we 'd ha' 
 
238 " CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 
 
 heard frum 'em by naow. His pop keeps a 
 kind o' store out West. Maybe he '11 give 
 you 's much as five dollars, Dad." 
 
 "What did I tell ye?" said S alters. "Don't 
 sputter over your vittles, Dan." 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 WHATEVER his private sorrows may 
 be, a multimillionaire, like any other 
 workingman, should keep abreast of his busi- 
 ness. Harvey Cheyne, senior, had gone East 
 late in June to meet a woman broken down, 
 half mad, who dreamed day and night of her 
 son drowning in the gray seas. He had sur- 
 rounded her with doctors, trained nurses, 
 massage-women, and even faith-cure compan- 
 ions, but they were useless. Mrs. Cheyne lay 
 still and moaned, or talked of her boy by the 
 hour together to any one who would listen. 
 Hope she had none, and who could offer it? 
 All she needed was assurance that drowning 
 did not hurt; and her husband watched to 
 guard lest she should make the experiment. 
 Of his own sorrow he spoke little — hardly 
 realized the depth of it till he caught himself 
 
 239 
 
240 " CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 
 
 asking the calendar on his writing-desk, 
 "What 's the use of going on?" 
 
 There had always lain a pleasant notion at 
 the back of his head that, some day, when he 
 had rounded off everything and the boy had 
 left college, he would take his son to his heart 
 and lead him into his possessions. Then that 
 boy, he argued, as busy fathers do, would in- 
 stantly become his companion, partner, and 
 ally, and there would follow splendid years of 
 great works carried out together — the old 
 head backing the young fire. Now his boy 
 was dead — lost at sea, as it might have been 
 a Swede sailor from one of Cheyne's big tea- 
 ships; the wife dying, or worse; he himself 
 was trodden down by platoons of women and 
 doctors and maids and attendants; worried al- 
 most beyond endurance by the shift and change 
 of her poor restless whims ; hopeless, with no 
 heart to meet his many enemies. 
 
 He had taken the wife to his raw new pal- 
 ace in San Diego, where she and her people 
 occupied a wing of great price, and Cheyne, 
 in a veranda-room, between a secretary and a 
 typewriter, who was also a telegraphist, toiled 
 along wearily from day to day. There was a 
 war of rates among four Western railroads in 
 
" CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 241 
 
 which he was supposed to be interested ; a 
 devastating strike had developed in his lum- 
 ber camps in Oregon, and the legislature of 
 the State of California, which has no love for 
 its makers, was preparing open war against 
 him. 
 
 Ordinarily he would have accepted battle 
 ere it was offered, and have waged a pleasant 
 and unscrupulous campaign. But now he sat 
 limply, his soft black hat pushed forward on 
 to his nose, his big body shrunk inside his 
 loose clothes, staring at his boots or the Chi- 
 nese junks in the bay, and assenting absently to 
 the secretary's questions as he opened the Satur- 
 day mail. 
 
 Cheyne was wondering how much it would 
 cost to drop everything and pull out. He 
 carried huge insurances, could buy himself 
 royal annuities, and between one of his places 
 in Colorado and a little society (that would do 
 the wife good), say in Washington and the 
 South Carolina islands, a man might forget 
 plans that had come to nothing. On the other 
 hand . . . 
 
 The click of the typewriter stopped; the 
 girl was looking at the secretary, who had 
 turned white. 
 
242 " CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 
 
 He passed Cheyne a telegram repeated from 
 San Francisco : 
 
 Picked up by fishing schooner We 're Here 
 having fallen off boat great times on Banks 
 fishing all well waiting Gloucester Mass care 
 Disko Troop for money or orders wire what 
 shall do and how is Mama Harvey N. Cheyne. 
 
 The father let it fall, laid his head down on 
 the roller-top of the shut desk, and breathed 
 heavily. The secretary ran for Mrs. Cheyne's 
 doctor who found Cheyne pacing to and fro. 
 
 "What — what d 'you think of it? Is it 
 possible? Is there any meaning to it? I 
 can't quite make it out," he cried. 
 
 "I can," said the doctor. "I lose seven 
 thousand a year — that 's all." He thought of 
 the struggling New York practice he had 
 dropped at Cheyne's imperious bidding, and 
 returned the telegram with a sigh. 
 
 "You mean you 'd tell her? 'May be a 
 fraud?" 
 
 "What's the motive?" said the doctor, 
 coolly. "Detection 's too certain. It 's the boy 
 sure enough." 
 
 Enter a French maid, impudently, as an in- 
 
a 
 
 " CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 243 
 
 dispensable one who is kept on only by large 
 wages. 
 
 "Mrs. Cheyne she say you must come at 
 once. She think you are seek." 
 
 The master of thirty millions bowed his 
 head meekly and followed Suzanne; and a 
 thin, high voice on the upper landing of the 
 great white-wood square staircase cried: 
 What is it? What has happened?" 
 
 No doors could keep out the shriek that 
 rang through the echoing house a moment 
 later, when her husband blurted out the news. 
 
 "And that 's all right," said the doctor, se- 
 renely, to the typewriter. "About the only 
 medical statement in novels with any truth to 
 it is that joy don't kill, Miss Kinzey." 
 
 "I know it; but we 've a heap to do first." 
 Miss Kinzey was from Milwaukee, somewhat 
 direct of speech ; and as her fancy leaned to- 
 wards the secretary, she divined there was 
 work in hand. He was looking earnestly at 
 the vast roller-map of America on the wall. 
 
 "Milsom, we 're going right across. Pri- 
 vate car — straight through — Boston. Fix the 
 connections," shouted Cheyne down the stair- 
 case. 
 
 "I thought so." 
 
244 " CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 
 
 The secretary turned to the typewriter, and 
 their eyes met (out of that was born a story — 
 nothing to do with this story). She looked 
 inquiringly, doubtful of his resources. He 
 signed to her to move to the Morse as a gen- 
 eral brings brigades into action. Then he 
 swept his hand musician-wise through his 
 hair, regarded the ceiling, and set to work, 
 while Miss Kinzey's white fingers called up 
 the Continent of America. 
 
 "K. H. Wade, Los Angeles The 'Con- 
 stance' is at Los Angeles, is n't she, Miss 
 Kinzey?" 
 
 "Yep." Miss Kinzey nodded between clicks 
 as the secretary looked at his watch. 
 
 "Ready? Send 'Constance,' private car, 
 here, and arrange for special to leave here 
 Sunday in time to connect with New York 
 Limited at Sixteenth Street, Chicago, Tues- 
 day next." 
 
 Click — click — click! "Could n't you bet- 
 ter that?" 
 
 "Not on those grades. That gives 'em 
 sixty hours from here to Chicago. They 
 won't gain anything by taking a special east 
 of that. Ready? Also arrange with Lake 
 Shore and Michigan Southern to take 'Con- 
 
" CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 245 
 
 stance' on New York Central and Hudson 
 River Buffalo to Albany, and B. and A. the 
 same Albany to Boston. Indispensable I 
 should reach Boston Wednesday evening. Be 
 sure nothing prevents. Have also wired Can- 
 niff, Toucey, and Barnes. — Sign, Cheyne." 
 
 Miss Kinzey nodded, and the secretary 
 went on. 
 
 "Now then. Canniflf, Toucey, and Barnes, 
 of course. Ready? Canniff, Chicago. Please 
 take my private car 'Constance' from Santa 
 Fe at Sixteenth Street next Tuesday p. m. 
 on N. Y. Limited through to Buffalo and 
 deliver N. Y. C. for Albany. — Ever bin to 
 N' York, Miss Kinzey? We'll go some 
 day. — Ready? Take car Buffalo to Albany 
 on Limited Tuesday p. m. That's for 
 Toucey." 
 
 "Have n't bin to Noo York, but I know 
 that!" with a toss of the head. 
 
 "Beg pardon. Now, Boston and Albany, 
 Barnes, same instructions from Albany 
 through to Boston. Leave three-five P. M. 
 (you need n't wire that) ; arrive nine-five P. M. 
 Wednesday. That covers everything Wade 
 will do, but it pays to shake up the man- 
 agers." 
 
246 " CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 
 
 "It 's great," said Miss Kinzey, with a look 
 of admiration. This was the kind of man she 
 understood and appreciated. 
 
 " 'T is n't bad," said Milsom, modestly. 
 "Now, any one but me would have lost thirty 
 hours and spent a week working out the run, 
 instead of handing him over to the Santa Fe 
 straight through to Chicago." 
 
 "But see here, about that Noo York Lim- 
 ited. Chauncey Depew himself could n't 
 hitch his car to her," Miss Kinzey suggested, 
 recovering herself. 
 
 "Yes, but this is n't Chauncey. It 's Cheyne 
 — lightning. It goes." 
 
 "Even so. Guess we 'd better wire the boy. 
 You 've forgotten that, anyhow." 
 
 "I '11 ask." 
 
 When he returned with the father's mes- 
 sage bidding Harvey meet them in Boston at 
 an appointed hour, he found Miss Kinzey 
 laughing over the keys. Then Milsom 
 laughed too, for the frantic clicks from Los 
 Angeles ran: "We want to know why — why 
 — why? General uneasiness developed and 
 spreading." 
 
 Ten minutes later Chicago appealed to 
 Miss Kinzey in these words : "If crime of cen- 
 
55 
 
" CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 249 
 
 tury is maturing please warn friends in time. 
 We are all getting to cover here." 
 
 This was capped by a message from To- 
 peka (and wherein Topeka was concerned 
 even Milsom could not guess) : "Don't shoot, 
 Colonel. We '11 come down." 
 
 Cheyne smiled grimly at the consternation 
 of his enemies when the telegrams were laid 
 before him. "They think we 're on the war- 
 path. Tell 'em we don't feel like fighting just 
 now, Milson. Tell 'em what we 're going for. 
 I guess you and Miss Kinzey had better come 
 along, though it is n't likely I shall do any 
 business on the road. Tell 'em the truth — for 
 once." 
 
 So the truth was told. Miss Kinzey clicked 
 in the sentiment while the secretary added the 
 memorable quotation, "Let us have peace," 
 and in board rooms two thousand miles away 
 the representatives of sixty-three million dol- 
 lars' worth of variously manipulated railroad 
 interests breathed more freely. Cheyne was 
 flying to meet the only son, so miraculously 
 restored to him. The bear was seeking his 
 cub, not the bulls. Hard men who had their 
 knives drawn to fight for their financial lives 
 put away the weapons and wished him God- 
 
250 " CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 
 
 speed, while half a dozen panic-smitten tin-pot 
 roads perked up their heads and spoke of the 
 wonderful things they would have done had 
 not Cheyne buried the hatchet. 
 
 It was a busy week-end among the wires; 
 for how that their anxiety was removed, men 
 and cities hastened to accommodate. Los 
 Angeles called to San Diego and Barstow that 
 the Southern California engineers might 
 know and be ready in their lonely round- 
 houses; Barstow passed the word to the At- 
 lantic and Pacific ; and Albuquerque flung it 
 the whole length of the Atchison, Topeka, and 
 Santa Fe management, even into Chicago. An 
 engine, combination-car with crew, and the 
 great and gilded "Constance" private car were 
 to be "expedited" over those two thousand 
 three hundred and fifty miles. The train 
 would take precedence of one hundred and 
 seventy-seven others meeting and passing; 
 despatchers and crews of every one of those 
 said trains must be notified. Sixteen locomo- 
 tives, sixteen engineers, and sixteen firemen 
 would be needed — each and every one the best 
 available. Two and one half minutes would 
 be allowed for changing engines, three for 
 watering, and two for coaling. "Warn the 
 
" CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 251 
 
 men, and arrange tanks and chutes according- 
 ly; for Harvey Cheyne is in a hurry, a hurry 
 — a hurry," sang the wires. "Forty miles an 
 hour will be expected, and division superin- 
 tendents will accompany this special over 
 their respective divisions. From San Diego 
 to Sixteenth Street, Chicago, let the magic 
 carpet be laid down. Hurry! Oh, hurry!" 
 
 "It will be hot," said Cheyne, as they rolled 
 out of San Diego in the dawn of Sunday. 
 "We 're going to hurry, Mama, just as fast as 
 ever we can ; but I really don't think there 's 
 any good of your putting on your bonnet and 
 gloves yet. You 'd much better lie down and 
 take your medicine. I 'd play you a game of 
 dominoes, but it 's Sunday." 
 
 "I '11 be good. Oh, I will be good. Only 
 — taking off my bonnet makes me feel as if 
 we 'd never get there." 
 
 "Try to sleep a little, Mama, and we '11 be 
 in Chicago before you know." 
 
 "But it's Boston, Father. Tell them to 
 hurry." 
 
 The six-foot drivers were hammering their 
 way to San Bernardino and the Mohave wastes, 
 but this was no grade for speed. That would 
 come later. The heat of the desert followed 
 
252 " CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 
 
 the heat of the hills as they turned east to the 
 Needles and the Colorado River. The car 
 cracked in the utter drouth and glare, and they 
 put crushed ice to Mrs. Cheyne's neck, and 
 toiled up the long, long grades, past Ash Fork, 
 towards Flagstaff, where the forests and quar- 
 ries are, under the dry, remote skies. The 
 needle of the speed-indicator flicked and 
 wagged to and fro ; the cinders rattled on the 
 roof, and a whirl of dust sucked after the 
 whirling wheels. The crew of the combina- 
 tion sat on their bunks, panting in their shirt- 
 sleeves, and Cheyne found himself among 
 them shouting old, old stories of the railroad 
 that every trainman knows, above the roar of 
 the car. He told them about his son, and how 
 the sea had given up its dead, and they nodded 
 and spat and rejoiced with him; asked after 
 "her, back there," and whether she could 
 stand it if the engineer "let her out a piece," 
 and Cheyne thought she could. Accordingly, 
 the great fire-horse was "let-out" from Flag- 
 staff to Winslow, till a division superintendent 
 protested.. 
 
 But Mrs. Cheyne, in the boudoir stateroom, 
 where the French maid, sallow-white with 
 fear, clung to the silver door-handle, only 
 
" CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 253 
 
 moaned a little and begged her husband to bid 
 them "hurry." And so they dropped the dry 
 sands and moon-struck rocks of Arizona be- 
 hind them, and grilled on till the crash of 
 the couplings and the wheeze of the brake- 
 hose told them they were at Coolidge by the 
 Continental Divide. 
 
 Three bold and experienced men — cool, 
 confident, and dry when they began; white, 
 quivering, and wet when they finished their 
 trick at those terrible wheels — swung her over 
 the great lift from Albuquerque to Glorietta 
 and beyond Springer, up and up to the Raton 
 Tunnel on the State line, whence they dropped 
 rocking into La Junta, had sight of the Arkan- 
 saw, and tore down the long slope to Dodge 
 City, where Cheyne took comfort once again 
 from setting his watch an hour ahead. 
 
 There was very little talk in the car. The 
 secretary and typewriter sat together on the 
 stamped Spanish-leather cushions by the 
 plate-glass observation-window at the rear 
 end, watching the surge and ripple of the ties 
 crowded back behind them, and, it is believed, 
 making notes of the scenery. Cheyne moved 
 nervously between his own extravagant gor- 
 geousness and the naked necessity of the com- 
 
254 " CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 
 
 bination, an unlit cigar in his teeth, till the 
 pitying crews forgot that he was their tribal 
 enemy, and did their best to entertain him. 
 
 At night the bunched electrics lit up that 
 distressful palace of all the luxuries, and they 
 fared sumptuously, swinging on through the 
 emptiness of abject desolation. Now they 
 heard the swish of a water-tank, and the gut- 
 tural voice of a Chinaman, the clink-clink of 
 hammers that tested the Krupp steel wheels, 
 and the oath of a tramp chased off the rear- 
 platform; now the solid crash of coal shot 
 into the tender; and now a beating back of 
 noises as they flew past a waiting train. Now 
 they looked out into great abysses, a trestle 
 purring beneath their tread, or up to rocks 
 that barred out half the stars. Now scaur 
 and ravine changed and rolled back to jagged 
 mountains on the horizon's edge, and now 
 broke into hills lower and lower, till at last 
 came the true plains. 
 
 At Dodge City an unknown hand threw in 
 a copy of a Kansas paper containing some 
 sort of an interview with Harvey, who had 
 evidently fallen in with an enterprising re- 
 porter, telegraphed on from Boston. The 
 joyful journalese revealed that it was beyond 
 
" CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 255 
 
 question their boy, and it soothed Mrs. 
 Cheyne for a while. Her one word "hurry" 
 was conveyed by the crews to the engineers at 
 Nickerson, Topeka, and Marceline, where the 
 grades are easy, and they brushed the Conti- 
 nent behind them. Towns and villages were 
 close together now, and a man could feel here 
 that he moved among people. 
 
 "I can't see the dial, and my eyes ache so. 
 What are we doing?" 
 
 "The very best we can, Mama. There 's no 
 sense in getting in before the Limited. We 'd 
 only have to wait." 
 
 "I don't care. I want to feel we 're moving. 
 Sit down and tell me the miles." 
 
 Cheyne sat down and read the dial for her 
 (there were some miles which stand for rec- 
 ords to this day) , but the seventy-foot car never 
 changed its long steamer-like roll, moving 
 through the heat with the hum of a giant bee. 
 Yet the speed was not enough for Mrs. 
 Cheyne ; and the heat, the remorseless August 
 heat, was making her giddy; the clock-hands 
 would not move, and when, oh, when would 
 they be in Chicago? 
 
 It is not true that, as they changed engines 
 at Fort Madison, Cheyne passed over to the 
 
256 " CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 
 
 Amalgamated Brotherhood of Locomotive 
 Engineers an endowment sufficient to enable 
 them to fight him and his fellows on equal 
 terms for evermore. He paid his obligations 
 to engineers and firemen as he believed they 
 deserved, and only his bank knows what he 
 gave the crews who had sympathized with 
 him. It is on record that the last crew took en- 
 tire charge of switching operations at Six- 
 teenth Street, because "she" was in a doze at 
 last, and Heaven was to help any one who 
 bumped her. 
 
 Now the highly paid specialist who conveys 
 the Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Lim- 
 ited from Chicago to Elkhart is something of 
 an autocrat, and he does not approve of being 
 told how to back up to a car. None the less he 
 handled the "Constance" as if she might have 
 been a load of dynamite, and when the crew 
 rebuked him, they did it in whispers and dumb 
 show. 
 
 "Pshaw 1" said the Atchison, Topeka, and 
 Santa Fe men, discussing life later, "we 
 were n't runnin' for a record. Harvey 
 Cheyne's wife, she were sick back, an' we 
 didn't want to jounce her. 'Come to think of 
 it, our runnin' time from San Diego to Chi- 
 
" CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 257 
 
 cago was 57.54. You can tell that to them 
 Eastern way-trains. When we 're tryin' for a 
 record, we '11 let you know." 
 
 To the Western man (though this would not 
 please either city) Chicago and Boston are 
 cheek by jowl, and some railroads encourage 
 the delusion. The Limited whirled the "Con- 
 stance" into Buffalo and the arms of the New 
 York Central and Hudson River (illustrious 
 magnates with white whiskers and gold 
 charms on their watch-chains boarded her here 
 to talk a little business to Cheyne), who slid 
 her gracefully into Albany, where the Boston 
 and Albany completed the run from tide- 
 water to tide-water — total time, eighty-seven 
 hours and thirty-five minutes, or three days, 
 fifteen hours and one half. Harvey was wait- 
 ing for them. 
 
 After violent emotion most people and all 
 boys demand food. They feasted the returned 
 prodigal behind drawn curtains, cut off in 
 their great happiness, while the trains roared 
 in and out around them. Harvey ate, drank, 
 and enlarged on his adventures all in one 
 breath, and when he had a hand free his moth- 
 er fondled it. His voice was thickened with 
 
258 " CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 
 
 living in the open, salt air; his palms were 
 rough and hard, his wrists dotted with marks 
 of gurry-sores; and a fine full flavour of cod- 
 fish hung round rubber boots and blue jersey. 
 
 The father, well used to judging men, 
 looked at him keenly. He did not know what 
 enduring harm the boy might have taken. In- 
 deed, he caught himself thinking that he knew 
 very little whatever of his son ; but he distinct- 
 ly remembered an unsatisfied, dough-faced 
 youth who took delight in "calling down the 
 old man," and reducing his mother to tears — 
 such a person as adds to the gaiety of public 
 rooms and hotel piazzas, where the ingenuous 
 young of the wealthy play with or revile the 
 bell-boys. But this well set-up fisher-youth 
 did not wriggle, looked at him with eyes 
 steady, clear, and unflinching, and spoke in a 
 tone distinctly, even startlingly, respectful. 
 There was that in his voice, too, which seemed 
 to promise that the change might be perma- 
 nent, and that the new Harvey had come to stay. 
 
 "Some one 's been coercing him," thought 
 Cheyne. "Now Constance would never have 
 allowed that. Don't see as Europe could have 
 done it any better." 
 
 "But why did n't you tell this man, Troop, 
 
" CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 259 
 
 who you were?" the mother repeated, when 
 Harvey had expanded his story at least twice. 
 
 "Disko Troop, dear. The best man that 
 ever walked a deck. I don't care who the next 
 is." 
 
 "Why did n't you tell him to put you 
 ashore? You know Papa would have made 
 it up to him ten times over." 
 
 "I know it; but he thought I was crazy. 
 1 'm afraid I called him a thief because I 
 could n't find the bills in my pocket." 
 
 "A sailor found them by the flagstaff that — 
 that night," sobbed Mrs. Cheyne. 
 
 "That explains it, then. I don't blame 
 Troop any. I just said I would n't work — on 
 a Banker, too — and of course he hit me on the 
 nose, and oh! I bled like a stuck hog." 
 
 "My poor darling ! They must have abused 
 you horribly." 
 
 "Dunno quite. Well, after that, I saw a 
 light." 
 
 Cheyne slapped his leg and chuckled. This 
 was going to be a boy after his own hungry 
 heart. He had never seen precisely that twin- 
 kle in Harvey's eye before. 
 
 "And the old man gave me ten and a half 
 a month; he 's paid me half now; and I took 
 
260 " CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 
 
 hold with Dan and pitched right in. I can't 
 do a man's work yet. But I can handle a dory 
 'most as well as Dan, and I don't get rattled in 
 a fog — much ; and I can take my trick in light 
 winds — that 's steering, dear — and I can 'most 
 bait up a trawl, and I know my ropes, of 
 course ; and I can pitch fish till the cows come 
 home, and I 'm great on old Josephus, and 
 I '11 show you how I can clear coffee with a 
 piece of fish-skin, and — I think I '11 have an- 
 other cup, please. Say, you 've no notion what 
 a heap of work there is in ten and a half a 
 month!" 
 
 "I began with eight and a half, my son," 
 said Cheyne. 
 
 " 'That so? You never told me, sir." 
 
 "You never asked, Harve. I '11 tell you 
 about it some day, if you care to listen. Try 
 a stuffed olive." 
 
 "Troop says the most interesting thing in the 
 world is to find out how the next man gets 
 his vittles. It 's great to have a trimmed-up 
 meal again. We were well fed, though. But 
 mug on the Banks. Disko fed us first-class. 
 He 's a great man. And Dan — that 's his son 
 — Dan 's my partner. And there 's Uncle Sal- 
 ters and his manures, an' he reads Josephus. 
 
" CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 261 
 
 He 's sure I 'm crazy yet. And there 's poor 
 little Penn, and he is crazy. You must n't 
 
 talk to him about Johnstown, because 
 
 And, oh, you must know Tom Piatt and Long 
 Jack and Manuel. Manuel saved my life. 
 I 'm sorry he 's a Portugee. He can't talk 
 much, but he 's an everlasting musician. He 
 found me struck adrift and drifting, and 
 hauled me in." 
 
 "I wonder your nervous system is n't com- 
 pletely wrecked," said Mrs. Cheyne. 
 
 "What for, Mama? I worked like a horse 
 and I ate like a hog and I slept like a dead 
 man." 
 
 That was too much for Mrs. Cheyne, who 
 began to think of her visions of a corpse rock- 
 ing on the salty seas. She went to her state- 
 room, and Harvey curled up beside his father, 
 explaining his indebtedness. 
 
 "You can depend upon me to do everything 
 I can for the crowd, Harve. They seem to be 
 good men on your showing." 
 
 "Best in the Fleet, sir. Ask at Gloucester," 
 said Harvey. "But Disko believes still he 's 
 cured me of being crazy. Dan 's the only 
 one I 've let on to about you, and our private 
 cars and all the rest of it, and I 'm not quite 
 
262 " CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 
 
 sure Dan believes. I want to paralyze 'em 
 to-morrow. Say, can't they run the 'Con- 
 stance' over to Gloucester? Mama don't look 
 fit to be moved, anyway, and we 're bound to 
 finish cleaning out by to-morrow. Wouver- 
 man takes our fish. You see, we 're the first off 
 the Banks this season, and it 's four twenty- 
 five a quintal. We held out till he paid it. 
 They want it quick." 
 
 "You mean you '11 have to work to-morrow, 
 then?" 
 
 "I told Troop I would. I 'm on the scales. 
 I 've brought the tallies with me." He looked 
 at the greasy notebook with an air of impor- 
 tance that made his father choke. "There 
 is n't but three — no — two ninety-four or five 
 quintal more by my reckoning." 
 
 "Hire a substitute," suggested Cheyne, to 
 see what Harvey would say. 
 
 "Can't, sir. I 'm tally-man for the schooner. 
 Troop says I 've a better head for figures than 
 Dan. Troop 's a mighty just man." 
 
 "Well, suppose I don't move the 'Con- 
 stance' to-night, how '11 you fix it?" 
 
 Harvey looked at the clock, which marked 
 twenty past eleven. 
 
 "Then I '11 sleep here till three and 
 
" CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 263 
 
 catch the four o'clock freight. They let 
 us men from the Fleet ride free as a 
 rule." 
 
 "That 's a notion. But I think we can 
 get the 'Constance' around about as soon 
 as your men's freight. Better go to bed 
 now." 
 
 Harvey spread himself on the sofa, kicked 
 off his boots, and was asleep before his father 
 could shade the electrics. Cheyne sat watch- 
 ing the young face under the shadow of the 
 arm thrown over the forehead, and among 
 many things that occurred to him was the 
 notion that he might perhaps have been neg- 
 lectful as a father. 
 
 "One never knows when one 's taking one's 
 biggest risks," he said. "It might have been 
 worse than drowning; but I don't think it 
 has — I don't think it has. If it has n't, I 
 have n't enough to pay Troop, that 's all ; and 
 I don't think it has." 
 
 Morning brought a fresh sea breeze through 
 the windows, the "Constance" was side- 
 tracked among freight-cars at Gloucester, and 
 Harvey had gone to his business. 
 
 "Then he '11 fall overboard again and be 
 drowned," the mother said bitterly. 
 
264 " CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 
 
 "We '11 go and look, ready to throw him 
 a rope in case. You 've never seen him 
 working for his bread," said the father. 
 
 "What nonsense! As if any one expect- 
 ed " 
 
 "Well, the man that hired him did. He 's 
 about right, too." 
 
 They went down between the stores full of 
 fishermen's oilskins to Wouverman's wharf 
 where the We 're Here rode high, her Bank 
 flag still flying, all hands busy as beavers in 
 the glorious morning light. Disko stood by 
 the main hatch superintending Manuel, Penn, 
 and Uncle Salters at the tackle. Dan was 
 swinging the loaded baskets inboard as Long 
 Jack and Tom Piatt filled them, and Harvey, 
 with a notebook, represented the skipper's in- 
 terests before the clerk of the scales on the salt- 
 sprinkled wharf-edge. 
 
 "Ready !" cried the voices below. "Haul !" 
 cried Disko. "Hi!" said Manuel. "Here!" 
 said Dan, swinging the basket. Then they 
 heard Harvey's voice, clear and fresh, check- 
 ing the weights. 
 
 The last of the fish had been whipped out, 
 and Harvey leaped from the string-piece six 
 feet to a ratline, as the shortest way to hand 
 
" CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 265 
 
 Disko the tally, shouting, "Two ninety-seven, 
 and an empty hold I" 
 
 "What 's the total, Harve?" said Disko. 
 
 "Eight sixty-five. Three thousand six hun- 
 dred and seventy-six dollars and a quarter. 
 'Wish I 'd share as well as wage." 
 
 "Well, I won't go so far as to say you hev n't 
 deserved it, Harve. Don't you want to slip 
 up to Wouverman's office and take him our 
 tallies?" 
 
 "Who 's that boy?" said Cheyne to Dan, 
 well used to all manner of questions from 
 those idle imbeciles called summer board- 
 ers. 
 
 "Well, he 's kind o' supercargo," was the 
 answer. "We picked him up struck adrift on 
 the Banks. Fell overboard from a liner, he 
 sez. He was a passenger. He 's by way o' 
 bein' a fisherman now." 
 
 "Is he worth his keep?" 
 
 "Ye-ep. Dad, this man wants to know ef 
 Harve 's worth his keep. Say, would you like 
 to go aboard ? We '11 fix up a ladder for her." 
 
 "I should very much, indeed. 'T won't hurt 
 you, Mama, and you '11 be able to see for your- 
 self." 
 
 The woman who could not lift her head a 
 
266 " CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 
 
 week ago scrambled down the ladder, and 
 stood aghast amid the mess and tangle aft. 
 
 "Be you anyways interested in Harve?" 
 said Disko. 
 
 "Well, ye-es." 
 
 "He 's a good boy, an' ketches right hold 
 jest as he 's bid. You 've heard haow we 
 found him? He was sufferin' from nervous 
 prostration, I guess, 'r else his head had hit 
 somethin', when we hauled him aboard. He 's 
 all over that naow. Yes, this is the cabin. 
 'T ain't anyways in order, but you 're quite 
 welcome to look araound. Those are his fig- 
 ures on the stove-pipe, where we keep the 
 reckonin' mostly." 
 
 "Did he sleep here?" said Mrs. Cheyne, 
 sitting on a yellow locker and surveying the 
 disorderly bunks. 
 
 "No. He berthed forward, madam, an' 
 only fer him an' my boy hookin' fried pies an' 
 muggin' up when they ought to ha' been 
 asleep, I dunno as I 've any special fault to 
 find with him." 
 
 "There were n't nothin' wrong with 
 Harve," said Uncle Salters, descending the 
 steps. "He hung my boots on the main-truck, 
 and he ain't over an' above respectful to such 
 
" CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 267 
 
 as knows more 'n he do, specially about farm- 
 in' ; but he were mostly misled by Dan." 
 
 Dan in the meantime, profiting by dark 
 hints from Harvey early that morning, was 
 executing a war-dance on deck. "Tom, 
 Tom!" he whispered down the hatch. "His 
 folks has come, an' Dad hain't caught on yet, 
 an' they 're pow-wowin' in the cabin. She 's 
 a daisy, an' he 's all Harve claimed he was, by 
 the looks of him." 
 
 "Howly Smoke!" said Long Jack, climbing 
 out covered with salt and fish-skin. "D' ye 
 belave his tale av the kid an' the little four- 
 horse rig was thrue?" 
 
 "I knew it all along," said Dan. "Come an' 
 see Dad mistook in his judgments." 
 
 They came delightedly, just in time to hear 
 Cheyne say: "I 'm glad he has a good char- 
 acter, because — he 's my son." 
 
 Disko's jaw fell, — Long Jack always vowed 
 that he heard the click of it, — and he stared 
 alternately at the man and the woman. 
 
 "I got his telegram in San Diego four days 
 ago, and we came over." 
 
 "In a private car?" said Dan. "He said 
 ye might." 
 
 "In a private car, of course." 
 
268 " CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 
 
 Dan looked at his father with a hurricane 
 of irreverent winks. 
 
 "There was a tale he told us av drivin' 
 four little ponies in a rig av his own," said 
 Long Jack. "Was that thrue now?" 
 
 "Very likely," said Cheyne. "Was it, 
 Mama?" 
 
 "He had a little drag when we were in 
 Toledo, I think," said the mother. 
 
 Long Jack whistled. "Oh, Disko !" said he, 
 and that was all. 
 
 "I wuz — I am mistook in my jedgments — 
 worse 'n the men o' Marblehead," said Disko, 
 as though the words were being windlassed 
 out of him. "I don't mind ownin' to you, 
 Mr. Cheyne, as I mistrusted the boy to be 
 crazy. He talked kinder odd about money." 
 
 "So he told me." 
 
 "Did he tell ye anything else? 'Cause I 
 pounded him once." This with a somewhat 
 anxious glance at Mrs. Cheyne. 
 
 "Oh, yes," Cheyne replied. "I should say 
 it probably did him more good than anything 
 else in the world." 
 
 "I jedged 't wuz necessary, er I would n't 
 ha' done it. I don't want you to think we 
 abuse our boys any on this packet." 
 
" CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 269 
 
 "I don't think you do, Mr. Troop." 
 
 Mrs. Cheyne had been looking at the faces 
 — Disko's ivory-yellow, hairless, iron coun- 
 tenance ; Uncle Salters's, with its rim of agri- 
 cultural hair; Penn's bewildered simplicity; 
 Manuel's quiet smile; Long Jack's grin of 
 delight, and Tom Piatt's scar. Rough, by her 
 standards, they certainly were ; but she had a 
 mother's wits in her eyes, and she rose with 
 out-stretched hands. 
 
 "Oh, tell me, which is who?" said she, half 
 sobbing. "I want to thank you and bless you 
 — all of you." 
 
 "Faith, that pays me a hunder time," said 
 Long Jack. 
 
 Disko introduced them all in due form. 
 The captain of an old-time Chinaman could 
 have done no better, and Mrs. Cheyne bab- 
 bled incoherently. She nearly threw herself 
 into Manuel's arms when she understood that 
 he had first found Harvey. 
 
 "But how shall I leave him dreeft?" said 
 poor Manuel. "What do you yourself if you 
 find him so? Eh, wha-at? We are in one 
 good boy, and I am ever so pleased he come 
 to be your son." 
 
 "And he told me Dan was his partner!" 
 
270 " CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 
 
 she cried. Dan was already sufficiently pink, 
 but he turned a rich crimson when Mrs. 
 Cheyne kissed him on both cheeks before the 
 assembly. Then they led her forward to show 
 her the foc'sle, at which she wept again, and 
 must needs go down to see Harvey's identical 
 bunk, and there she found the nigger coolr 
 cleaning up the stove, and he nodded as though 
 she were some one he had expected to meet 
 for years. They tried, twp at a time, to ex- 
 plain the boat's daily life to her, and she 
 sat by the pawl-post, her gloved hands on the 
 greasy table, laughing with trembling lips and 
 crying with dancing eyes. 
 
 "And who 's ever to use the We 're Here 
 after this?" said Long Jack to Tom Piatt. 
 "I feel as if she 'd made a cathedral av ut 
 all." 
 
 "Cathedral!" sneered Tom Piatt. "Oh, 
 ef it had bin even the Fish C'mmission boat 
 instid of this bally-hoo o' blazes. Ef we only 
 hed some decency an' order an' side-boys when 
 she goes over ! She '11 have to climb that lad- 
 der like a hen, an' we — we ought to be man- 
 nin' the yards!" 
 
 "Then Harvey was not mad," said Penn, 
 slowly, to Cheyne. 
 
" CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 271 
 
 "No, indeed — thank God," the big million- 
 aire replied, stooping down tenderly. 
 
 "It must be terrible to be mad. Except to 
 lose your child, I do not know anything more 
 terrible. But your child has come back? 
 Let us thank God for that." 
 
 "Hello!" cried Harvey, looking down upon 
 them benignly from the wharf. 
 
 "I wuz mistook, Harve. I wuz mistook," 
 said Disko, swiftly, holding up a hand. "I 
 wuz mistook in my jedgments. Ye need n't 
 rub in any more." 
 
 "Guess I'll take care o' that," said Dan, 
 under his breath. 
 
 "You '11 be goin' off naow, won't ye?" 
 
 "Well, not without the balance of my 
 wages, 'less you want to have the We 're Here 
 attached." 
 
 "Thet 's so; I 'd clean forgot"; and he 
 counted out the remaining dollars. "You 
 done all you contracted to do, Harve; and 
 you done it 'baout 's well as ef you 'd been 
 
 brought up " Here Disko brought himself 
 
 up. He did not quite see where the sentence 
 was going to end. 
 
 "Outside of a private car?" suggested Dan, 
 wickedly. 
 
272 " CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 
 
 "Come on, and I'll show her to you," said 
 Harvey. 
 
 Cheyne stayed to talk with Disko, but the 
 others made a procession to the depot, with 
 Mrs. Cheyne at the head. The French maid 
 shrieked at the invasion ; and Harvey laid the 
 glories of the "Constance" before them with- 
 out a word. They took them in in equal 
 silence — stamped leather, silver door-handles 
 and rails, cut velvet, plate-glass, nickel, 
 bronze, hammered iron, and the rare woods 
 of the continent inlaid. 
 
 "I told you," said Harvey; "I told you." 
 This was his crowning revenge, and a most 
 ample one. 
 
 Mrs. Cheyne decreed a meal, and that noth- 
 ing might be lacking to the tale Long Jack 
 told afterwards in his boarding-house, she 
 waited on them herself. Men who are accus- 
 tomed to eat at tiny tables in howling gales 
 have curiously neat and finished manners ; but 
 Mrs. Cheyne, who did not know this, was 
 surprised. She longed to have Manuel for a 
 butler; so silently and easily did he comport 
 himself among the frail glassware and dainty 
 silver. Tom Piatt remembered the great days 
 on the Ohio and the manners of foreign po- 
 

 MRS. CHEYNE INTRODUCES THE CREW OF THE "WE'RE HERE" 
 TO THE "CONSTANCE." 
 
" CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 27s 
 
 tentates who dined with the officers; and 
 Long Jack, being Irish, supplied the small 
 talk till all were at their ease. 
 
 In the We 're Here's cabin the fathers took 
 stock of each other behind their cigars. Cheyne 
 knew well enough when he dealt with a man 
 to whom he could not offer money; equally 
 well he knew that no money could pay for 
 what Disko had done. He kept his own coun- 
 sel and waited for an opening. 
 
 "I hev n't done anything to your boy or fer 
 your boy excep' make him work a piece an' 
 learn him how to handle the hog-yoke," said 
 Disko. "He has twice my boy's head for 
 figgers." 
 
 "By the way," Cheyne answered casually, 
 "what d' you calculate to make of your boy?" 
 
 Disko removed his cigar and waved it com- 
 prehensively round the cabin. "Dan 's jest 
 plain boy, an' he don't allow me to do any 
 of his thinkin'. He '11 hev this able little 
 packet when I 'm laid by. He ain't noways 
 anxious to quit the business. I know that." 
 
 "Mmm! 'Ever been West, Mr. Troop?" 
 
 " 'Bin 's fer ez Noo York once in a boat. 
 I 've no use for railroads. No more hez Dan. 
 Salt water 's good enough fer the Troops. 
 
276 " CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 
 
 I 've been 'most everywhere — in the nat'ral 
 way, o' course." 
 
 "I can give him all the salt water he 's 
 likely to need — till he 's a skipper." 
 
 "Haow 's that? I thought you wuz a kinder 
 railroad king. Harve told me so when — I 
 was mistook in my jedgments." 
 
 "We 're all apt to be mistaken. I fancied 
 perhaps you might know I own a line of tea- 
 clippers — San Francisco to Yokohama — six 
 of 'em — iron-built, about seventeen hundred 
 and eighty tons apiece." 
 
 "Blame that boy! He never told. I 'd ha' 
 listened to that, instid o' his truck abaout rail- 
 roads an' pony-carriages." 
 
 "He did n't know." 
 
 " 'Little thing like that slipped his mind, I 
 guess." 
 
 "No, I only capt — took hold of the 'Blue 
 M.' freighters — Morgan and McQuade's old 
 line — this summer." 
 
 Disko collapsed where he sat, beside the 
 stove. 
 
 "Great Caesar Almighty! I mistrust I've 
 been fooled from one end to the other. Why, 
 Phil Airheart he went from this very town 
 six year back — no, seven — an' he 's mate on 
 
" CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 277 
 
 the San Jose now — : twenty-six days was her 
 time out. His sister she 's livin' here yet, an' 
 she reads his letters to my woman. An' you 
 own the 'Blue M.' freighters?" 
 
 Cheyne nodded. 
 
 "If I 'd known that I 'd ha' jerked the 
 We 're Here back to port all standin', on the 
 word." 
 
 "Perhaps that would n't have been so good 
 for Harvey." 
 
 "Ef I 'd only known! Ef he 'd only said 
 about the cussed Line, I 'd ha' understood! 
 I '11 never stand on my own jedgments again 
 — never. They 're well-found packets. Phil 
 Airheart he says so." 
 
 "I 'm glad to have a recommend from that 
 quarter. Airheart 's skipper of the San Jose 
 now. What I was getting at is to know 
 whether you 'd lend me Dan for a year or two, 
 and we '11 see if we can't make a mate of 
 him. Would you trust him to Airheart?" 
 
 "It 's a resk taking a raw boy " 
 
 "I know a man who did more for me." 
 
 "That 's diff'runt. Look at here naow, I 
 ain't recommendin' Dan special because he 's 
 my own flesh an' blood. I know Bank ways 
 ain't clipper ways, but he hain't much to learn. 
 
278 " CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 
 
 Steer he can — no boy better, ef / say it — an' 
 the rest 's in our blood an' get; but I could 
 wish he war n't so cussed weak on navigation." 
 
 "Airheart will attend to that. He '11 ship 
 as boy for a voyage or two, and then we can 
 put him in the way of doing better. Suppose 
 you take him in hand this winter, and I '11 send 
 for him early in the spring. I know the 
 Pacific 's a long ways off " 
 
 "Pshaw! We Troops, livin' an' dead, are 
 all around the earth an' the seas thereof." 
 
 "But I want you to understand — and I 
 mean this — any time you think you 'd like to 
 see him, tell me, and I '11 attend to the trans- 
 portation. 'T won't cost you a cent." 
 
 "Ef you '11 walk a piece with me, we '11 
 go to my house an' talk this to my woman. 
 I 've bin so crazy mistook in all my jedg- 
 ments, it don't seem to me this was like to be 
 real." 
 
 They went over to Troop's eighteen-hun- 
 dred-dollar, blue-trimmed white house, with a 
 retired dory full of nasturtiums in the front 
 yard and a shuttered parlour which was a mu- 
 seum of oversea plunder. There sat a large 
 woman, silent and grave, with the dim eyes 
 of those who look long to sea for the return 
 
" CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 279 
 
 of their beloved. Cheyne addressed himself 
 to her, and she gave consent wearily. 
 
 "We lose one hundred a year from Glou- 
 cester only, Mr. Cheyne," she said — "one 
 hundred boys an' men; and I 've come so '$ 
 to hate the sea as if 't wuz alive an' listenin'. 
 God never made it fer humans to anchor on. 
 These packets o' yours they go straight out, 
 I take it, and straight home again?" 
 
 "As straight as the winds let 'em, and I 
 give a bonus for record passages. Tea don't 
 improve by being at sea." 
 
 "When he wuz little he used to play at 
 keeping store, an' I had hopes he might fol- 
 low that up. But soon 's he could paddle a 
 dory I knew that were goin' to be denied me." 
 
 "They 're square-riggers, Mother; iron- 
 built an' well found. Remember what Phil's 
 sister reads you when she gits his letters." 
 
 "I 've never known as Phil told lies, but 
 he 's too venturesome (like most of 'em that 
 use the sea). Ef Dan sees fit, Mr. Cheyne, 
 he can go — fer all o' me." 
 
 "She jest despises the ocean," Disko ex- 
 plained, "an' I — I dunno haow to act polite, I 
 guess, er I 'd thank you better." 
 
 "My father — my own eldest brother — two 
 
280 " CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 
 
 nephews— an' my second sister's man," she 
 said, dropping her head on her hand. "Would 
 you care fer any one that took all those?" 
 
 Cheyne was relieved when Dan turned up 
 and accepted with more delight than he was 
 able to put into words. Indeed, the offer 
 meant a plain and sure road to all desirable 
 things ; but Dan thought most of commanding 
 watch on broad decks, and looking into far- 
 away harbours. 
 
 Mrs. Cheyne had spoken privately to the 
 unaccountable Manuel in the matter of Har- 
 vey's rescue. He seemed to have no desire for 
 money. Pressed hard, he said that he would 
 take five dollars, because he wanted to buy 
 something for a girl. Otherwise — "How 
 shall I take money when I make so easy my 
 eats and smokes? You will giva some if I 
 like or no? Eh, wha-at? Then you shall giva 
 me money, but not that way. You shall giva 
 all you can think." He introduced her to a 
 snuffy Portuguese priest with a list of semi- 
 destitute widows as long as his cassock. As 
 a strict Unitarian, Mrs. Cheyne could not 
 sympathize with the creed, but she ended by 
 respecting the brown, voluble little man. 
 
 Manuel, faithful son of the Church, appro- 
 
" CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 281 
 
 priated all the blessings showered on her for 
 her charity. "That letta me out," said he. 
 "I have now ver' good absolutions for six 
 months" ; and he strolled forth to get a hand- 
 kerchief for the girl of the hour and to break 
 the hearts of all the others. 
 
 Salters went West for a season with Penn, 
 and left no address behind. He had a dread 
 that these millionary people, with wasteful 
 private cars, might take undue interest in his 
 companion. It was better to visit inland rela- 
 tives till the coast was clear. "Never you be 
 adopted by rich folk, Penn," he said in the 
 cars, "or I '11 take 'n' break this checker-board 
 over your head. Ef you forgit your name 
 agin — which is Pratt — you remember you be- 
 long with Salters Troop, an' set down right 
 where you are till I come fer you. Don't go 
 taggin' araound after them whose eyes bung 
 out with fatness, accordin' to Scripcher." 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 BUT it was otherwise with the We 're 
 Here's silent cook, for he came up, his 
 kit in a handkerchief, and boarded the "Con- 
 stance." Pay was no particular object, and he 
 did not in the least care where he slept. His 
 business, as revealed to him in dreams, was to 
 follow Harvey for the rest of his days. They 
 tried argument and, at last, persuasion; but 
 there is a difference between one Cape Breton 
 and two Alabama negroes, and the matter was 
 referred to Cheyne by the cook and porter. 
 The millionaire only laughed. He presumed 
 Harvey might need a body-servant some day 
 or other, and was sure that one volunteer was 
 worth five hirelings. Let the man stay, there- 
 fore; even though he called himself Mac- 
 Donald and swore in Gaelic. The car could 
 go back to Boston, where, if he were still of 
 the same mind, they would take him West. 
 With the "Constance," which in his heart 
 282 
 
"CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS" 283 
 
 of hearts he loathed, departed the last rem- 
 nant of Cheyne's millionairedom, and he gave 
 himself up to an energetic idleness. This 
 Gloucester was a new town in a new land, and 
 he purposed to "take it in," as of old he had 
 taken in all the cities from Snohomish to San 
 Diego of that world whence he hailed. They 
 made money along the crooked street which 
 was half wharf and half ship's store : as a lead- 
 ing professional he wished to learn how the 
 noble game was played. Men said that four 
 out of every five fish-balls served at New Eng- 
 land's Sunday breakfast came from Glouces- 
 ter, and overwhelmed him with figures in 
 proof — statistics of boats, gear, wharf-front- 
 age, capital invested, salting, packing, fac- 
 tories, insurance, wages, repairs, and profits. 
 He talked with the owners of the large fleets 
 whose skippers were little more than hired 
 men, and whose crews were almost all Swedes 
 or Portuguese. Then he conferred with Dis- 
 ko, one of the few who owned their craft, and 
 compared notes in his vast head. He coiled 
 himself away on chain-cables in marine junk- 
 shops, asking questions with cheerful, unslaked 
 Western curiosity, till all the water-front 
 wanted to know "what in thunder that man 
 
284 " CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 
 
 was after, anyhow." He prowled into the Mu- 
 tual Insurance rooms, and demanded explana- 
 tions of the mysterious remarks chalked up on 
 the blackboard day by day ; and that brought 
 down upon him secretaries of every Fisher- 
 man's Widow and Orphan Aid Society within 
 the city limits. They begged shamelessly, each 
 man anxious to beat the other institution's 
 record, and Cheyne tugged at his beard and 
 handed them all over to Mrs. Cheyne. 
 
 She was resting in a boarding-house near 
 Eastern Point — a strange establishment, man- 
 aged, apparently, by the boarders, where the 
 table-cloths were red-and-white-checkered 
 and the population, who seemed to have 
 known one another intimately for years, rose 
 up at midnight to make Welsh rarebits if it 
 felt hungry. On the second morning of her 
 stay Mrs. Cheyne put away her diamond soli- 
 taires before she came down to breakfast. 
 
 "They 're most delightful people," she con- 
 fided to her husband ; "so friendly and simple, 
 too, though they are all Boston, nearly." 
 
 "That is n't simpleness, Mama," he said, 
 looking across the boulders behind the apple- 
 trees where the hammocks were slung. "It 's 
 the other thing, that we — that I have n't got." 
 
" CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 285 
 
 "It can't be," said Mrs. Cheyne quietly. 
 "There is n't a woman here owns a dress that 
 cost a hundred dollars. Why, we " 
 
 "I know it, dear. We have — of course we 
 have. I guess it 's only the style they wear 
 East. Are you having a good time?" 
 
 "I don't see very much of Harvey; he 's 
 always with you; but I ain't near as nervous 
 as I was." 
 
 "I have n't had such a good time since 
 Willie died. I never rightly understood that 
 I had a son before this. Harve 's got to be a 
 great boy. 'Anything I can fetch you, dear? 
 'Cushion under your head? Well, we '11 go 
 down to the wharf again and look around." 
 
 Harvey was his father's shadow in those 
 days, and the two strolled along side by side, 
 Cheyne using the grades as an excuse for 
 laying his hand on the boy's square shoulder. 
 It was then that Harvey noticed and admired 
 what had never struck him before — his fa- 
 ther's curious power of getting at the heart 
 of new matters as learned from men in the 
 street. 
 
 "How d' you make 'em tell you everything 
 without opening your head?" demanded the 
 son, as they came out of a rigger's loft. 
 
286 " CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 
 
 "I 've dealt with quite a few men in my 
 time, Harve, and one sizes 'em up somehow, 
 I guess. I know something about myself, too." 
 Then, after a pause, as they sat down on a 
 wharf-edge : "Men can 'most always tell when 
 a man has handled things for himself, and 
 then they treat him as one of themselves." 
 
 "Same as they treat me down at Wouver- 
 man's wharf. I 'm one of the crowd now. 
 Disko has told every one I 've earned my pay." 
 Harvey spread out his hands and rubbed the 
 palms together. "They 're all soft again," he 
 said dolefully. 
 
 "Keep 'em that way for the next few years, 
 while you 're getting your education. You can 
 harden 'em up after." 
 
 "Ye-es, I suppose so," was the reply, in no 
 delighted voice. 
 
 "It rests with you, Harve. You can take 
 cover behind your mama, of course, and put 
 her on to fussing about your nerves and your 
 high-strungness and all that kind of poppy- 
 cock." 
 
 "Have I ever done that?" said Harvey, 
 uneasily. 
 
 His father turned where he sat and thrust 
 out a long hand. "You know as well as I 
 
" CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 287 
 
 do that I can't make anything of you if you 
 don't act straight by me. I can handle you 
 alone if you '11 stay alone, but I don't pretend 
 to manage both you and Mama. Life's too 
 short, anyway." 
 
 "Don't make me out much of a fellow, does 
 it?" 
 
 "I guess it was my fault a good deal; but 
 if you want the truth, you have n't been 
 much of anything up to date. Now, have 
 you?" 
 
 "Umm! Disko thinks . . . Say, what 
 d' you reckon it 's cost you to raise me from 
 the start — first, last and all over?" 
 
 Cheyne smiled. "I 've never kept track, 
 but I should estimate, in dollars and cents, 
 nearer fifty than forty thousand ; maybe sixty. 
 The young generation comes high. It has 
 to have things, and it tires of 'em, and — the 
 old man foots the bill." 
 
 Harvey whistled, but at heart he was rather 
 pleased to think that his upbringing had cost 
 so much. "And all that 's sunk capital, is n't 
 it?" 
 
 "Invested, Harve. Invested, I hope." 
 
 "Making it only thirty thousand, the thirty 
 I 've earned is about ten cents on the hun- 
 
288 " CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 
 
 dred. That's a mighty poor catch." Harvey 
 wagged his head solemnly. 
 
 Cheyne laughed till he nearly fell off the 
 pile into the water. 
 
 "Disko has got a heap more than that out 
 of Dan since he was ten ; and Dan 's at school 
 half the year, too." 
 
 "Oh, that 's what you 're after, is it?" 
 
 "No. I 'm not after anything. I 'm not 
 stuck on myself any just now — that 's all. 
 . . . I ought to be kicked." 
 
 "I can't do it, old man; or I would, I pre- 
 sume, if I 'd been made that way." 
 
 "Then I 'd have remembered it to the last 
 day I lived — and never forgiven you," said 
 Harvey, his chin on his doubled fists. 
 
 "Exactly. That 's about what / 'd do. 
 You see?" 
 
 "I see. The fault's with me and no one 
 else. All the samey, something 's got to be 
 done about it." 
 
 Cheyne drew a cigar from his vest-pocket, 
 bit off the end, and fell to smoking. Father 
 and son were very much alike ; for the beard 
 hid Cheyne's mouth, and Harvey had his 
 father's slightly aquiline nose, close-set black 
 eyes, and narrow, high cheek-bones. With a 
 

 
 "his father turned where he sat and thrust out a 
 
 long hand. 'you know as well as i do that i 
 
 can't make anything of you if you 
 
 don't act straight by me.' " 
 
" CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 291 
 
 touch of brown paint he would have made up 
 very picturesquely as a Red Indian of the 
 story-books. 
 
 "Now you can go on from here," said 
 Cheyne, slowly, "costing me between six or 
 eight thousand a year till you 're a voter. 
 Well, we '11 call' you a man then. You can 
 go right on from that, living on me to the 
 tune of forty or fifty thousand, besides what 
 your mother will give you, with a valet and a 
 yacht or a fancy-ranch where you can pretend 
 to raise trotting-stock and play cards with 
 your own crowd." 
 
 "Like Lorry Tuck?" Harvey put in. 
 
 "Yep ; or the two De Vitre boys or old man 
 McQuade 's son. California 's full of 'em, and 
 here 's an Eastern sample while we 're talk- 
 ing." 
 
 A shiny black steam-yacht, with mahogany 
 deck-house, nickel-plated binnacles, and pink- 
 and-white-striped awnings puffed up the 
 harbour, flying the burgee of some New York 
 club. Two young men in what they con- 
 ceived to be sea costumes were playing cards 
 by the saloon skylight; and a couple of women 
 with red and blue parasols looked on and 
 laughed noisily. 
 
292 " CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 
 
 "Should n't care to be caught out in her in 
 any sort of a breeze. No beam," said Har- 
 vey, critically, as the yacht slowed to pick up 
 her mooring-buoy. 
 
 "They 're having what stands them for a 
 good time. I can give you that, and twice as 
 much as that, Harve. How 'd you like it?" 
 
 "Caesar! That 's no way to get a dinghy 
 overside," said Harvey, still intent on the 
 yacht. "If I could n't slip a tackle better 
 than that I 'd stay ashore. . . . What if I 
 don't?" 
 
 "Stay ashore — or what?" 
 
 "Yacht and ranch and live on 'the old 
 man,' and — get behind Mama when there 's 
 trouble," said Harvey, with a twinkle in his 
 eye. 
 
 "Why, in that case, you come right in with 
 me, my son." 
 
 "Ten dollars a month?" Another twinkle. 
 
 "Not a cent more until you 're worth it, 
 and you won't begin to touch that for a few 
 years." 
 
 "I 'd sooner begin sweeping out the office 
 — is n't that how the big bugs start? — and 
 touch something now than " 
 
 "I know it; we all feel that way. But I 
 
"CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS" 293 
 
 guess we can hire any sweeping we need. I 
 made the same mistake myself of starting in 
 too soon." 
 
 "Thirty million dollars' worth o' mistake, 
 was n't it? I 'd risk it for that." 
 
 "I lost some; and I gained some. I '11 
 tell you." 
 
 Cheyne pulled his beard and smiled as he 
 looked over the still water, and spoke away 
 from Harvey, who presently began to be 
 aware that his father was telling the story of 
 his life. He talked in a low, even voice, with- 
 out gesture and without expression; and it 
 was a history for which a dozen leading jour- 
 nals would cheerfully have paid many dollars 
 — the story of forty years that was at the same 
 time the story of the New West, whose story is 
 yet to be written. 
 
 It began with a kinless boy turned loose in 
 Texas, and went on fantastically through a 
 hundred changes and chops of life, the scenes 
 shifting from State after Western State, from 
 cities that sprang up in a month and in a 
 season utterly withered away, to wild ven- 
 tures in wilder camps that are now laborious, 
 paved municipalities. It covered the building 
 of three railroads and the deliberate wreck of 
 
294 " CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 
 
 a fourth. It told of steamers, townships, for- 
 ests, and mines, and the men of every nation 
 under heaven, manning, creating, hewing, and 
 digging these. It touched on chances of gi- 
 gantic wealth flung before eyes that could not 
 see, or missed by the merest accident of time 
 and travel; and through the mad shift of 
 things, sometimes on horseback, more often 
 afoot, now rich, now poor, in and out, and 
 back and forth, deck-hand, train-hand, con- 
 tractor, boarding-house keeper, journalist, 
 engineer, drummer, real-estate agent, politi- 
 cian, dead-beat, rum-seller, mine-owner, spec- 
 ulator, cattle-man, or tramp, moved Harvey 
 Cheyne, alert and quiet, seeking his own ends, 
 and, so he said, the glory and advancement 
 of his country. 
 
 He told of the faith that never deserted him 
 even when he hung on the ragged edge of 
 despair — the faith that comes of knowing 
 men and things. He enlarged, as though he 
 were talking to himself, on his very great 
 courage and resource at all times. The thing 
 was so evident in the man's mind that he never 
 even changed his tone. He described how 
 he had bested his enemies, or forgiven them, 
 exactly as they had bested or forgiven him in 
 
" CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 295 
 
 those careless days; how he had entreated, 
 cajoled, and bullied towns, companies, and 
 syndicates, all for their enduring good ; 
 crawled round, through, or under mountains 
 and ravines, dragging a string and hoop- 
 iron railroad after him, and in the end, how 
 he had sat still while promiscuous commun- 
 ities tore the last fragments of his character to 
 shreds. 
 
 The tale held Harvey almost breathless, his 
 head a little cocked to one side, his eyes fixed 
 on his father's face, as the twilight deepened 
 and the red cigar-end lit up the furrowed 
 cheeks and heavy eyebrows. It seemed to him 
 like watching a locomotive storming across 
 country in the dark — a mile between each 
 glare of the open fire-door: but this locomo- 
 tive could talk, and the words shook and stirred 
 the boy to the core of his soul. At last Cheyne 
 pitched away the cigar-butt, and the two sat 
 in the dark over the lapping water. 
 
 "I 've never told that to any one before," 
 said the father. 
 
 Harvey gasped. "It 's just the greatest 
 thing that ever was!" said he. 
 
 "That 's what I got. Now I 'm coming to 
 what I did n't get. It won't sound much of 
 
296 " CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 
 
 anything to you, but I don't wish you to be 
 as old as I am before you find out. I can 
 handle men, of course, and I 'm no fool along 
 my own lines, but — but — I can't compete with 
 the man who has been taught! I 've picked up 
 as I went along, and I guess it sticks out all 
 over me." 
 
 "I 've never seen it," said the son, indig- 
 nantly. 
 
 "You will, though, Harve. You will — just 
 as soon as you 're through college. Don't I 
 know it? Don't I know the look on men's 
 faces when they think me a — a 'mucker,' as 
 they call it out here? I can break them to 
 little pieces — yes — but I can't get back at 'em 
 to hurt 'em where they live. I don't say 
 they 're 'way 'way up, but I feel I 'm 'way, 
 'way, 'way off, somehow. Now you 've got 
 your chance. You 've got to soak up all the 
 learning that 's around, and you '11 live with a 
 crowd that are doing the same thing. They '11 
 be doing it for a few thousand dollars a year 
 at most; but remember you '11 be doing it 
 for millions. You '11 learn law enough to 
 look after your own property when I 'm out o' 
 the light, and you '11 have to be solid with the 
 best men in the market (they are useful later) ; 
 
" CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 297 
 
 and above all, you '11 have to stow away the 
 plain, common, sit-down-with-your-chin-on- 
 your-elbows book-learning. Nothing pays 
 like that, Harve, and it 's bound to pay more 
 and more each year in our country — in busi- 
 ness and in politics. You '11 see." 
 
 "There 's no sugar my end of the deal," 
 said Harvey. "Four years at college ! 'Wish 
 I 'd chosen the valet and the yacht!" 
 
 "Never mind, my son," Cheyne insisted. 
 "You 're investing your capital where it '11 
 bring in the best returns; and I guess you 
 won't find our property shrunk any when 
 you 're ready to take hold. Think it over, 
 and let me know in the morning. Hurry! 
 We '11 be late for supper!" 
 
 As this was a business talk, there was no 
 need for Harvey to tell his mother about it; 
 and Cheyne naturally took the same point of 
 view. But Mrs. Cheyne saw and feared, and 
 was a little jealous. Her boy, who rode 
 rough-shod over her, was gone, and in his 
 stead reigned a keen-faced youth, abnormally 
 silent, who addressed most of his conversation 
 to his father. She understood it was business, 
 and therefore a matter beyond her premises. 
 If she had any doubts, they were resolved 
 
298 " CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 
 
 when Cheyne went to Boston and brought back 
 a new diamond marquise ring. 
 
 "What have you two been doing now?" 
 she said, with a weak little smile, as she turned 
 it in the light. 
 
 "Talking — just talking, Mama ; there 's 
 nothing mean about Harvey." 
 
 There was not. The boy had made a treaty 
 on his own account. Railroads, he explained 
 gravely, interested him as little as lumber, 
 real estate, or mining. What his soul yearned 
 after was control of his father's newly pur- 
 chased sailing-ship. If thatcould be promised 
 him within what he conceived to be a reason- 
 able time, he, for his part, guaranteed dili- 
 gence and sobriety at college for four or five 
 years. In vacation he was to be allowed full 
 access to all details connected with the line — 
 he had not asked more than two thousand 
 questions about it, — from his father's most 
 private papers in the safe to the tug in San 
 Francisco harbour. 
 
 "It 's a deal," said Cheyne at the last. 
 "You '11 alter your mind twenty times before 
 you leave college, o' course; but if you take 
 hold of it in proper shape, and if you don't 
 tie it up before you 're twenty-three, I '11 
 
" CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 299 
 
 make the thing over to you. How 's that, 
 Harve?" 
 
 "Nope; never pays to split up a going con- 
 cern. There 's too much competition in the 
 world anyway, and Disko says 'blood-kin hev 
 to stick together.' His crowd never go back 
 on him. That 's one reason, he says, why they 
 make such big fares. Say, the We 're Here 
 goes off to the Georges on Monday. They 
 don't stay long ashore, do they?" 
 
 "Well, we ought to be going, too, I guess. 
 I 've left my business hung up at loose ends 
 between two oceans, and it 's time to connect 
 again. I just hate to do it, though ; have n't 
 had a holiday like this for twenty years." 
 
 "We can't go without seeing Disko off," 
 said Harvey; "and Monday 's Memorial Day. 
 Let 's stay over that, anyway." 
 
 "What is this memorial business? They 
 were talking about it at the boarding-house," 
 said Cheyne weakly. He, too, was not anx- 
 ious to spoil the golden days. 
 
 "Well, as far as I can make out, this busi- 
 ness is a sort of song-and-dance act, whacked 
 up for the summer boarders. Disko don't 
 think much of it, he says, because they take 
 up a collection for the widows and orphans. 
 
3 oo " CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 
 
 Disko 's independent. Have n't you noticed 
 that?" 
 
 "Well — yes. A little. In spots. Is it a 
 town show, then?" 
 
 "The summer convention is. They read 
 out the names of the fellows drowned or gone 
 astray since last time, and they make speeches, 
 and recite, and all. Then, Disko says, the sec- 
 retaries of the Aid Societies go into the back 
 yard and fight over the catch. The real show, 
 he says, is in the spring. The ministers all 
 take a hand then, and there are n't any sum- 
 mer boarders around." 
 
 "I see," said Cheyne, with the brilliant and 
 perfect comprehension of one born into and 
 bred up to city pride. "We '11 stay over for 
 Memorial Day, and get off in the afternoon." 
 
 "Guess I '11 go down to Disko's and make 
 him bring his crowd up before they sail. I '11 
 have to stand with them, of course." 
 
 "Oh, that 's it, is it," said Cheyne. "I 'm 
 only a poor summer boarder, and you 're " 
 
 "A Banker — full-blooded Banker," Harvey 
 called back as he boarded a trolley, and 
 Cheyne went on with his blissful dreams for 
 the future. 
 
 Disko had no use for public functions where 
 
" CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 301 
 
 appeals were made for charity, but Harvey 
 pleaded that the glory of the day would be 
 lost, so far as he was concerned, if the We 're 
 Heres absented themselves. Then Disko 
 made conditions. He had heard — it was as- 
 tonishing how all the world knew all the 
 world's business along the water-front — he 
 had heard that a "Philadelphia actress- 
 woman" was going to take part in the exer- 
 cises ; and he mistrusted that she would deliver 
 "Skipper Ireson's Ride." Personally, he had 
 as little use for actresses as for summer board- 
 ers; but justice was justice, and though he 
 himself (here Dan giggled) had once slipped 
 up on a matter of judgment, this thing must 
 not be. So Harvey came back to East Glou- 
 cester, and spent half a day explaining to an 
 amused actress with a royal reputation on two 
 seaboards the inwardness of the mistake she 
 contemplated; and she admitted that it was 
 justice, even as Disko had said. 
 
 Cheyne knew by old experience what would 
 happen; but anything of the nature of a pub- 
 lic palaver was meat and drink to the man's 
 soul. He saw the trolleys hurrying west, in 
 the hot, hazy morning, full of women in light 
 summer dresses, and white-faced straw-hatted 
 
302 " CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 
 
 men fresh from Boston desks; the stack of 
 bicycles outside the post-office ; the come-and- 
 go of busy officials, greeting one another ; the 
 slow flick and swash of bunting in the heavy 
 air ; and the important man with a hose sluic- 
 ing the brick sidewalk. 
 
 "Mother," he said suddenly, "don't you re- 
 member — after Seattle was burned out — and 
 they got her going again?" 
 
 Mrs. Cheyne nodded, and looked critically 
 down the crooked street. Like her husband, 
 she understood these gatherings, all the West 
 over, and compared them one against another. 
 The fishermen began to mingle with the 
 crowd about the town-hall doors — blue- 
 jowled Portuguese, their women bare-headed 
 or shawled for the most part; clear-eyed Nova 
 Scotians, and men of the Maritime Provinces; 
 French, Italians, Swedes, and Danes, with out- 
 side crews of coasting schooners; and every- 
 where women in black, who saluted one an- 
 other with gloomy pride, for this was their day 
 of great days. And there were ministers of 
 many creeds, — pastors of great, gilt-edged 
 congregations, at the seaside for a rest, with 
 shepherds of the regular work, — from the 
 priests of the Church on the Hill to bush- 
 
" CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 303 
 
 bearded ex-sailor Lutherans, hail-fellow with 
 the men of a score of boats. There were 
 owners of lines of schooners, large contribu- 
 tors to the societies, and small men, their few 
 craft pawned to the mastheads, with bankers 
 and marine-insurance agents, captains of tugs 
 and water-boats, riggers, fitters, lumpers, salt- 
 ers, boat-builders, and coopers, and all the 
 mixed population of the water-front. 
 
 They drifted along the line of seats made 
 gay with the dresses of the summer boarders, 
 and one of the town officials patrolled and 
 perspired till he shone all over with pure civic 
 pride. Cheyne had met him for five minutes 
 a few days before, and between the two there 
 was entire understanding. 
 
 "Well, Mr. Cheyne, and what d' you think 
 of our city? — Yes, madam, you can sit any- 
 where you please. — You have this kind of 
 thing out West, I presume?" 
 
 "Yes, but we are n't as old as you." 
 
 "That 's so, of course. You ought to have 
 been at the exercises when we celebrated our 
 two hundred and fiftieth birthday. I tell 
 you, Mr. Cheyne, the old city did herself 
 credit." 
 
 "So I heard. It pays, too. What's the 
 
30 4 " CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 
 
 matter with the town that it don't have a first- 
 class hotel, though?" 
 
 " — Right over there to the left, Pedro. 
 Heaps o' room for you and your crowd. — 
 Why, that 's what / tell 'em all the time, Mr. 
 Cheyne. There 's big money in it, but I pre- 
 sume that don't affect you any. What we 
 want is " 
 
 A heavy hand fell on his broadcloth shoul- 
 der, and the flushed skipper of a Portland 
 coal-and-ice coaster spun him half round. 
 "What in thunder do you fellows mean by 
 clappin' the law on the town when all decent 
 men are at sea this way? Heh? Town 's dry 
 as a bone, an' smells a sight worse sence I quit. 
 'Might ha' left us one saloon for soft drinks, 
 anyway." 
 
 "Don't seem to have hindered your nourish- 
 ment this morning, Carsen. I '11 go into the 
 politics of it later. Sit down by the door 
 and think over your arguments till I come 
 back." 
 
 "What good is arguments to me? In Mi- 
 quelon champagne 's eighteen dollars a case 
 
 and " The skipper lurched into his seat 
 
 as an organ-prelude silenced him. 
 
 "Our new organ," said the official proudly 
 
"CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS" 305 
 
 to Cheyne. " 'Cost us four thousand dollars, 
 too. We '11 have to get back to high-license 
 next year to pay for it. I was n't going to 
 let the ministers have all the religion at their 
 convention. Those are some of our orphans 
 standing up to sing. My wife taught 'em. 
 See you again later, Mr. Cheyne. I 'm wanted 
 on the platform." 
 
 High, clear, and true, children's voices bore 
 down the last noise of those settling into their 
 places. 
 
 "O all ye Works of the Lord, bless ye the 
 Lord: praise him and magnify him for 
 ever!" 
 
 The women throughout the hall leaned for- 
 ward to look as the reiterated cadences filled 
 the air. Mrs. Cheyne, with some others, be- 
 gan to breathe short; she had hardly imagined 
 there were so many widows in the world; 
 and instinctively searched for Harvey. He 
 had found the We 're Heres at the back of the 
 audience, and was standing, as by right, be- 
 tween Dan and Disko. Uncle Salters, re- 
 turned the night before with Penn, from 
 Pamlico Sound, received him suspiciously. 
 
 "Hain't your folk gone yet?" he grunted 
 "What are you doin' here, young feller?" 
 
306 " CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 
 
 "0 ye Seas and Floods, bless ye the Lord: 
 praise him, and magnify him for ever!" 
 
 "Hain't he good right?" said Dan. "He's 
 bin there, same as the rest of us." 
 
 "Not in them clothes," Salters snarled. 
 
 "Shut your head, Salters," said Disko. 
 "Your bile 's gone back on you. Stay right 
 where ye are, Harve." 
 
 Then up and spoke the orator of the occa- 
 sion, another pillar of the municipality, bid- 
 ding the world welcome to Gloucester, and in- 
 cidentally pointing out wherein Gloucester 
 excelled the rest of the world. Then he turned 
 to the sea-wealth of the city, and spoke of the 
 price that must be paid for the yearly harvest. 
 They would hear later the names of their lost 
 dead — one hundred and seventeen of them. 
 (The widows stared a little, and looked at one 
 another here.) Gloucester could not boast 
 any overwhelming mills or factories. Her 
 sons worked for such wage as the sea gave; 
 and they all knew that neither Georges nor 
 the Banks were cow-pastures. The utmost 
 that folk ashore could accomplish was to help 
 the widows and the orphans, and after a few 
 general remarks he took this opportunity of 
 thanking, in the name of the city, those who 
 
" CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 307 
 
 had so public-spiritedly consented to partici- 
 pate in the exercises of the occasion. 
 
 "I jest despise the beggin' pieces in it," 
 growled Disko. "It don't give folk a fair 
 notion of us." 
 
 "Ef folk won't be fore-handed an' put by 
 when they 've the chance," returned Salters, 
 "it stands in the nature o' things they hev to 
 be 'shamed. You take warnin' by that, young 
 feller. Riches endureth but for a season, ef 
 you scatter them araound on lugsuries " 
 
 "But to lose everything, everything," said 
 Penn. "What can you do then? Once I" — 
 the watery blue eyes stared up and down as if 
 looking for something to steady them — "once 
 I read — in a book, I think — of a boat where 
 every one was run down — except some one — 
 and he said to me " 
 
 "Shucks!" said Salters, cutting in. "You 
 read a little less an' take more int'rust in your 
 vittles, and you '11 come nearer earnin' your 
 keep, Penn." 
 
 Harvey, jammed among the fishermen, felt 
 a creepy, crawly, tingling thrill that began in 
 the back of his neck and ended at his boots. 
 He was cold, too, though it was a stifling 
 day. 
 
3 o8 " CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 
 
 " 'That the actress from Philadelphia?" 
 said Disko Troop, scowling at the platform. 
 "You 've fixed it about old man Ireson, hain't 
 ye, Harve? Ye know why naow." 
 
 It was not "Ireson's Ride" that the woman 
 delivered, but some sort of poem about a fish- 
 ing-port called Brixham and a fleet of trawl- 
 ers beating in against storm by night, while 
 the women made a guiding fire at the head 
 of the quay with everything they could lay 
 hands on. 
 
 "They took the grandma's blanket, 
 Who shivered and bade them go ; 
 They took the baby's cradle, 
 Who could not say them no." 
 
 "Whew!" said Dan, peering over Long 
 Jack's shoulder. "That's great! Must ha' 
 bin expensive, though." 
 
 "Ground-hog case," said the Galway man. 
 "Badly lighted port, Danny." 
 
 "And knew not all the while 
 If they were lighting a bonfire 
 Or only a funeral pile." 
 
 The wonderful voice took hold of people 
 
"CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS" 309 
 
 by their heartstrings ; and when she told how 
 the drenched crews were flung ashore, living 
 and dead, and they carried the bodies to the 
 glare of the fires, asking: "Child, is this your 
 father?" or "Wife, is this your man?" you 
 could hear hard breathing all over the 
 benches. 
 
 "And when the boats of Brixham 
 Go out to face the gales, 
 Think of the love that travels 
 Like light upon their sails !" 
 
 There was very little applause when she 
 finished. The women were looking for their 
 handkerchiefs, and many of the men stared at 
 the ceiling with shiny eyes. 
 
 "H'm," said Salters; "that 'u'd cost ye a 
 dollar to hear at any theatre — maybe two. 
 Some folk, I presoom, can afford it. 'Seems 
 downright waste to me. . . . Naow, how 
 in Jerusalem did Cap Bart Edwardes strike 
 adrift here?" 
 
 "No keepin' him under," said an Eastport 
 man behind. "He 's a poet, an' he 's baound 
 to say his piece. 'Comes from daown aour 
 way, too." 
 
3io " CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 
 
 He did not say that Captain B. Edwardes 
 had striven for five consecutive years to be 
 allowed to recite a piece of his own composi- 
 tion on Gloucester Memorial Day. An 
 amused and exhausted committee had at last 
 given him his desire. The simplicity and ut- 
 ter happiness of the old man, as he stood up in 
 his very best Sunday clothes, won the audience 
 ere he opened his mouth. They sat unmur- 
 muring through seven-and-thirty hatchet- 
 made verses describing at fullest length the 
 loss of the schooner Joan Hasken off the 
 Georges in the gale of 1867, and when he came 
 to an end they shouted with one kindly throat. 
 
 A far-sighted Boston reporter slid away 
 for a full copy of the epic and an interview 
 with the author; so that earth had nothing 
 more to offer Captain Bart Edwardes, ex- 
 whaler, shipwright, master-fisherman, and 
 poet, in the seventy-third year of his age. 
 
 "Naow, I call that sensible," said the East- 
 port man. "I 've bin over that graound with 
 his writin', jest as he read it, in my two hands, 
 and I can testify that he 's got it all in." 
 
 "If Dan here could n't do better 'n that 
 with one hand before breakfast, he ought to 
 be switched," said Salters, upholding the hon- 
 
" CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 311 
 
 or of Massachusetts on general principles. 
 "Not but what I 'm free to own he 's consid- 
 erable litt'ery — fer Maine. Still " 
 
 "Guess Uncle Salters 's goin' to die this trip. 
 Fust compliment he 's ever paid me," Dan 
 sniggered. "What 's wrong with you, Harve? 
 You act all quiet and you look greenish. Feel- 
 in' sick?" 
 
 "Don't know what 's the matter with me," 
 Harvey replied. " 'Seems if my insides were 
 too big for my outsides. I 'm all crowded up 
 and shivery." 
 
 "Dispepsy? Pshaw — too bad. We '11 wait 
 for the readin', an' then we '11 quit, an' catch 
 the tide." 
 
 The widows — they were nearly all of that 
 season's making — braced themselves rigidly 
 like people going to be shot in cold blood, for 
 they knew what was coming. The summer- 
 boarder girls in pink and blue shirt-waists 
 stopped tittering over Captain Edwardes's 
 wonderful poem, and looked back to see why 
 all was silent. The fishermen pressed forward 
 as that town official who had talked to Cheyne 
 bobbed up on the platform and began to read 
 the year's list of losses, dividing them into 
 months. Last September's casualties were 
 
3i2 " CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 
 
 mostly single men and strangers, but his voice 
 rang very loud in the stillness of the hall. 
 
 "September 9th. — Schooner Florrie Anderson lost, with 
 all aboard, off the Georges. 
 
 "Reuben Pitman, master, 50, single, Main Street, City. 
 
 "Emil Olsen, 19, single, 329 Hammond Street, City. 
 Denmark. 
 
 "Oscar Standberg, single, 25. Sweden. 
 
 "Carl Stanberg, single, 28, Main Street. City. 
 
 "Pedro, supposed Madeira, single, Keene's boarding- 
 house. City. 
 
 "Joseph Welsh, alias Joseph Wright, 30, St. John's, 
 Newfoundland." 
 
 "No — Augusty, Maine," a voice cried from 
 the body of the hall. 
 
 "He shipped from St. John's," said the 
 reader, looking to see. 
 
 "I know it. He belongs in Augusty. My 
 nevvy." 
 
 The reader made a pencilled correction on 
 the margin of the list, and resumed 
 
 "Same schooner, Charlie Ritchie, Liverpool, Nova 
 Scotia, 33, single. 
 
 "Albert May, 267 Rogers Street, City, 27, single. 
 
 "September 27th. — Orvin Dollard, 30, married, 
 drowned in dory off Eastern Point." 
 
"CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS" 313 
 
 That shot went home, for one of the widows 
 flinched where she sat, clasping and unclasp- 
 ing her hands. Mrs. Cheyne, who had been 
 listening with wide-opened eyes, threw up her 
 head and choked. Dan's mother, a few seats 
 to the right, saw and heard and quickly moved 
 to her side. The reading went on. By the 
 time they reached the January and February 
 wrecks the shots were falling thick and fast, 
 and the widows drew breath between their 
 teeth. 
 
 "February 14th. — Schooner Harry Randolph dismasted 
 on the way home from Newfoundland ; Asa Musie, mar- 
 ried, 32, Main Street, City, lost overboard. 
 
 "February 23d. — Schooner Gilbert Hope; went astray 
 in dory, Robert Beavon, 29, married, native of Pubnico, 
 Nova Scotia." 
 
 But his wife was in the hall. They heard 
 a low cry, as though a little animal had been 
 hit. It was stifled at once, and a girl stag- 
 gered out of the hall. She had been hoping 
 against hope for months, because some who 
 have gone adrift in dories have been miracu- 
 lously picked up by deep-sea sailing-ships. 
 Now she had her certainty, and Harvey could 
 see the policeman on the sidewalk hailing a 
 
3H " CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 
 
 hack for her. "It's fifty cents to the depot" — 
 the driver began, but the policeman held up 
 his hand — "but I 'm goin' there anyway. 
 Jump right in. Look at here, Alf ; you don't 
 pull me next time my lamps ain't lit. 
 See?" 
 
 The side-door closed on the patch of bright 
 sunshine, and Harvey's eyes turned again to 
 the reader and his endless list. 
 
 / "April 19th. — Schooner Mamie Douglas lost on the 
 Banks with all hands. 
 
 "Edward Canton, 43, master, married, City. 
 
 "D. Hawkins, alias Williams, 34, married, Shelbourne, 
 Nova Scotia. 
 
 "G. W. Clay, coloured, 28, married, City." 
 
 And so on, and so on. Great lumps were 
 rising in Harvey's throat, and his stomach 
 reminded him of the day when he fell from 
 the liner. 
 
 "May 10th. — Schooner We 're Here [the blood 
 tingled all over him]. Otto Svendson, 20, single, City, 
 lost overboard." 
 
 Once more a low, tearing cry from some- 
 where at the back of the hall. 
 
" CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 315 
 
 "She should n't ha' come. She should n't 
 ha' come," said Long Jack, with a cluck of 
 pity. 
 
 "Don't scrowge, Harve," grunted Dan. 
 Harvey heard that much, but the rest was 
 all darkness spotted with fiery wheels. Disko 
 leaned forward and spoke to his wife, where 
 she sat with one arm round Mrs. Cheyne, and 
 the other holding down the snatching, catch- 
 ing, ringed hands. 
 
 "Lean your head daown — right daown!" 
 she whispered. "It '11 go off in a minute." 
 
 "I ca-an't! I do-don't! Oh, let me " 
 
 Mrs. Cheyne did not at all know what she 
 said. 
 
 "You must," Mrs. Troop repeated. "Your 
 boy 's jest fainted dead away. They do that 
 some when they're gettin' their growth. 
 'Wish to tend to him? We can git aout this 
 side. Quite quiet. You come right along with 
 me. Psha', my dear, we 're both women, I 
 guess. We must tend to aour men-folk. 
 Come!" 
 
 The We 're Heres promptly went through 
 the crowd as a body-guard, and it was a very 
 white and shaken Harvey that they propped 
 up on a bench in an anteroom. 
 
316 *' CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 
 
 "Favours his ma," was Mrs. Troop's only 
 comment, as the mother bent over her boy. 
 
 "How d' you suppose he could ever stand 
 it?" she cried indignantly to Cheyne, who had 
 said nothing at all. "It was horrible — hor- 
 rible ! We should n't have come. It 's wrong 
 and wicked ! It — it is n't right! Why — why 
 could n't they put these things in the papers, 
 where they belong? Are you better, dar- 
 ling?" 
 
 That made Harvey very properly ashamed. 
 "Oh, I 'm all right, I guess," he said, strug- 
 gling to his feet, with a broken giggle. "Must 
 ha' been something I ate for breakfast." 
 
 "Coffee, perhaps," said Cheyne, whose face 
 was all in hard lines, as though it had been 
 cut out of bronze. "We won't go back again." 
 
 "Guess 't would be 'baout 's well to git 
 daown to the wharf," said Disko. "It 's close 
 in along with them Dagoes, an' the fresh air 
 will fresh Mrs. Cheyne up." 
 
 Harvey announced that he never felt better 
 in his life ; but it was not till he saw the We 're 
 Here, fresh from the lumper's hands, at Wou- 
 verman's wharf, that he lost his all-overish 
 feelings in a queer mixture of pride and sor- 
 rowfulness. Other people — summer boarders 
 
" CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 317 
 
 and such-like — played about in cat-boats or 
 looked at the sea from pier-heads; but he 
 understood things from the inside — more 
 things than he could begin to think about. 
 None the less, he could have sat down and 
 howled because the little schooner was going 
 off. Mrs. Cheyne simply cried and cried 
 every step of the way and said most extraor- 
 dinary things to Mrs. Troop, who "babied" 
 her till Dan, who had not been "babied" since 
 he was six, whistled aloud. 
 
 And so the old crowd — Harvey felt like the 
 most ancient of mariners — dropped into the 
 old schooner among the battered dories, while 
 Harvey slipped the stern-fast from the pier- 
 head, and they slid her along the wharf-side 
 with their hands. Every one wanted to say so 
 much that no one said anything in particular. 
 Harvey bade Dan take care of Uncle Salters's 
 sea-boots and Penn's dory-anchor, and Long 
 Jack entreated Harvey to remember his les- 
 sons in seamanship ; but the jokes fell flat in 
 the presence of the two women, and it is hard 
 to be funny with green harbour-water widen- 
 ing between good friends. 
 
 "Up jib and fores'l!" shouted Disko, get- 
 ting to the wheel, as the wind took her. " 'See 
 
318 " CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 
 
 you later, Harve. Dunno but I come near 
 thinkin' a heap o' you an' your folks." 
 
 Then she glided beyond ear-shot, and they 
 sat down to watch her up the harbour. And 
 still Mrs. Cheyne wept. 
 
 "Psha, my dear," said Mrs. Troop : "we 're 
 both women, I guess. Like 's not it '11 ease 
 your heart to hev your cry aout. God He 
 knows it never done me a mite o' good, but 
 then He knows I 've had something to cry 
 fer!" 
 
 Now it was a few years later, and upon the 
 other edge of America, that a young man 
 came through the clammy sea fog up a windy 
 street which is flanked with most expensive 
 houses built of wood to imitate stone. To 
 him, as he was standing by a hammered iron 
 gate, entered on horseback — and the horse 
 would have been cheap at a thousand dollars 
 — another young man. And this is what they 
 said: 
 
 "Hello, Dan!" 
 
 "Hello, Harve!" 
 
 "What 's the best with you?" 
 
 "Well, I 'm so 's to be that kind o' animal 
 called second mate this trip. Ain't you most 
 
•.*£"*?$$;: 
 
 BIDDING FAREWELL TO THE "WE'RE HERE. 
 
" CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 321 
 
 through with that triple-invoiced college of 
 yours?" 
 
 "Getting that way. I tell you, the Leland 
 Stanford Junior, is n't a circumstance to the 
 old We 're Here; but I 'm coming into the 
 business for keeps next fall." 
 
 "Meanin' aour packets?" 
 
 "Nothing else. You just wait till I get my 
 knife into you, Dan. I 'm going to make the 
 old line lie down and cry when I take hold." 
 
 "I '11 resk it," said Dan, with a brotherly 
 grin, as Harvey dismounted and asked wheth- 
 er he were coming in. 
 
 "That 's what I took the cable fer; but, say, 
 is the doctor anywheres araound ? I '11 draown 
 that crazy nigger some day, his one cussed 
 joke an' all." 
 
 There was a low, triumphant chuckle, as the 
 ex-cook of the We 're Here came out of the 
 fog to take the horse's bridle. He allowed 
 no one but himself to attend to any of Har- 
 vey's wants. 
 
 "Thick as the Banks, ain't it, doctor?" said 
 Dan, propitiatingly. 
 
 But the coal-black Celt with the second- 
 sight did not see fit to reply till he had tapped 
 Dan on the shoulder, and for the twentieth 
 
322 " CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS " 
 
 time croaked the old, old prophecy in his 
 ear. 
 
 "Master — man. Man — master," said he. 
 "You remember, Dan Troop, what I said? 
 Onthe We 're Here?" 
 
 "Well, I won't go so far as to deny that it 
 do look like it as things stand at present," said 
 Dan. "She was a noble packet, and one way 
 an' another I owe her a heap — her and Dad." 
 
 "Me too," quoth Harvey Cheyne.