Part 8

“Nothin’--just waitin’ for a chance to go into Canso.”

“Well, why don’t you go in--what’s holdin’ you back?”

“Why? Too thick to make the harbor to-night.”

“Ask him, Charlie,” said Wesley, “what kind of a man he holds himself that he’s afraid to make a harbor to-night?” Which Charlie did, in a tone that Wesley could never have achieved.

“Who in the devil are you that’s so all-fired smart?” queried Glover. “Who’re you, anyway?”

“Give him your own name, Charlie,” said Wesley, and Charlie did. “Lord, but you do put up a pert twist with your voice, Charlie. If a man was to talk to me like that, I’d run him down.”

“Charlie Green? I never heard of you afore--nor nobody else aboard here. What vessel is that?” came from Glover.

“Never mind what vessel. Whatever vessel’s here I’m not too frightened to put her into Canso to-night.”

“That so? You’re the devil and all, ain’t you? And when are you goin’ in?”

“Right away.”

“That so? And maybe you’ll show me the way?”

“Yes, if you ain’t too scared to follow. And I’ll have a good story to tell when we get to Gloucester--not alone being scared to go in, but too scared even to follow behind when another man shows you the way.”

“That so? Well, I don’t see you goin’ in, nor I don’t see no ridin’ light hangin’ from your stern.”

“No? Well, s’pose you follow on and stop talkin’.”

A lantern was dropped over the stern of the _Lucy Foster_, Wesley put her wheel up, and the _Lucy_ was off. Another moment, and they made out the green light of the _Calumet_ coming after.

Wesley, chuckling to himself, sailed scandalous courses with the _Lucy_. “If I don’t scare him ’bout half to death, and if him and me don’t have a heart-to-heart talk after we come to anchor inside--if ever he comes to anchor inside! Let’s see now, Charlie. There’s Kirby Rock under our lee. I hope the _Calumet_ carries a weather helm--for the crew’s sake, I mean. And now west half no’the-- I’ll give him a scare. There’s Black Rocks ahead--he’s got to keep on now. And now for the Bootes--a nice little lot of ledges, the Bootes--but not to make a landin’ on--six feet in spots and the surf breakin’ fine over ’em. Hear it roar? Lord, yes, and see it. We’ll hold up a bit, Charlie, or it’s the _Lucy_’ll be gettin’ into trouble. And now for Man-o’-war, another fine little spot--six or eight feet of water there--no’the three-quarters west. Oh, man, hear it roar! How’s he makin’ out behind? There he is, and scared blue, I’ll bet, for fear she’ll swing a foot out of the way. Let’s see, now, where we ought to be! Let’s see--man, but it’s thick here!--let her go--off, now, Charlie, west no’west and a hair west, just a hair now, ought to take us inside Mackerel Rock. If Glover knows his business now, it won’t matter; if he don’t, then Lord help his name for master of a vessel. Enough on that course--shoot her up now by the Rock no’the, quarter west. Go ahead, the _Lucy_’ll make it, don’t fear. Man, she’ll sail in the wind’s eye, the _Lucy_. Don’t fear for the _Lucy_--a weather helm she carries. She’ll shy off herself if we get too close. That’s the girl--there she is--a good place to be by, that! And now for the reg’lar channel--no’west by west--and let her go! But how are they makin’ out on the _Calumet_, I wonder?”

They were not making out on the _Calumet_ at all. Evidently she did not carry a weather helm. From the _Lucy_ they could make out her port light--for a while they thought she was past the ledge and all safe. Then the red light swung off to leeward. They soon heard a hail. Then a series of hails.

“Lord,” said Wesley, “d’y’ s’pose she struck?” and himself jumped to the wheel again. His first thought was to put the _Lucy_ right back to the Rock; his second, and the one he acted on, was to get her lights out of sight and then to turn back, sail wide, and come up to the _Calumet_ as though he had just come in the harbor himself. “They’re safe for a while there, and there was no reason in the world why he couldn’t have got by there if we did,” said Wesley, and began to nose her way back. It was his seaman’s extra sense that brought him safely to the _Calumet_ again.

He found her on the edge of the ledge, with the sea washing over her. She was pounding, and from her deck they heard the sounds that meant that a dory was to be launched. There was much talking, some free comment, and not a little profanity.

“Hi-i!” hailed Wesley, in his own person. “What vessel’s that?”

“What? That you, Wesley?” came Captain Glover’s voice.

“Why, is that you, Harry?” answered Wesley.

“When’d you come in?”

“Just shot in.”

“Shot in! A night like this!”

“Why, yes. But what’s wrong?”

“What’s wrong? Everything’s wrong. Some bloody pirate piloted us ashore and then went up the harbor and left us. What bloody ledge is this we’re on?”

“I’m not sure, not having a chart handy; but it’s a bad place, whatever it is.”

“A bad place? I should say. We’ve just smashed our dory, and I’m afraid some of us will be washed over if the sea makes a little more. What’ll we do?”

“Well, that’s for you to say. You’re master of your own vessel, and, of course, you know your own business. But I’ll drop over a dory, if you say so. I’d rather handle live men now than corpses in the morning, myself.”

“Well then, for the Lord’s sake, hurry up, won’t you?”

Wesley took off the crew of the _Calumet_. On his own deck he met Glover and spoke a little of his mind. “’Twas my intention, Harry Glover, to take it out of your hide, for stealin’ them herrin’ at Folly Cove, but as you’re shipwrecked now it makes a difference. I’ll take you up the harbor and leave you there.” Which he did, and, further, let them have a dory to take them to the dock.

To Glover, at parting, he said, “You and me, Harry, better have no words over this--you know why. The consul here’ll send your crew home at the expense of the Gover’ment, so they’ll be all right.”

“But the _Calumet_-- I s’pose she’ll break up where she is?”

“She may, and then she mayn’t.”

“Then I’d better go down when it moderates and see what I can do.”

“That,” answered Wesley, “is your business. As it is now, she’s abandoned, and anybody’s property that wants to board her.”

“Oh, nobody’ll board her in this weather--they’d be smashed on the ledges. Just as soon as it moderates--some time to-morrow, maybe-- I’ll be down with a tug and lighten her up.”

But Wesley did not wait until it moderated. That same night, at high water, the _Calumet_ floated off. Five hundred barrels of frozen herring transferred to the _Lucy Foster_ helped materially in the floating of the _Calumet_.

“Only eight hundred barrels of salt herring in her now--we oughter be able to get her home. She’s squattin’ pretty low in the water, but we oughter get her home. And do you, Charlie, take Dan and George and Tommie and follow on behind the _Lucy_,” said Wesley, and in the morning light he led the way out of Canso Harbor.

IV

The _Lucy Foster_ came sailing into Gloucester Harbor, and in her wake was the _Calumet_. The _Lucy_, under not more than half sail, was acting like a vessel that was trying to coax along the other, which was moving most painfully. Wesley, from the _Lucy’s_ quarter, kept hailing out encouragement. “‘Most home, Charlie--keep her goin’. There’ll be good salvage for all hands, but a little extra for you, Charlie--keep her goin’. And them men to the pumps--ain’t there just a little touch left all around in that big jug to hearten ’em up a little? It’d be too bad to have her sink on us now, and she into the dock, you might say. I’ll run a bit ahead now, Charlie, and hail the steamboat people, so there’ll be a lighter alongside by the time you’re ready to anchor.”

Knowing nothing of all this, but talking matters over with Mr. Duncan, was Fred Withrow, the owner of the _Calumet_, in Mr. Duncan’s office. “Here’s a telegram came four days ago from Glover. Says that the _Calumet_ went ashore the previous night while she was trying to make Canso Harbor. And now here’s the second telegram, came three days ago, saying that as soon as the weather moderated he took a tug and went down to see how she was, but couldn’t find her. And now, here’s this long letter, came this morning, saying that he don’t know what to make of it--that when he went down to look for her he could not find a trace of her. He says he thought she

may have slipped off the ledge--whatever ledge it is he does not seem to know, it was such a black night and blowing so hard when he came in. But that she must have slid off and sunk, rolled over on her side and sunk, he is certain; because otherwise the spars at least would show. Now he’s thinking of sounding the harbor, but wants to know my opinion of it first.”

“Yes?” said Mr. Duncan. He and Withrow were not the best of friends.

“Yes. But I suppose you’re wondering what it’s all got to do with you. Well, Glover mentions in his letter that Wesley Marrs came into the harbor just after the _Calumet_ went ashore. It was Wesley took the crew off. But next morning, when he went down to look for the _Calumet_, Wesley was gone. I didn’t know but what you had heard from Wesley.”

“I haven’t heard from Wesley since he left for Newfoundland, six weeks ago. I don’t generally hear from him till he gets home. Wesley isn’t much of a letter-writer.”

It was just then that they heard a commotion, and, looking out of the window, saw the _Lucy Foster_ and the _Calumet_ coming to anchor in the stream.

“What!” exclaimed Withrow, and waited, after he had looked again, no longer than to glance doubtfully at Mr. Duncan before he flew out of the door.

After Mr. Duncan also had had another look and seen for himself that it was true, he sat down in his chair and tried to think it out. He was still trying to think it out when Wesley himself came in the door.

“Hi-i!” hailed Wesley, and taking one of Mr. Duncan’s longest cigars, sat down and answered Mr. Duncan’s first question by beginning to tell the story. It took just about the length of a cigar to tell it, for, while Wesley smoked fast, he also talked fast, and with that told barely more than the cold facts.

Barely more than the cold facts, and yet, to get the real color of it, one should have heard Wesley tell it; should have seen him hunch his shoulders wrathfully in the beginning when he was picturing Glover’s sending the messenger astray; should have seen him bring his fist down on the desk when he drove the _Lucy_ across the Gulf to head off Glover at Canso; then should have seen him lean back and laugh when he told how Glover abandoned his vessel. And, finally, one should have caught a glimpse of his eyes through the halo of smoke when he said, “And ’twarn’t no joke takin’ them frozen herrin’ out of the _Calumet_ that night, and ’twas pump, pump, pump, and stand by on the _Lucy_ all along the Cape shore ready to take the crew off her any minute. Yes, sir. She leaked a little, did the _Calumet_, and she cert’nly did set scandalously low in the water at times, but we wiggled her home. Yes, sir, and there she is, out in the stream.”

Having smoked out his cigar, Wesley naturally slowed up. “And I misdoubt that she’d stayed afloat of herself another half hour. There’s a hole under her quarter that most of them herrin’, if they knowed enough or didn’t happen to be put away in pickle, could’ve swum their way through. A good man, that Charlie Green, Mr. Duncan; and if you could only’ve heard the twist he put into his voice when he was talkin’ to Glover just afore he went into Canso Harbor that night! But a week on the railway oughter fix up the _Calumet_ so she’ll be as good as ever.

“But ain’t that a good one on Glover, though? Hah, what? Glover, the--the--strategist? That’s it--strategist--strat-e-gist! Ho-ho!” Wesley leaned back in his chair and blew the last ring up at the ceiling. “And John Rose-- I don’t cal’late John Rose’ll feel so bad when he hears the whole story--hah, what? And Glover--ho-ho!--think of him tellin’ his friends up to Canso how it happened--and leave it to him to tell it right; and after he gets through tellin’ them that, of him hirin’ a tug to go down and pull her off, and him cruisin’ around lookin’ for her--and not findin’ her--ho-ho! But I s’pose we got to talk business now. What’s the salvage law about this, Mr. Duncan? I’ve picked up a few vessels at sea in my time, but never one quite this way. How about the salvage, Mr. Duncan?”

“The vessel was abandoned, you say?”

“She cert’nly was.”

“Well, then, our lawyer ought to be able to fix that up easily enough. There’ll be a big salvage, don’t you worry about that. And however it comes out, it will cost her owner a good many times more than if he hadn’t got so oversmart a skipper for her. But you’re laughing again, Captain--what is it?”

“I couldn’t help laughin’ to think of Withrow, too. I never did partic’larly like Withrow, either. What does he think, d’y’ s’pose, Mr. Duncan?”

“Withrow? M-m-- I wouldn’t want to say. But I know what I’d think if it happened to one of my vessels, and I know what I’d say--and what I’d do, too.”

“And what’s that now, Mr. Duncan?”

“If it was one of my vessels, I’d see that the next vessel I built went to a skipper that ran a little more to seamanship and not quite so much to strategy.”

“That’s if she’s to go fishin’?” commented Wesley.

“Of course--if she’s to go fishing,” agreed Mr. Duncan.

“That’s me, too--a little plain, ordinary seamanship for me. But I’ll be goin’, I think. That oughter be a pretty good story to tell up the street--hah, what? And John Rose-- I think I’ll have to write a letter to John Rose about it. Yes, I think that’s worth a little note to John--hah, what? Yes. But first I think I’ll tell ’em up the street, for cert’nly up to the rooms they’ll all admire to hear about Fred Glover and his strategy. Yes, sir, Fred and his strategy--ho, ho, ho, strategy!” and out the door and up the street went Wesley.

Dory-Mates

Martin Carr’s dory-mate having just stepped on deck, the forec’s’le gang began to question Martin about him. In the fast run-off to the grounds, with everybody trying to catch up on sleep, there had been small time to get acquainted; but the general opinion seemed to be that ’twas rather a delicate-looking lad.

“That’s what,” summed up an unquestionably able-looking fisherman who was overhauling a tub of trawls. “He _don’t_ look hardly rugged enough to go winter trawlin’. D’y’ think he do, yourself, Martin?”

’Twas put in all good-nature, as Martin himself well knew; but it was not in Martin to allow even moderate criticism of a friend pass without retort, and so his “I never knew before ’twas looks made a man” went flying back to the lee lockers.

The man on the lockers smoothed out a snarled ganging ere he came back with “Now, now, Martin, we all know ’tisn’t looks alone, but leave it to yourself--don’t looks go a great ways toward your judgment of a man? Afore ever you _know_ what a man is, don’t the cut of his mouth or the set of his jaw, and the way he looks out of his eyes at you, have a lot to do with how far you’d trust him? Don’t it?”

“Sure, it does,” replied Martin. “But d’y’ mean to say this lad hasn’t good eyes and mouth and jaw?”

“Now, Martin”--and a broken, rusted hook was snipped off and replaced with a new shiny one--“now, Martin, nobody knows better than you what _I_ think--you that c’n read a man’s mind ’most. The lad’s got as fine a face in a way as ever I looked at. Man, ’tis a beautiful face. But that’s the bother of it--’tis beauty, not strength in it. And comin’ down to facts, you know yourself, it’s no joke to be out in a dory with a man that can’t hold his end up. ’Tis thought of you we have, Martin. Did ever he haul a trawl or try to row a loaded dory agen a full tide out here?”

For answer, Martin continued calmly to blow his puffs of smoke toward the deck-beams.

“That means he never did, and I’m afraid, Martin, when it comes to it, that maybe he won’t be able to.”

“Well, maybe he won’t,” echoed Martin placidly; “but whether he does or no, ’tisn’t Martin Carr will be the first to tell him he’s fallin’ short.”

“But where did you pick him up, anyway, Martin?”

“I didn’t have to pick him up. His father was a dory-mate of mine, nigh thirty year ago--as far back as the old _Aleutian_----”

“The same _Aleutian_ that was lost with all hands afterward, Martin?”

“The same. But this was some years before she was lost. This was when Jack Teevens, this boy’s father, was lost. And how? Tryin’ to save a shipmate. And I was the shipmate. Maybe some of you remember now?”

“Coming across Western Bank one winter’s day, warn’t it, Martin?”

“Aye, makin’ a passage--the old _Aleutian_ runnin’ before an easterly gale--everything on and staggerin’ under it. Jack was to the wheel--lashed. Me on watch for’ard, was standing foolish-like between the dories and the lee-rail. In a day-dream I must’ve been. By’n’by comes a big sea after her. I didn’t see it, but Jack to the wheel did. ‘Watch out, Martin!’ he hollers; but I was kind of slow, and when the sea hit her, away I went over the rail. Good as gone was I, but Jack casts off his life-line and comes jumpin’ to the waist to heave me something or other to keep me afloat. Comes another sea and heaves me back toward the vessel. I grabs a draw-bucket and the end of the throat halyards, which Jack had hove, just as a third sea comes. Well, in that third sea, which broke clean over her--she bein’ already hove most flat by the second sea--away goes Jack Teevens. I didn’t see him go. ’Twas when the gang came rushin’ on deck and hauled me aboard that they told me they could just make him out--away to looard he was--as he waved good-by afore he went down--down to stay. Lord in heaven, what a man he was! And to go at his age!”

“’Twas hard. But he couldn’t’ve been such a young fellow, Martin?”

“Let me see. Nineteen year ago that was. Nineteen from forty-eight--twenty-nine year he’d be that time. We were the one age.”

“Lord, Martin, ’tisn’t possible you’re forty-eight year old?”

“That’s what--forty-eight.”

“Well, you don’t look it. Do you feel it?”

“Feel what--forty-eight? Man alive, what’s forty-eight to a man that’s never seen a sick day in his life?”

“But you’ve taken great care o’ yourself, Martin.”

“Well, maybe. A little regular smokin’ and a drink once in a while ashore, or maybe sittin’ up a night or two by way of bein’ sociable after weeks on end of this work out here.”

“Could you stand to a mark and jump your ten foot six inches, toe to heel, like I see you do one time, Martin?”

“No, I couldn’t. My joints aren’t that soople. But if I couldn’t go without sleep as long, or stay to my neck in the water as long, or go without grub even longer----”

“That you could, Martin. ’Tis me ought to know that--me, that was three days and three nights astray with you on Quero. An’ when it comes to buckin’ agen wind and tide with a dory loaded to the gunnels----”

“Hi-i! below there!” This from the deck. “Out dories!”

With a sigh Martin set down his pipe and prepared to get into cardigan jacket, boots, and oilskins. “I must say I hates to leave my little pipeful”--and to his youthful dory-mate, dropping down from deck--“Isn’t it so with you, too, Eddie-boy?”

“I could smoke all the time I’m awake, Martin.”

“Like your father before you, boy. You’re cert’nly like your father other ways, too. But you’re not tough like him. Sad kind of, too, like he was at times, ’s if he could see things ahead. O Lord, but I did love your father, boy! And you cert’nly look like him. But, come along now. Your first trip at this work, and we must have things right.”

* * * * *

Martin’s dory, the first over the side, was dropped up to windward. To the Skipper’s last word, “Set to the east’ard, Martin--it don’t look none too good, but I’ll be back to you after I’ve run the string out,” Martin waved a free arm and nodded a cheerful acquiescence.

The vessel left them astern. Martin began to heave the trawls and Eddie to row. There was a disquieting pitch and toss to the sea. Anybody but a trawler would have called it bad weather for a sixteen-foot dory to be out in. It was a much heavier sea than any Eddie had ever before tried to row a boat in, and he soon said so.

“Yes,” answered Martin, “I s’pose it do seem hard at first--a banker’s dory in a chop--but after three or four days you won’t mind it. ’Tis the cross-tide that puts that little kick to it and slats her around so. And yet the safest small boat afloat is a dory--when it’s handled right. Here we are now, away out here in this little dory.”

“And just where are we, Martin?”

“Let me see now.” Martin was a dextrous trawler, who never had to slack his work because of any little conversational strain. He kept the air full of hooks and line even while he figured it all out. “We were forty-four fifty-six north and fifty-one ten west at noon, the Skipper said. We sailed for an hour after that--east half no’the. That ought to put us about a hundred and fifty mile from the nearest point o’ land-- Newf’undland that’ll be. But how’s the rowin’? A bit heavy, isn’t it? Tide and sea together’s a hard thing to buck out here, boy. You’d be surprised how they carry you out the way at times. That’s the divil when the fog or the snow comes and you drift. Or maybe the vessel isn’t anchored--flyin’ sets maybe same as now--and away _she_ goes. And now, Eddie-lad, try and see how you make out shootin’ a trawl, and let me tend to the rowin’. Careful, now, comin’ for’ard--you’re not in a bathin’-suit in Gloucester Harbor with smooth water and no more than a hundred yards’ swim if you capsize the boat. That’s it--keep ’em whirlin’. My, but you’re doin’ fine--’tis born in people, the fishin’ ways. If you were only a bit more rugged, now, there wouldn’t be your better on the whole Grand Banks. But this life’ll soon put the strength in you, Eddie-boy.”

“If it don’t kill me first,” laughed the young fellow.

“Kill you? What talk is that? Kill you? Why, the way you’ll eat--not three, but four, and maybe five meals a day. And mug-ups? Every time you think of it, a mug-up--and when you forget, always plenty to put you in mind of it by their example. And _sleep_----”

“When there’s any time to sleep.”

“Time? Wait till it comes too rough to go out in the dory.”

“Too rough?” The boy looked over the gunnel and grimaced.

“Oh, it comes plenty rough at times. Have a care, or one of those little seas’ll wet you through.”

“H’m-- I’m wet through already.”

“Oh, no, not real wet through. When you get real wet out here-- But, never mind, wet or dry, we’ll be alike, anyway, and company for each other, however it goes. Your father, now, he was great company in a dory. Tell stories! And sing! What’s it he used to sing, now, on the old _Aleutian_, when we were hardly more than boys together? Oh, but your father had the voice, boy! And to hear him roll out--

“‘Let it come from the east, Let it come from the west’--