Young Olley's gittin' kinder baulky an' excited. Send the old man along."Penn waked him from his stupor of despair, and Tom Platt rowed him over. He went away without a word 96 Rudyard Kipling 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 followed Salters forward.
"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--""H~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'
Johnstown an' Jacob Boiler an' such-like reminiscences. 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 Isense it."
They decided that Disko was entirely correct 'Twould ha' bruk Salters all up," said Long Jack, "if Penn had stayed Jacob Bollerin'. Did ye see his face when Penn asked who he'd been charged on all these years? How is ut, Salters?""Asleep-dead asleep. Turned in like a child," Salters replied, tiptoeing alt. "There won't be no grub till he wakes, natural. Did ye ever see sech a gift in prayer? He everlastin'ly hiked young Olley outer the ocean. Thet's my belief. Jason was tur'ble praoud of his boy, an' I mistrusted all along 'twas a jedgment on worshippin' vain idols.""There's others jes 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 mini 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 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 Galway man said, "sorrowful as a sick cat over fwhat couldn'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 Haitie 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 shouted down the foc'sle: "Hurry, boys!
We're in taown!"
