a faint expression of relief on her face at his answer, and the
thought pleased him mightily.

"We'd better skip along, folks! There's a fog rolling in." It was
Judson calling from the hill path. Regretfully, Donald rose and
assisted Ruth to her feet, and taking her arm, helped her up the
slope. When upon the path again, he evidently labored under the
delusion that his partner was short-sighted or unable to walk without
assistance, as he failed to withdraw the aiding arm. To his secret
delight, the girl made no protest or attempt to withdraw. Upon such
trivial actions do we record another knot ahead on the log slate of
love!

Back on the verandah of the house, they separated into two groups, and
the intimate hour passed all too quick for Donald. The skipper struck
a match and looked at his watch. He would have liked to have sat the
whole night out with Helena, but he had the old-fashioned notion that
half-past ten was a pretty late hour ashore. "I suppose you girls'll
be making for bed naow?" he observed regretfully.

"I guess we must," said Helena, smiling to herself. Helena was city
bred. "What time do you sail, Judson?"

"We'll go out on the first of the ebb-tide at six, I expect."

"I'll be up at five to give you a cup of coffee," said Ruth. Her
brother protested. "No use of your getting up to do that, Sis. Don and
I will go right down aboard th' vessel. McGlashan will have breakfast
all ready--"

"And I suppose you prefer your old cook's coffee to mine!" interrupted
Ruth tartly. McKenzie unconsciously voiced her protest. He wanted to
see all he could of her.

Judson slipped his arm around his sister's shoulders. "There, there,
naow, Petsy!" he soothed. "She shall get up an' make her brother an'
Don a cup of coffee. It shall never be said we refused yours for any
old cook's brew of water bewitched. We'll see you in the morning." He
turned and extended his hand to Helena.

"I guess I'd better bid you good-bye--"

"In the morning," she answered. "I'll be up with Ruth. Good-night!"

Donald retired that night feeling indescribably happy. He felt that he
was on the high road to winning Ruth Nickerson's heart and hand. He
was in love with her, he admitted. He wanted her for his own, and he
felt that she was favorably disposed towards him. This being his first
love, he had no precedents to disillusion him or conjure up obstacles.
It would take time, he knew. He had to make a home for his mother
first and a position for himself. He would work hard and study for
master, and when he skippered his own vessel, he would be all right.
Then he would build a house in the hollow near the Cape--the place
they had visited that evening--and he would ask Ruth to marry him. As
he planned, so he dreamed, and everything was plain sailing and fine
weather.

"Skin up you an' loose y'r mizzen r'yal!" came a snarling voice in his
ear. Old habit made Donald leap up, rubbing his eyes and wondering if
he had committed the crime of sleeping on watch. Judson, lighting the
lamp, laughed. "By gum, Don, that fetched you! I'll bet you thought
you were aboard th' _Kelvinhaugh_ and that I was singin' aout?"

They went downstairs smiling, and found Ruth scurrying around laying
cups on the table. She was in a kimono, and looked, in Donald's eyes,
a picture of feminine loveliness. "Some day," he mused, "she would be
making a snack specially for him when he was going out on an early
morning tide." Alas! his shore hours were too short. He would not see
her again until the fall.

Helena came down, and they all drank the coffee as in a mystic
farewell rite--a valedictory communion. It is wine and the wafer for
the soldier going into battle, but it is coffee and biscuits for the
sailor going to sea!

Seamen hate farewells. Make a brave welcome if you must, but let us
slip away to sea unobtrusively--between sunset and dawn--with the last
ringing laugh in our ears, but do not let us go regretfully, with the
memory of a long hand-clasp and hint of tears in an upturned face.
These are the usual seamen's desires--merely to depart with a
nonchalant "So long!", but Donald had no notion of such a curt
parting. He wanted to spin the bitter-sweetness of it out, as lovers
are fain to do. He gave Ruth's hand a warm squeeze and held it for a
moment. She was looking at him with wide-open blue eyes, with a hint
of fear in them. "Good-bye, Ruth," he said quietly, "I hope to see you
when we come back. Good-bye!" She murmured something, and abruptly he
swung away.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

The _West Wind_ slipped out of the harbor and Don stared up at the
Nickerson house to see if Ruth would wave. A female figure stood on
the verandah and Donald made a farewell gesture with his cap. It might
have been Ruth--he was not sure--but the girl waved in return, Donald
was certain, and the skipper, taking a squint through his binoculars,
said it was his sister.

"Wonder where Helena is?" said McKenzie.

"Oh, guess she's in the house somewhere," replied the skipper somewhat
dolefully, looking back at the receding house on the hill. He turned
to the wheel. "She's a mighty fine girl, Miss Stuart," he remarked,
looking aloft at the main-gaff. The other smiled. "She sure is,
Captain. A fine girl!"

Clear of the Eastville Cape, they hoisted the light sails and headed
up the coast to the eastward, bound for the Magdalen Islands in the
Gulf of St. Lawrence for a baiting of fresh herring. With this
secured, they would fish in the Gulf and on the Newfoundland Banks
during the summer, until their "salt was wetted." "We've got to hustle
to beat Ira Burton," remarked the skipper. "He's at the Islands now,
I'll be bound, and yet ... he may not. I h'ard there was a mull of ice
in Canso Straits and I'm wondering what is the best course to take."

Next morning they were up with Cranberry Island--the north-eastern
extremity of Nova Scotia, and the skipper piloted the schooner into
Canso Harbor. "Um!" he grunted as he scanned the anchorage. "No
schooners here. Must ha' gone up the Straits." They came to an anchor,
dropping the headsails only, and the skipper and Don pulled ashore in
a dory. "We'll go up to the Post Office first, Don, an' see the
weather bulletins, and then we'll do some scouting around for news of
what's doing in the Straits." At the Post Office, Captain Nickerson
asked to see the weather reports for two weeks past, and when they
were handed to him, he read them carefully. Then he went to a
telephone and called up Port Hawkesbury--a small town in the Straits
about twenty-five miles from Canso. When he came from the telephone he
had a concerned look on his face and was pulling nervously at his
moustache. "Ira Burton was there a day or two ago," he said, "but they
tell me he slipped away in the night. Naow, I see by the bulletins
that the wind for the last two weeks a'most has been from a quarter
that'll drive all the Gulf ice into the mouth of Canso Straits, and
it'll need a stiff southerly or easterly to clear it. I'm thinkin'
Burton has figured that all aout, and he'll be gone north-about, same
as I'm plannin', and he'll get to the Madaleens through Cabot Straits.
When the drift ice is crowdin' down here it'll be clear up above."

They got aboard, they got their anchor, hoisted the headsails and shot
out of Canso and up the coast and around Cape Breton Island. In the
Gulf of St. Lawrence, between Cape North and the islands of St. Paul,
they came up with two fishing schooners steering west. It had just
broken daylight and the wind was light, and when the day grew brighter
they saw that one vessel was a Lunenburg schooner of a new model, but
the sight of the other craft caused Nickerson to jump below for his
binoculars.

"It's Burton!" he cried, after a short scrutiny. "I'd know his old
hooker's small fores'l and long bowsprit anywheres." He paced the
quarter, whistling softly to himself--a curious whistle, as though he
were calling a dog--and ever and anon he would murmur, "Come wind!
Come wind! Come wind!" The gang stared at the schooners to leeward
and one of their number pulled a bait-knife from a cleat. "I'll raise
something," he said with a laugh. "I'll stick this in th' forem'st.
That'll raise a breeze, by Jupiter! Never knew it to fail yet!"

The wind was light and variable under the lee of the Cape Breton
mountains, towering a thousand feet high to port, but when they glided
past Cape St. Lawrence, it came away in fresh gusts from the
south'ard. The sky was overcast and there was a rainy haze around the
horizon.

"It's agoin' to blow right enough," said Nickerson, taking over the
wheel from Donald. "We'll get aour breeze afore long ... all we want
of it!" And he sniffed the air and looked to leeward. The other
schooners had caught the draught flowing over St. Lawrence's high
head-land and were bowling off for the Magdalen Islands and rapidly
leaving the _West Wind_ astern.

"Jig up everything, boys!" bawled the skipper. "An' get yer sheets
aft. We'll have a little shoot of fifty miles with those jokers ahead,
and I be damned if we're agoin' to be the last. Th' Lunenburger might
trim us, but I'll be cussed if Burton does. They're mayn't be much
herring at the Islands, but we want to get what there is an' get it
quick!" The breeze caught the _West Wind_ as the gang sweated up and
sheeted-in, and she tore after the other vessels under four lowers,
main-topsail, main-staysail and balloon jib. Nickerson himself took
the wheel and held her to a N.W. by W. course for Amherst Harbor on
Amherst Island of the Magdalen group.

The barometer had dropped to 29.6, and with the southerly came a cold,
rainy mist. Within a half-hour of its commencement, the wind stiffened
into a squally blow and a short, violent chop arose, which had the
schooner plunging and rolling and driving sprays over her bows. But
through it all, she was running along like a hound, with the
white-water racing aft and the wake abroiling.

"It kicks up nasty here," remarked the skipper from the wheel.
"There's a surface current of the water from the melting ice up the
River St. Lawrence streaming down the Gulf this time of year, and it
sets hard to the east'ard. With this southerly blowing across it and
the tide arunning up the Gulf and only twenty fathom under our bottom,
it makes a dirty jobble of sea hereabouts."

When the ice moves out of the Gulf of St. Lawrence in the spring, the
migrating herring "strike in" around the shores of the Magdalen
Islands in countless swarms. They have done so for many years, and the
inhabitants of those bleak and isolated islets trap them in nets as
they seek the shores to deposit their spawn, and while some are
pickled and barrelled for use as food, a considerable quantity is sold
to the fishing schooners for use as bait. In May and June, a large
fleet of Canadian, American, Newfoundland and French fishing craft
repair to the Magdalens to secure fresh bait, and the rule is "first
come, first served." Nickerson knew this, and the skippers of the
other schooners knew it, too, and all three drove their vessels as
hard as they would go. A further incentive to speed lay in the fact
that there would be a fleet of a hundred sail storming out from Canso
Straits with the southerly driving the ice barrier away. With so many
vessels hunting for bait, the demand would be greater than the supply.

Within an hour the breeze had freshened into half a gale, and the
three schooners were laying down to it with their lee scuppers awash
and their decks, gear and canvas drenched with spray and rain. On the
_West Wind_, which was slightly astern of the other two, the gang were
all on deck and lounging aft with sou'westers and oilskins and
sea-boots on, and the skipper, seated astride of the wheel-box,
gripped the spokes in his strong hands and glanced, ever and anon, at
sails, compass and the schooners ahead and to leeward.

There is nothing a Bank fisherman loves more than a race. Not one of
your summer jaunts of a few miles on a measured course in a ladies'
wind, but a genuine thrash to windward in a scupper breeze with all
the "muslin" hung. A race of fifty, or a hundred miles, or even more,
which gives the contestants a chance to show what they can do, is
fishermen's sport, and Donald got an opportunity, in this fifty-mile
"shoot" to the Magdalens, to see the Banksmen on their mettle.

With faces wet and reddened with the wind and slashing rain and spray,
oilskins glistening and dripping water, the men lolled on the cabin
house, laughing and joking, singing and smoking, and when she rolled
down in the puffs, they howled with hilarious delight and prayed for a
breeze "to tear a patch off'n her!"

"Neptune! Boreas! Amphitrite! and all the little windy sea-gods, give
us a breeze!" shouted Nickerson, laughing at McKenzie. He had hardly
spoken, when, with the suddeness which is a characteristic of Gulf
"blows," the southerly began snapping up in savage squalls. The
schooners to leeward were blotted out in the rainstorms, and the _West
Wind_, with never a sheet started, dragged her lee rail under and the
lower dead-eyes of the rigging tore through the broil of water to
loo'ard and the scuppers frothed half-way up the deck. It was brave
sailing, as over the short, savage seas the schooner plunged and
reared, and clouds of spray enveloped her as she stormed along at
fourteen knots.

Bang! With a report like a shot from a gun, the main-gafftopsail
split, and within a moment slatted into a sunburst of ribboned rags.
"Clew up what's left!" bawled the skipper calmly, and to Donald he
shouted. "A job o' sail mending for you, son! I hope ye can handle
palm an' needle?"

The other grinned. "You bust 'em and I'll sit up nights mending 'em,"
he shouted excitedly. "This is what I call sailing! Give it to her,
Skipper, and trim our friend Burton there."

Nickerson nodded. "Leave it to me!" he replied grimly. "I'll trim him
or jump the masts out of this one, by Jupiter!" And by the look in his
eyes, he meant it.

The rags of the topsail were scarce clewed up when another blast
struck the _West Wind_ and she rolled down until her whole lee deck
vanished out of sight in the seething water. The gang jumped like
scared cats for the weather rail and the port nest of dories, and from
these places they actually looked down into the foaming water which
churned and sloshed over the cable and the nest of dories on the
starboard side. With the vessel heeling over at a dangerous angle, the
men glanced nervously at the skipper, but that individual was hanging
on to the wheel-spokes, chewing nonchalantly, and standing with his
feet braced against the side of the wheel-box. "That guy's a perishin'
terror!" shouted someone excitedly. "I wonder ef he knows what a
vessel'll stand? He'll spill us all into th' drink afore we're
through, by Judas!"

Cr-a-ack! Bang! Bang! Flap! Flap! A thundering row aloft--the big
staysail was adrift, slatting and banging and threatening to whip the
top-mast out of her. "Stays'l sheet's carried away! Belayin' pin
broke!" cried a fisherman, and the skipper barked, "I reckon so! Get
that sheet, boys, an' make her fast again!"

A mob of oilskinned men slid down into the water to leeward and
scrambled up the slack lee main rigging. Aloft, the sail was thrashing
about and the sheet was whirling around like a whip and slashing at
the rigging as the canvas flogged in the wind. When the rope flicked
inboard, a dozen hands would make a grab for it.

"Shoot her up, Skipper--" shouted a fisherman.

"An' be damned!" bawled Nickerson, with something of his old
_Kelvinhaugh_ truculence. "None o' you fellows got guts enough to grab
a loose bit o' string? Don't be scared of it--'twon't bite ye!" Thus
adjured, and after receiving some savage blows from the snapping rope,
they managed to grab it, and while sixteen men stood up to their
thighs in water laying their weight on the straining sheet which held
the sail, Donald jammed an iron belaying pin into the rail and took a
turn of the rope around it. With wild shouts and lurid phrases, the
fishermen hauled in the slack and belayed, then returned, panting to
their weather-side perches.

A man jumped out of the fo'c'sle companion in the sprays and clawed
his way aft. He was laughing. "Golly, fellers, ye sh'd be below in th'
fo'c'sle naow!" he shouted above the roar of wind and sea. "Cook's
wild! She's chucked all his pots off'n th' stove an' half his plates
are smashed. Th' fo'c'sle floor is slushin' with pea-soup, rice
pudding an' beans an' everything's swilling with th' water acomin'
daown th' scuttle and th' ventilator. Scotty's in one hell of a rage
and he's alyin' in his bunk cursin' an' swearin' that he won't cook or
clean up a gol-derned thing ontil this here sail-draggin' is over!"

The skipper grinned and gave a hasty glance to windward. "By Gorry,
boys, there's a black squall acomin'," he bawled quickly. "Jump an'
haul daown yer balloon an' stays'l or th' sticks'll go. Look sharp!"
The men raced to obey the command; halliards were cast off; downhauls
manned, and as the canvas was dragged from aloft, bellying and
flapping thunderously, the squall struck the vessel as the skipper
eased the helm down.

The _West Wind_ seemed to stagger to its onslaught and rolled over
until the sea rose to the lee-side of the cabin house and frothed over
the coamings of the main-hatch. Donald, at the stays'l downhaul,
thought she was going to capsize, and one of the men yelled in fright,
"God save us! She's goin' over--she's goin' over! Cut yer dory gripes!
Cut yer dory gripes!" Two men reached for bait-knives and began to
hack at the stout ropes that lashed the weather nest of dories, when
the skipper roared menacingly, "Leave them gaul-derned gripes alone,
you crazy lunk-heads! She's all right, I'm tellin' ye! 'Tis only a
puff!"

"Only a puff?" growled a fisherman. "Only a puff? Another like that
one and there'll be a drowndin' scrape araound here--" He stopped and
yelled, "For th' roarin' ol' Judas! Look at him! He's swingin' her
off! He's swingin' her off!" Nickerson was spoking the helm up, and
Donald hung on to the main-rigging in time to save himself from flying
over the lee rail when she careened to the weight of the wind. "This
is th' perishin' worst I ever saw in sail-draggin'!" remarked someone
huskily. "Does that bucko at th' wheel there think he's sailin' th'
_Flyin' Cloud_ 'round Cape Horn? Ef he don't strip her or lift th'
spars out the ol' hooker yet, I'm a Dutchman!"

The least concerned in the crowd was Nickerson. Cool and calm, with a
truculent look on his stern face, he strained at the spokes with just
the suspicion of a grin on his lips. With his bronzed face streaming
water and his mustache dripping, he glanced into compass and up at the
straining sails and gear with exultant eyes. "Good iron! Good timber!"
he murmured, and broke into the words of an old chantey--

    "Blow, winds, blow!
    To Cal-i-for-ni-o!
    There's plenty of gold, so I've been told,
    On the banks of Sacramento!"

The man seemed to be carried away with the thrill of it--this wild,
roaring, hurling through the water, and Donald gazed on vessel and
steersman with shining, worshipping eyes. Here was a man--a marine
Ajax defying the wind and sea!

It was an inspiring sight, truly! The whole lee side of the schooner
was under from cat-head to the end of the cabin house, and she was
storming along, leaping and plunging, with the sea to leeward in a
welter of white water, seething and roaring, in the drive of her
passage. The wind was whistling in the rigging and drumming in low
thunder from under the bending booms, and with sheets and weather
shrouds bar-taut and the sails as full and as hard as though cut in
marble, the _West Wind_ tore along with her gang hanging on to the
weather gear and her skipper holding her cleaving bow down to her
course.

"Look at Burton!" yelled someone. In the lift of the rain, they saw
the _Annie L. Brown_ astern and running off. Her foretopmast had
carried away and her balloon jib, the topmast, and a raffle of wire
stays and halliards were being salved by her crew. "He's out of it
now," remarked a fisherman, "but he did well. Where's th' Lunenburg
feller?"

For a minute she could not be discerned, but when the rain dissipated,
she showed up on the beam, forging along under her four lowers. She
was a big vessel--a West India voyager, strongly rigged and well
ballasted. The first fury of the squall was easing off now and the
_West Wind_ was showing her rail again.

"Away ye go on yer stays'l!" bawled Nickerson. "That feller'll trim us
ef we don't watch aout!" And when the big fisherman's stays'l went up
between the masts, the whole gang tallied on to the sheet and swayed
it down with excited yells, and the schooner rolled her rail under
again.

In his seafaring, Donald had never experienced such a contest. He had
seen some sail-carrying on the _Kelvinhaugh_ and _Helen Starbuck_, but
nothing to equal this. Judson was pressing the vessel to the limit,
but he could do it, as he had nineteen husky men he could depend on to
haul the sail off her when the time came. In the _Kelvinhaugh_, with
her gang of no-sailors and weaklings, it couldn't be done; in the
_Starbuck_, with a small crowd, it would be suicidal. "If it were only
for these races alone, I'd love this fishing game," said Donald to the
skipper. "This is simply great!" And he chuckled and snapped his
fingers with the exhilaration of this windy driving of wood, iron and
canvas.

With the stays'l on her, the _West Wind_ drew ahead and the
Lunenburger was evidently content to allow her the advantage, as he
did not send his stays'l up. It was found out afterwards that he had
none to send up--it having split to rags in one of the squalls. The
skipper laughed. "We've trimmed 'em both," he remarked happily. To
Donald, he said, "Read the log!"

"Forty-six miles, skipper!"

"Good!" he said. "Forty-six miles in three hours and a half is fair
going. We must ha' logged sixteen knots in some o' them bursts of
wind. It's easing off naow--her rail's showin'." And he grinned
contentedly, while a fisherman remarked, "We kin trim Burton sailin'
anyway, an' I cal'late we kin trim him afishin' too--"

"Land ahead!" came the shout from for'ard. The skipper peered into the
rainy mist and put the wheel over a spoke. A huge block of reddish
stone showed up on the port bow a mile ahead. "Entry Island!" he
observed. "I steer as good as Captain Clincher when he laid a course
for the Eddystone Light and knocked it daown! Ye can keep a look-out
for Pearl Rock buoy on the starb'd hand and get fifteen fathom of
chain over th' windlass."

When they passed the island, the sea became smoother and the wind
eased off. A misty rain was falling, which obscured the land, but a
steamer could be seen anchored ahead. "Ice-breaker or Fishery Cruiser,
I cal'late," said Judson. "He'll be anchored in plenty water, so we'll
jest jog to the west'ard of him without letting go the hook. Haul yer
stays'l daown an' git a dory over!"

They ran slowly past the Fishery Cruiser, and a rising of the mist
revealed the bare hills of Amherst Harbor and the little wooden houses
of the village. A flag was flying from a staff on a hill above the
harbor, and the skipper commented, "There's the bait flag aflyin'!
There must be bait around somewheres." Leaving the schooner in charge
of Donald, Captain Nickerson jumped into a dory and was pulled ashore.
Within half an hour he was aboard. "There's a little herring at
Alright Island," he announced. "Ef we're spry, we'll get it. Slack off
yer sheets!" He took the wheel again. "We're darned lucky," he said.
"There's been a lot of bad weather here an' they haven't had much
herring so far. Burton'll have a job to get any for a while."

They stood over for Cape Alright a few miles away, and met the
Lunenburg schooner running into Amherst. Nickerson hailed him. "Come
over to Alright, Cap'en! There's some herring there--enough for two of
us!" The other skipper waved his hand and his schooner followed in the
_West Wind's_ wake.

Off the island, the dories were hoisted out and pulled in to the traps
anchored off the beach. Here they were loaded with living herring
bailed from the seine, and the men rowed back to the _West Wind_,
sitting in herring up to the thwart strips. With eight dory-loads
aboard and stowed on ice in the hold, the skipper chuckled gleefully,
"Me'n th' Lunenburg feller hev scoffed all the bait hereabouts. Ira
Burton'll hev to do some pokin' araound these Islands when he hits
here, and he'll hev fifty or a hundred other craft to compete against.
Now, boys, we'll get under way an' start for the grounds. We'll shoot
for th' Straits and the Western Bank again."

As they ran out of the bay, the mist lifted and the _Annie L. Brown_
came bowling up. Her fore-topmast showed but a splintered stump just
above the fore-mast cap. "Haul in by him, skip!" earnestly requested
the gang, and Judson swung the _West Wind_ towards the oncoming
schooner. As she approached, the _West Winders_ seized herrings, and
holding them aloft, jeered and yelled, "Thar ain't no more, bullies!
We scoffed 'em all!" Sallies and jibes flew thick and fast between the
rival crews, but the two skippers steered and remained silent.

"Why'n blazes, Harry, don't ye ship in a craft what kin sail?" roared
a _West Winder_ to a friend on the _Brown_.

"There goes the Old Trawler's Home!" shouted another in derision.
"Come a trip with us, me sons, an' you'll bait small an' catch large,
as well as learn haow to sail a vessel. Why ain't you got yer ridin'
sail on her? Ye're gittin' reckless!" And so they jibed and shouted
until the other vessel passed out of hearing.

Running to the south'ard for the Canso Straits, the wind veered and
the mist blew away and revealed a wonderful sight. Standing in to the
Islands under all sail, came a mighty Armada of fishermen--fifty or
sixty beautiful, clean-lined schooners, yacht-like with their white
canvas and painted and varnished spars--and all were racing for bait.
With booms sheeted in and decks sloped at angles which had the froth
boiling in the scuppers, they stormed along with the white-water
shearing away from their sharp bows and their crews shouting and
bawling rude jests at each other. The _West Wind_ ran down among them,
and as they flew past, she was greeted with cheers as the "first
hooker to bait at the Madaleens!"

"Any herrin' left for us?" they enquired in stentorian tones. And this
question was asked by all the vessels which passed them within hail.

"By George," exclaimed McKenzie, "but this is a sight! This is worth
coming a long way to see. It's wonderful!"

"Aye," remarked Judson, "it's a great snarl of canvas, an' many a
wealthy yachtsman would give a thousand dollars to be in that fleet
racing for the Islands. This happens every spring in aour fisheries,
an' when they're all anchored in Pleasant Bay of a night, their ridin'
lights make 'em look like th' streets of a town."

Within an hour, they passed the stragglers, and soon they came up with
evidences of the blockade in the pieces of floating field ice which
littered the sea ahead. As far as the eye could discern, the white
pans of ice flecked the green of the water, but it was small and mushy
and not particularly dangerous. A good look out was kept and the
vessel was steered to avoid the large pieces, and by nightfall, she
passed through them into clear water.

The May days slipped into the summer days of June and the _West Wind_
wandered from Bank to Bank, with her crew working hard from daylight
to dark. On Sundays they rested, though a good many fishermen work
Sundays, yet Nickerson remarked, "We're workin' double-tides on this
hooker, and a Sunday lay-off gives a feller a chance to rest up. We
can work all the harder for it."

"Do all the fleet work like we do?" enquired Donald.

"No, indeed they don't," replied the skipper. "We're only driving like
this because we're out to win that bet. The other Bankers take it
easier, an' they loaf around a lot. You take it this spring. The fleet
lay around Port Hawkesbury for a week doin' nawthin', then they'd lay
around the Madaleens for another week, maybe. Then they'd run off to
the Banks an' fish their bait, an' then some of them'll start cruisin'
around Noof'nland ports for the capelin bait. In the blows, they'll
run in to port an' lay ontil it's over, but _I_ don't believe in that.
I'd sooner ride it aout hove-to an' keep the drift of her an' hang on
to the grounds. By using my knowledge of navigation, I can always make
my berth again, but some of these other skippers have to run in to the
land to get a new departure from which they'll steer to the Banks
again ... which wastes time. Then again, all these fellers won't h'ist
dories over in thick or hazy weather like we do, and if I hadn't a
good husky, willing gang, we wouldn't do it either."

"What counts in successful fishing--luck or work?"

"Luck--some," replied Judson, "but mostly work. You take all the
Gloucester an' Lunenburg high-liners--they're all hustlers. They work
hard, skippers and men, and it pays them when the share checks are
given aout. Some of those smart high-line skippers will make as much
as two thousand dollars out of the summer's fishin', and if they fish
winters as well, they'll often make five thousand in the year. Haow
many liner skippers are gettin' a thousand pounds a year? I doubt if
there's a one! I claim this work ain't as hard as when I was in th'
merchant service. What was I gettin' as mate of that _Kelvinhaugh_?
Nine ruddy pounds a month! Forty-five measly dollars! D'ye wonder at
me gittin' aout? What do _you_ think?"

Donald looked over the summer sea at the dories, which here and there
dotted its blue expanse. In every boat two men were pulling the lines
up from the ocean floor and toiling like beavers. Not heart-breaking,
hopeless toil, but work at which a man can sing, at which he is
wresting silver dollars for his effort. Some of them were singing, and
their voices carolled across the lazy water. When the heart is glad
there is no hardship in toil! From the sea, he gazed on the schooner
sluggishly rolling in the swell, with a cheeping of boom jaws and a
pattering of reef-points on the great stretches of canvas which reared
aloft. It was very quiet and peaceful. For'ard, McGlashan, in white
apron, was shifting his galley funnel for a better draught, and he,
too, was crooning a lay to--

    "Bonnie wee Leezie--tha floo'er o' Dundee!"

A delicious whiff of fresh-baked bread floated aft, suggestive of the
good fare upon which they lived, and the summer breeze blew soft and
warm. In the pens were a number of fine cod-fish awaiting the
splitter's knife, and on the cabin roof was a pillow where he and
Judson had been dozing in the sunshine after the dories left the
vessel. The memory of his days in the fishing fleet passed through his
mind and they were pleasant memories. He thought of what he had seen
of the sea in the past; thought of the rollicking, good-natured
fellows he was now shipmates with, of Eastville and its people, and
taking a deep breath, he replied, "This is the life, Skipper, and the
more I see of it, the more I am convinced that you are a wise man!"

They fished steadily throughout the long summer days and worked to the
north and east. On St. Pierre Bank they "jigged" a great baiting of
squid--an octopus-like creature which may be caught near the surface
on calm nights by dangling a small, umbrella-like hook overside. The
squid enveloped the jig with its tentacles and would be whisked aboard
squirting sepia in protest. With this bait--beloved by cod--they
fished on St. Pierre and over on Grand Bank, and the rough grained
salt in the bins got lower and lower, and the kenched cod in the
fish-room grew daily higher, and the _West Wind_ settled deeper in the
water with the weight of it.

Times there were when they fished in plenteous company, and many a
dawn would show sails all around the horizon. Oft-times they swung a
dory over and "visited"--sitting in a stranger's cabin with all hands
crowded in listening while the skippers talked "fish." In these
visits, Nickerson would pick up all the news and gossip of the great
fleet which did business on the huge watery areas from Le Have to the
Virgin Rocks, and he would give information and prospects as freely as
the other man. On one occasion they boarded a large French topsail
schooner out from St. Servan, and Donald essayed a conversation in
halting French. The outcome of this visit did not result in much
fishery news, but the skipper received a bottle of cognac in return
for a few plugs of tobacco, and McKenzie came away wondering how the
deuce the Frenchmen got around in the clumsy, straw-stuffed _sabots_
and ponderous cow-hide, wood-soled sea-boots they wore.

In mid-August, they ran down to Western Bank again on the strength of
a rumor that cod were extremely plentiful there, but they had only
made one set when one of the crew developed a sickness which looked
suspiciously like typhoid fever.

"We'll run to Eastville, Donald," said Judson. "We'd better land
Wesley at his home and we'll fill up the tanks with water that we're
sure of." At this announcement, McKenzie felt a strange thrill.
"Eastville ... Ruth!" The names were synonymous, and it was quite
possible that the skipper had the same incentive, but with a different
objective. Under all sail, they crowded her home in a rare sailing
breeze, and "with the Eastville girl ahauling on the tow-line," they
stormed in past the Capes on a lovely August morning and tied up to
the dock. Wesley, muffled in blankets, was landed and rushed to his
home, and the doctor pronounced it as a touch of typhoid, not a bad
case, but enough to keep him in bed and ashore for a spell.

"I'll have to pick up another man for his dory," said Judson, but
Donald broke in, "How about me, Skipper? Don't you think I'm able
enough to go in the dory with Jack Thomas?" The skipper laughed. "If
Jack will agree, I will! It'll leave me without a spare hand, though,
but as the summer's near over, I don't mind." Jack Thomas was
agreeable, and McKenzie would go in the dory as a full-fledged
fisherman when the _West Wind_ made her next set.

After landing the sick man and giving orders for the tanks to be
disinfected and re-filled, Judson and Donald went up to the house.
Donald, feeling strangely elated, walked with springing steps,
wondering if Ruth would be as glad to see him as he to see her. There
was no sign of her on the veranda when they approached, and it was
Mrs. Nickerson who met them, surprised and pleased. McKenzie nervously
awaited Ruth's appearance.

"Where are the girls?" enquired the skipper, after kissing his mother.

"They've both gone to Halifax for a visit," replied the old lady.
"Just went this morning, too. Isn't that too bad!" Donald said
nothing, but felt it was a calamity. Another month now before he would
see her again, and a month is an age when one is in love. He felt
very blue, but when Judson was called away to the telephone, he perked
up and chatted with Mrs. Nickerson as amiably as if he had never been
disappointed in his life.

When the skipper came back, he announced, "Tom Haskins wants to buy
aour fish. Wants to git some dried an' shipped afore the fleet comes
in, and he offers a good price. We'll unload right away and git aout
to-night so's we'll git a day's fishin' to-morrow. We'll come up for
supper, mother."

With Captain Bill Smith, the harbor-master, checking the weights as
they discharged the fish, they emptied the _West Wind's_ hold clean to
the floors. "You got a good jag, Judson," said the Captain. "You must
ha' fished hard to git all them in that time."

"D'ye s'pose we'll be high-line, Cap'en?" asked Jud with a twinkle in
his eye.

The old harbor-master bit off a chew of tobacco. "Ye might," he
answered non-committally. "Ye never kin tell."

"Burton, naow--d'ye s'pose he landed as much as we did on his spring
trip?" queried Nickerson quizzically.

"He might have," replied the old man, with an unemotional visage. "Ye
never kin tell ... 'til th' tally's published." Judson chuckled and
clapped the other on the back.

"Closer'n a clam, you are, Cap'en, but you're quite right. I'm agoin'
to beat him sure! I'm off to-night for another jag."

That evening they slipped out of Eastville for the Banks again.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

After making a few sets on Western Bank, they ran up on to Grand again
and anchored on the south-western edge of the ground. Donald went in
the dory with Jack Thomas, and the two of them got along very well
together, but Donald found the dory work considerably different from
the deck labor of a fishing vessel. Rowing the heavy boat to windward
or against the tide for a mile or two was genuine hard work, and
hauling a trawl against the same wind and tide for the best part of a
day was a job well-calculated to try the muscles of the arms and back.
However, with time, he soon "caught on," and after a couple of weeks
over the side, he could do his share of hauling trawl in the dory-bow
and at baiting up the gear.

When he got into the swing of it, Donald really enjoyed the work.
There was something indescribably alluring in being out on old ocean's
breast in a frail boat a hundred miles from the nearest land and
pulling up the finny spoil from the sea floor, anywhere from two
hundred to five hundred feet below. And one never knew what was on the
hooks until they were hauled up fathom by fathom, but standing in the
dory bow on smooth days, one could see a long way into the pellucid
green, and the wriggling fish would show a flash of white belly thirty
or forty feet from the surface. To the man of scientific leanings,
much could be learned from this very intimacy with the ocean. Whales
often broke water within a biscuit toss of the dories, and
sharks--snapping at the fish on the trawl--were common sights.
Porpoises and black-fish played around them in schools on numerous
occasions, and Donald once witnessed a most terrific fight between a
whale, a sword-fish and a thrasher. Prodded or slashed by the
sword-fish from below and flayed by the tail of the thrasher from
above, the huge cetacean forged to the surface and hove its great bulk
out of the sea in a desperate effort to shake off its tormentors, and
the splash of its impact with the sea again reverberated across the
water for miles.

Besides cod, haddock, cusk, pollock and hake, which they usually got
on the hooks, a numerous variety of other fish were caught, and Donald
examined them with studious interest. Star-fish of many kinds, sea
anemones, sea vegetables--lemons, cucumbers, potatoes and cabbage,
came from the depths, besides crabs, scallops and cockles, and odd
fish species, such as sculpins, anglers or monk-fish, dogfish,
wolf-fish, cat-fish, lump-fish, halibut, flounders, skate and others.
These "curiosities" he brought aboard and examined and dissected, and
the postmortems often revealed strange facts. In the stomach of an
angler would be found a large spiny sculpin; in that of a wolf, or
cat-fish, the crushed shells of scallops and crabs ground up by the
powerful jaws and canine teeth of these fish, and Donald would wonder
how it is possible for such tough fare to be digested.

Sometimes they had the sea all to themselves; at others, the horizon
would be dotted with fishing craft, and occasionally they would be in
company with a St. Malo barque, or St. Servan brig, fishing on the
ground. Oftentimes, steamers would pass, but, strangely enough, more
could be _heard_ in fogs, than _seen_ in clear weather. On a memorable
occasion, they saw a huge iceberg stranded on the Eastern Shoals of
Grand Bank, and they sent the dories in to pick up pieces of the
broken ice drifting to leeward of the monster for the purposes of
keeping their squid bait fresh.

Thus the August days passed and time slipped along into September.
Days of lazy calms, when the sea stretched oily and undulated with a
slow heave like the breast of a giant in slumber, and the vessel
rolled so lightly as to be almost imperceptible; days of brave west
winds, when the sea was whipped into blue corrugations crested with
foam which glistened in the sun and tossed the dories up and down on
comber and trough; days of storm, with rain and savage squalls, which
forced the schooner to drift under a foresail and jumbo until the blow
passed and they could commence fishing again after the enforced, but
welcome rest; and most dreaded of all, days of smoking fogs which
covered the sea in a thick, viewless pall and kept the fishermen
nervous and wide-awake for the shrieking sirens of the liners racing
across the Banks. And they had reason for fear!

On September 12th, the _West Wind_ was lying to a hawser anchor in
twenty-six fathoms on the eastern edge of Banquereau, or Quero Bank.
It was foggy when the men went over the side in the morning, and
towards noon the fog shut down so thick that Captain Nickerson decided
to keep the gang aboard after they discharged their first haul of
fish. The first dory to get alongside was Thomas and McKenzie, and
they pitched their catch out and hoisted their dory on the rail and
left the tackles hooked into the bow and stern beckets. Thomas went
down into the forecastle to get a mug of tea from McGlashan, while
Donald went aft to talk with the skipper. While they sat chatting on
the cabin house, they were startled out of their wits by the jarring
roar of a steamer's whistle close aboard.

Thomas, in the forecastle, was up on deck in a trice, closely followed
by Joak, and Nickerson bawled, "Ring th' bell! Ring th' bell! He's
acomin' slap bang for us!" Donald jumped down into the cabin for the
skipper's shot-gun and a few shells, and was just coming up the
companion steps when he heard Nickerson shout, "God Almighty! He's
into us!" There was a terrific crash, followed instantly by the
rending, grinding and splintering of wood, and as the schooner rolled
down, McKenzie leaped out of the cabin companionway in time to avoid
the sweep of the mainmast and maintopmast as it thundered down across
the quarter. For a second he was dazed, and only conscious of a huge
bulk immediately back of him, then the deck tilted up beneath his feet
and he was hurled violently into the water.

His first instinct was to swim away from the monster smashing and
rending him, and with his head down he trudgeoned hard for almost half
a minute. Then, pausing for breath, he swung around, and trod water.
The first thing that met his eyes was the rust-streaked hull of a
large steamer gliding past in the mist but a scanty fifty feet away.
He could see her funnel and boat deck looming in the fog, but his
vision was mostly centred on the red strake of her water-line, a
white-painted load-line mark, the condenser water pouring from a
sluice in that blank wall of riveted steel plating, and the broil of
foam from the churning screw. The latter sight caused him to swing
around again and swim for a frantic half-minute. He did not want to
get caught in that vortex and cut to pieces, and when he had exhausted
himself in his spurt, he turned under the ship's stern and read the
name, _Livadia--Piraeus_.

Panting for breath, he attempted to shout, but was unable to render
more than a husky croak, "Help! Help!" A piece of the schooner's deck
surged up out of the water close beside him, and as he grasped it, he
saw the _Livadia's_ fantail become misty in the fog, and finally
vanish altogether. "Swine!" gasped Donald. "He's leaving us.... Greek
swine!" And for a minute he clung to the wreckage regaining his wind
and scattered senses.

"Help! Help!" A faint cry came out of the mist to his right. It
sounded like the skipper's voice. "Hold on! I'm coming!" shouted
Donald, and taking a deep breath, he slipped into the sea again and
struck out in the direction of the cry. Dodging pieces of splintered
timber, he came upon Nickerson hanging to the cover of the wheel-box.
It was scarce enough to float him and his head was very low in the
water, while every now and again he would go under altogether. Blood
flowed from a gash in his scalp, and by the look on his face he was
nearly all in.

"Here I am, Skipper!" cried Donald, swimming up to him and thrusting
an arm under his elbow to lift his head out.

Judson's eyes turned and looked into his. "I--I--can't--swim!" he
gasped. Donald nodded. "Don't get nervous, Jud!" he cried,
reassuringly. "I'll fix you up in a minute if you'll do as I tell you.
Grab that box with both hands and kick your feet out like a frog."

"Can't.... Too--heavy--boots!" gasped the other.

"Wait! I'll slip them off!" And Donald, free of his own, ducked under
and hauled the skipper's heavy leather boots off his legs. Blowing and
puffing, he came up. "Now you're all right," he said. "Do as I tell
you and I'll get you over to a larger piece of wreckage."

The skipper nodded and commenced striking out with his feet. Donald,
treading water beside him, scanned the sea for wreckage. At last he
spied what looked like the main-mast about a hundred feet away. "I see
the mast over there," he said. "You keep paddling, Jud, and I'll swim
over and bring back a line and tow you!" In a few minutes he was back
with the gaff-topsail sheet, and hitching this through a ring in the
wheel-box cover, he cautioned Judson to hang on. Swimming over to the
mast with the line in his teeth, he gained the spar and managed to
haul the skipper up to it.

Sitting astride the long pole, Donald caught Nickerson by the
shoulders and dragged him over it. Judson was heavy, and he seemed to
have no strength in his arms, and McKenzie was pretty well played out
by the time he got the skipper on the spar and with his legs astride
of it. "Take a breather for a spell, Skipper," he said. "Just lie
quiet. I'll see that you don't roll off." For ten minutes Nickerson
lay prone--sick with the salt water he had swallowed--but after a
while, the color returned to his face and he looked up.

"I'm all right naow, Don," he said. "Who was that sweep that hit us?
Don't appear to have stopped ... or launched a boat."

McKenzie replied with bitterness in his voice, "A dirty Greek. I got
her name--_Livadia_ of Piraeus."

Nickerson nodded. "That's near Athens," he observed. "A clumsy,
lubberly Greek. He cut his stick for fear of the consequences, but he
won't get away with it. We'll make him sweat, by Godfrey! _Livadia_ of
Piraeus! Humph!"

Pieces of the _West Wind_ floated past them in the smooth sea, and the
skipper began identifying them. "There's a bit of the cabin house.
There's a bait-knife still stuck in the cleat, see? There's the chain
cable box, and there's a slew o' pen boards. Some of the boys'
blankets over yonder--Godfrey! my head's buzzin' and achin'. Th'
main-mast or the gaff gave me a devil of a wipe when it came down an'
knocked me overboard!"

Nickerson evidently received a hard blow, and as time passed he began
to jabber meaningless phrases. "I want a drink in the worst way, Don,"
he cried. "Get me a drink, like a good chap!" It was very quiet on the
water and the fog blanket lay very thick. Donald was shouting for help
at intervals, but the mist seemed to stifle his voice. The prospects
were beginning to look black, and he yelled and shouted until his
voice began to crack. Real fear began to clutch at his heart. If other
vessels or dories were in the vicinity, they might pass close by and
never see or hear them.

They had been on the spar for almost an hour, and Donald was really
anxious. Nothing could be heard save the lapping of the water around
the broken mast and Nickerson's mutterings. He was lying face down,
apparently oblivious of his surroundings, and McKenzie had passed a
line around his body to prevent him sliding off. He collected his
energies for another spell of yelling and had bawled the first "Help!
Help!" when an answer came, "Keep ashoutin' 'til we pick you up!"

In a voice as hoarse as a crow's, he continued crying out, until a
dory loomed out of the mist and rounded alongside the spar. She was a
fisherman's dory, and there were two men at the oars.

"Get the skipper in first," croaked Don. "He's had a crack on the
head. Who are you? Where's your vessel?"

"We're off the _Frank and Mary_--of Gloucester," replied one of the
men. "We picked up th' rest o' your gang in th' dories, an' some of us
are scoutin' around lookin' for youse."

"Did you get our cook and my dory-mate--a man called Thomas?" asked
Donald anxiously, as he clambered into the boat.

The fisherman shook their heads. "Naw," they answered. "We only picked
up fellers in dories. We never got any fellers but youse out the
water." McKenzie's heart flopped like a lump of lead in his breast.
"Poor Joak," he murmured almost tearfully. "Poor Joak ... my old chum.
And Jack Thomas ... one of the best!" He looked over the mist-wreathed
water with his fingers twining together nervously. Then he recalled
the vision of a steel stem--grinding, smashing and rending--the Beast
of the Banks--and he ground his teeth in an excess of rage and
bitterness at the suddeness and the ruthlessness of their hurling into
Eternity. He gripped the dory gunnel convulsively in fingers of steel.
"They'll pay for this! They'll pay for this!" he cried aloud.

"You got th' steamer's name?" queried a fisherman, pulling away.

McKenzie started. "Aye ... we got her name!"

A big schooner under sail loomed out of the mist and a voice shouted,
"Here they are, an' they've got a couple o' them!" Within a minute
they rounded up alongside and the skipper was handed over the rail and
taken down into the cabin. He was in a dazed state from exhaustion and
the effects of the blow on the head. Donald, little the worse for his
experience, went down into the forecastle, where he was surrounded by
the _West Wind's_ gang and questioned as to how it all happened. After
he had related the affair as he knew it, they shook their heads
dolefully. "Poor cook! Poor Thomas!" they murmured. John McGlashan and
James Thomas could be listed with the yearly toll of the Banks.

     "Drowned on Banquereau when the fishing schr. _West Wind_ of
     Eastville, N.S., Nickerson, Master, was run down while at
     anchor and sunk by the Greek steamer _Livadia_ of Piraeus."

That would be their epitaph! After drinking a cup of hot coffee and a
bowl of warm soup, Donald turned into a bunk, and thinking over the
loss of his chum and his dory-mate, cried--not like a baby--but like a
man.

He lay quiet for an hour, then he got up. His clothes were being dried
at the cook's stove, so he wore a pair of pants and a sweater lent him
by one of the _Frank and Mary's_ crew. "How're ye feelin'?" asked the
men lounging around on the lockers and bunks.

"Not so dusty," answered McKenzie.

"Yer skipper says ye saved his life," observed the cook from the
stove. "He was jest alettin' go when you came up an' hauled him to
that spar. It's a great thing to be able to swim."

"How is he?" enquired the youth eagerly.

"He'll be alright," replied the other. "I fixed up his head an' gave
him a slug of old Jamaikey to wash the salt water outa his stomach.
He's asleep now, but he'll be fit when he wakes."

One of the _West Wind's_ crowd spoke. "We've cruised all around the
wreckage, Donald, but thar' ain't no sign of the cook or Thomas.
Cal'late they must ha' gone under when th' steamer crashed into yez.
Lucky thing for us we was out in the dories, or there'd ha' bin a
bigger drowndin' scrape."

McKenzie sat quiet for a moment, until he heard the dull mutter of a
bow wave outside and felt the slight rolling of the vessel. "Under
way?" he enquired.

"Baound fur Halifax," answered the cook. "Aour skipper's agoin' to
land yez there." He busied himself around the stove for a while and
then remarked, "Lucky thing for youse fellers that you landed most of
yer season's fish. You ain't agoin' to lose too much--"

"Won't we?" ejaculated a _West Winder_. "We'll lose a bet we had with
the _Annie L. Brown's_ gang. I had a hundred dollars on that. Th'
skipper had five hundred, an' most of the boys put up a dollar or two.
We'd ha' trimmed that outfit hands daown. Ira Burton ain't in it with
Jud Nickerson fur ketchin' fish." And he growled anathema on the
Grecian ship.

Captain Nickerson was himself again by supper time, but was dreadfully
upset on hearing of the loss of McGlashan and Thomas. "I would have
gone, too, if it hadn't been for you, Donny-boy," he said. "Can't
swim, y'know, and there's not many fishermen that can. Water's too
cold around our coasts for bathing. You pulled me through, son--"

"Just as you did on a good many other occasions," interrupted Donald,
"so that makes us quits."

The skipper smiled faintly. "We also lose our bet, I'm afraid, though
I don't think Ira Burton can collect from us. However, it don't
matter. I'll get another vessel again--the _West Wind_ was
insured--and I'll have no trouble next season in getting a
gang--that's certain."

They were landed in Halifax forty hours after the accident, and
Captain Nickerson immediately reported the facts of the collision to
the marine authorities. As luck would have it, the Grecian steamer was
then in the harbor. She had made no report of the mishap--a damning
feature--and, as she was about to sail for Baltimore, she was libelled
and held, and her master and watch officers were hailed before the
authorities to explain. At first they absolutely denied sinking any
schooner, or even scraping one, and they had even altered the ship's
log-book to show that they were not in the vicinity when the collision
happened, but under expert cross-examination their story broke down,
even though they refused to admit the facts. Inspection of the
steamer's bows revealed dents and scrapes freshly painted over, and
eventually, a sailor with a grudge, failed to corroborate the
officers' evidence and bluntly stated that they had run down an
anchored schooner on the Banks and deliberately steamed away from the
scene. The master and owners of the _Livadia_ were required to furnish
bonds for fifty thousand dollars before the steamer was allowed to
proceed. The official inquiry was set for the week following, at
which all parties were required to attend the Court in Halifax.

Captain Nickerson, Donald and the _West Wind's_ crew boarded the
packet steamer that evening for Eastville Harbor, and just a minute
prior to sailing, two men came running down the wharf. Shouting "Wait
a minute!" they ran up the gang-plank and staggered into the midst of
the _West Wind's_ crowd, who greeted their unceremonious boarding with
incredulous oaths and shouts of surprise. _It was Joak McGlashan and
Jack Thomas!_

"Where in the name of all that's sacred did you fellers spring from?"
gasped the skipper, while Donald grabbed Joak to see if he were really
alive. "Jist came in, Skipper," answered McGlashan breathlessly. "Jist
got put aff a schooner a wee while ago an' we've had tae rin like
blazes tae catch this wee boat here. They tel't us on the wharf that
yez was a' picket up."

"By Jingo, Joak," said McKenzie, "I've been weeping over you as being
drowned on Quero. How the deuce did you escape?"

"Gimme a chanst tae get ma wind!" McGlashan sat down on a pile of
freight and wiped the perspiration from his brow. "It was like this,
ye see," he said, when he had recovered his breath. "We came up on
deck when yon steamer whustled, an' we ran fur the dory which Donald
and Jack had jist left hanging on the rail. The steamer hit her abaft
the main-mast, aboot the gurry-kid, and it didna hit the dory. Me'n
Jack jist tumbled intae it, and when the mast went, the dory went
intae the water. We lost the oars and were driftit awa' frae the
schooner, but efter two hours floatin' aboot we were picket up by a
Yankee schooner and landed in Halifax a while syne. That's all there
is tae tell, except that we were sure the skipper and Donald were
lost, as we knew you were baith aft when the steamer hit." He gave a
deep sigh and continued. "Anyway, we're all here, thank God, but the
schooner's gone, and ma good clothes are gone, and ma alarrm clock,
too, and I had a fine codfish chowder on the stove fur yer dinners
that day that also went--" He spoke so solemnly that the listeners
laughed immoderately. "By gorry, cook, you're a haound!" they
chuckled. What was at first thought to be a tragedy, was now looked
upon as an experience, an incident for yarning and joking about, and
they spent much time in chaffing McGlashan about the loss of his
"alarrm clock," his clothes and the chowder.

Arriving back in Eastville Harbor, Donald and the skipper were
disappointed to find that Ruth was in Halifax staying with the
Stuarts. Had they known, they would have looked the girls up before
coming home. However, they would be in Halifax at the inquiry the
following week, and Donald looked forward to seeing Ruth then with
feelings of anticipatory pleasure. He had not seen or heard from her
for four months, and when a youth is in love with a pretty and very
desirable girl, four months is a terribly lengthy period.

At the Nickerson home, Jud's parents were kindness personified. Old
Mrs. Nickerson took Donald in hand and purchased him an outfit of both
sea and shore clothes. They were not expensive clothes, but they were
of good wearing stuff. For the first time in over a year, he possessed
a shore suit, and, even though it was ready-made store clothes and of
a fit and pattern a good deal poorer than he had worn at other times
and in other circumstances, he was glad to have them and to know that
he could call on Ruth in Halifax without qualms as to his personal
dressing. He fancied nice clothes, and would like to be able to
purchase a complete rig-out of good quality and finished tailoring,
but when a lad is earning thirty-five dollars a month and saving to
make a home for his mother, he cannot spend money in dress. Donald
accepted Mrs. Nickerson's gifts with deep appreciation, but with a
sneaking suspicion that Judson had engineered the whole thing as a
reward for services rendered.

The _West Wind's_ two trips of fish were sold, and the skipper
announced that they had landed altogether three thousand five hundred
quintals. Had they completed the season, the _West Wind_ would have
made a record catch, but, as it was, the crew were eminently satisfied
with share checks in the neighbourhood of $600 per man, with a
possible addition for gear, clothes and fish lost when the collision
case was tried and judgment secured against the Greek steamer's
owners. Donald received a check for $140. "And there's more acomin' to
you," said Judson when he paid him. "You'll draw a fisherman's share
for this last trip, but we've got to get the money from those Greeks
first. They'll pay us enough to help build a new vessel, for the fish
we lost, and all our outfit and gear. They'll _have_ to pay, for they
haven't a leg to stand on. The money is as good as ours naow!" And he
chuckled grimly.

When the inquiry was over, Donald intended to ship in a vessel for
Glasgow and bring his mother out to Nova Scotia. He had already
written her to that effect, and before he went to Halifax, he and Mrs.
Nickerson arranged to rent a neat little cottage on the hill street
just back of the town, and not far from the Nickerson home. It was
secured furnished, and as it was at present untenanted, Donald worked
around the place for a few days painting the floors, doors and
wood-work, after scrubbing it out thoroughly from top to bottom. It
was not a large cottage, but it was a warm one, and built of squared
spruce logs shingled on the outside and match-boarded inside. There
was a kitchen addition, and the main part of the house had a
dining-room, parlor, and two small bedrooms upstairs. It was a vastly
different place from the red sandstone villa in Maxwell Park, with its
tiled bathrooms, hot and cold water, electricity and gas, but it was
clean and cosy, and the rent was extremely moderate. The furniture
was plain and meant to be utilized. Most of it was made by
ship-carpenters, and there was no veneer or elaborate carvings. The
beds were of wood, and in lieu of springs, there were mattresses of
plucked feathers so soft and downy that one almost vanished in their
cosy embrace. Picked rag mats covered the floors, and the place was
heated in winter by a small box stove which burned wood, and which
stood in the dining-room, and disseminated heat into the parlor
through a square opening in the wall.

An acre of good garden ground went with the place, and there was a
small building suitable for a stable and wood-shed immediately back of
the dwelling. A well, equipped with a pump, stood near the kitchen
door in handy proximity to save laborious water carrying, and the
former tenants had planted vines which clustered over the little front
porch, and there were rose bushes, lilacs, and hollyhocks around the
front and sides of the house.

On the eve of his departure for Halifax and Scotland, Donald viewed
his future home and tried to imagine what it would be like when his
mother arrived and was installed within. He could picture her reading
by the stove of a winter's night, or working in the garden in summer.
She would have chickens, of course, and maybe a pig or two. His mother
knew all about these things. Then he thought of Ruth.... Of course,
she wouldn't live in a cabin like that, but by the time he was in a
position to marry her, he hoped to have a home of his own--a big
wooden house like what other Eastville skippers owned--a house with
four or five bedrooms, hot air furnaces and plastered walls and modern
plumbing. They all had pianos, a horse and buggy, and good furniture
imported from Halifax. He would get that ... in time. He'd go with
Judson in the dory again next summer, then he would go to navigation
school in Halifax and get his second mate's ticket for off-shore. He
was able to pass the examination now, but he hadn't the necessary
sea-time in to qualify. Another year or two fishing and he would go
skipper--fishing in the summer and running fish and lumber to the West
Indies in winter. He would be skipper, if all went well, by the time
he was twenty, and when he attained his majority, he would ask Ruth to
marry him. With these pleasant thoughts, he squared up a rumpled rag
mat on the floor of his future home, straightened a deal table and
studied the effect of a cheap vase--he knew it was cheap and gaudy and
he wanted to stow it away--on the sideboard--and after a final look
around, he gave a satisfied sigh and locked the front door. At the
front fence, he looked back at the cottage--nestling cosily amid a few
dwarf spruce--and whistling cheerfully he swung down the road
ruminating over a suitable name for his coming domicile. "Shelter
Harbor! That's a good one," he murmured. "I think mother would like
that. M-m! Shelter Harbor--that's the name, for it'll be a shelter
harbor for the both of us!"

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

The _West Wind's_ crew arrived in Halifax on a Monday morning at the
end of September to attend the inquiry, and the evidence was given by
both sides. The Greeks had no case. It was proved that they were
navigating at full speed in a dense fog; that a proper look-out was
not kept; and that sound signals were not given at the intervals
required by the International Rules of the Road for navigation "in
fog, mist, snow or heavy rainstorms." The Court severely condemned the
absolute disregard for Articles 15 and 16 of the Rules, and the
Commissioner was most scathing in his remarks regarding the conduct of
the Greeks in running away from the vicinity after sinking the
schooner. To the Greek master and watch-officers he said, "Your conduct
on this occasion was such as to merit for you the scorn and contempt
of all seafarers, and your action can only be characterized as one of
the most despicable cowardice. If this Court had power to deal with
your certificates, we would have no hesitation in cancelling for all
time that of the master, and the second and fourth mates, in order
that such callous brutes may never hold a position of responsibility
at sea again; as it is, a copy of this judgment will be handed to the
Grecian Consul!" The _West Wind_ secured a judgment against the
_Livadia_, and the Greeks left the Court Room amidst the hisses of the
spectators. An Admiralty Court action for damages was immediately
entered by the owners and crew of the fishing schooner, and the
skipper remarked to Donald, "We'll win our case. You can go over to
Glasgow naow an' bring your mother aout. I'll have a berth in my West
Indiaman for you when you get back."

That evening after supper at their hotel, the skipper and Donald went
to the Stuart home to call on Helena and Ruth. Judson had telephoned
earlier in the day that they would be around, and McKenzie was wildly
excited at the thought of seeing Ruth once more. With his new suit on,
he felt more presentable, though he was not altogether pleased with
the cut of the garment, nor the pattern. The collar did not "sit"
nicely and the coat sleeves reached the knuckles of his hands. The
pants seemed horribly wide, and they had a loose feeling around the
waist. Mrs. Nickerson had spoken of their roominess as just the thing
for a growing lad, but then the dear old lady did not know that the
"growing lad" was in love, and therefore more than usually fastidious
and critical of personal appearance. The pattern--a pepper and salt
effect--gave Donald the creeps to look at it, but there was one thing
in the outfit's favor, and that was the strength and durability of the
cloth. As Donald soliloquised, "This suit was built--not tailored.
They sewed it with sail-twine and lined and stiffened it with
double-ought storm canvas. It would make a grand sail when everything
else blew away!" After numerous surveys in the mirror, straightenings
of tie and collar, and buttonings and unbuttonings of the coat and
vest, the skipper remarked with a grin, "Oh, you'll do, Donny-boy!
With that rig on, you look as handsome as a silver dollar on a Swede's
pants, or a monkey's eye in a frying-pan. Anybody that walks aout with
you naow sh'd be as proud as a dog with two tails. Knock off yer
glass-goggling and we'll git along!" And blushing self-consciously,
Donald followed him--inwardly condemning the fit and texture of his
gift suit.

The Stuarts lived in a fine house not far from the Public Gardens, and
when the skipper rang the bell, Donald gave his drooping sleeves a
hitch up and patted the recalcitrant collar into place. A maid
answered the door and ushered them into a parlor. Judson was
perfectly at ease. Donald, who ought to have felt at home in such
surroundings, sat on a spider-legged gilt chair feeling awkward and
out of place.

A rustle of skirts, a ripple of laughter, and Helena and Ruth entered
the room. McKenzie's heart leaped and he rose to his feet, and while
Ruth was greeting her brother with hugs and kisses, Helena, looking
particularly charming and attractive, walked over to him. "I'm so glad
to see you again, Donald," she said sweetly. "And you're not looking
any the worse for your shipwreck out on the Banks." She shook hands
and turned to the skipper, "And how is Captain Judson?" And the two of
them drew away to a corner sofa, leaving Ruth standing before
McKenzie.

She had her dark hair coiled up and wore a dress of some pink silky
material, which showed her slim girlish figure to advantage. There was
a soft rose blush in her cheeks and her blue eyes sparkled as she
advanced to Donald, but he, with the critical discernment of the
love-lorn, thought there was a hint of coldness in her gaze. It might
have been reserve. "And how are you, _Mister_ McKenzie?" she enquired
calmly. Donald mentally winced at the _Mister_, and instinctively felt
the reserve, the chill--just a suspicion of it--in her voice and
manner. He clasped her hand warmly and inclined his head with a
courteous gesture. "I'm very well--Ruth," he answered quietly, "and
you?" He raised his large dark eyes to her face and continued, "I
needn't ask for my sight tells me you're the picture of health."
Mentally he added, "And lovelier than ever!"

She sat down in a chair near-by and Donald admired the ease and grace
with which she walked. He was keen to notice all the little traits and
points in her carriage and manner and in the sedate environment of the
Stuart home, it was evident that Ruth had adopted her "city manners"
in dress and actions. They murmured a few commonplaces about the
weather, while McKenzie noticed that she had small neat feet and wore
white silk stockings and fine kid dancing slippers. He liked to see a
girl attired in nice frocks and "things" feminine, fluffy, soft,
silky and lacey, but Scotch-like, he mentally figured the cost and
wondered when he would earn enough to provide a wife with the articles
he would like to see her clothed in.

"You had quite a mishap out on the Banks, I hear," she observed,
leaning back and gazing at him with steady eyes. McKenzie imagined she
was looking critically at his suit and he hitched the sleeves up off
his knuckles before he replied. "Yes! It was quite a smash-up. It
might have been worse if we'd all been aboard the schooner. McGlashan
regrets losing an alarm clock and a fine chowder which he was cooking
at the time--" He smiled as Ruth laughed and revealed her white, even
teeth. The ice seemed to be broken by his remark, and soon the pair
were chatting away and rivalling the skipper and Helena, who were
conversing most earnestly.

They talked about Eastville, and Donald told of his renting a house
for his mother, and how he hoped to be leaving Halifax that week to
bring her out to Canada. Ruth nodded interestedly and asked many
questions, but not once during her conversation did she address him as
"Donald," and the youth puzzled his brains to account for this sudden
formality. Was she trying to keep their intimacy upon the plane of
"merely friends and nothing more"? Donald worried.

"Do you intend to remain at the fishing?" she asked. Something in the
tone of her voice lent moment to the question.

"Yes!" replied the other. "I'm in it now, and I intend to make it my
work. I like the life. It's full of interest and every day brings
something new. Your fishermen are splendid chaps and dandy shipmates,
and these fishing schooners are wonderful vessels--comfortable and
seaworthy. I hope I shall be skipper of one by the time I'm
twenty-one."

"It's a hard life and a dangerous life though," said the girl, with a
far-away look in her blue eyes. "It must be awful to be a fisherman's
wife. In those terrible winter gales ... a lot of fishermen are
drowned. Just think what might have happened on Juddy's boat if that
collision had occurred at night and you were all in bed. A good many
of you would have been drowned. We've had accidents of that sort
before in Eastville ships and I know--" She shuddered half-fearfully.

"You can get drowned on other craft besides fishermen," observed
Donald. "I'll bet there are as many people killed in Halifax in a year
as there are drownings from vessels on the Banks. There's a good many
fishermen out there at times--Lunenburg has twenty-five hundred men in
her fleet alone--and look at the crowds from Gloucester, Boston,
Newfoundland, France and other places." He regarded her intently and
gave his creeping cuffs another upward hitch.

"That may be so, Mr. McKenzie," said Ruth decidedly, "but if the
fishermen do not worry, their women do. I'd go crazy if I had a
husband out at sea in those fogs and cyclones. It's bad enough to have
Juddy in that risky, messy business, but a husband--?" She closed her
eyes for a moment, while Donald stared at her with a strange tremor in
his breast. It was as though he had received a blow and the
impressions left by her words were painful. If he were to be at all
favored by Ruth's heart and hand, it was evident that he would have to
change his profession, unless she changed her views.

They chatted on other subjects for a while and McKenzie noticed that
his companion was glancing every now and again at the ormolu clock on
the mantel, and when she answered his questions she seemed abstracted
and her remarks were terse and spoken in a manner which betokened that
she was forcing the conversation. A ring came at the door-bell, and as
the maid pattered down the hall to answer it, Ruth sat up in her chair
and straightened out her frock. "She's expecting someone," mentally
surmised McKenzie, and his spirits dropped a shade when he heard a
male voice speaking to the maid. Helena looked over at Ruth with a
knowing smile. "That's Walter, I guess!" she whispered, and Miss
Nickerson colored a trifle and looked expectantly at the door of the
room.

The male voice spoke in the hall. "Miss Nickahson's in the pawloh,
eh?" and they all rose as a young man about twenty entered the room.
He was an athletic-looking fellow, dressed in the height of fashion,
and he wore a striped tie and clothes of a cut much affected by
college students. His sandy hair was long and parted in the middle; he
had blue eyes, teeth with much gold filling in them, and a face which
was clear-skinned, regular and good-looking. Smiling, he advanced to
Miss Nickerson and extended a white, well-manicured hand. "Good
evening, Ruth," he said breezily, "and how do I find you to-night?"
The girl took his hand and murmured something while the color deepened
in her cheeks. The visitor then wheeled and greeted Helena, who
introduced Judson and Donald. "I'm happy to meet you, Captain! How do,
McKenzie!" he drawled in the stilted English of certain Haligonians
who endeavor to ape the style and accent of the Naval Dock-yard and
Garrison fops. The skipper gave him a sharp, keen, appraising glance
and Donald could note a hostile light in Judson's eyes.

Mr. Walter Moodey strode lightly across the room and, drawing a chair
with him, sat down alongside Miss Nickerson. After pulling up his
immaculately creased pants and revealing a fancy colored sock above
sharp-toed shoes, he leaned towards the girl in a cool, self-possessed
manner. "Have you rested up since the dawnce the otha' night?" And the
two were soon engaged in bubbling reminiscences, while Donald sat
quiet and with a complacent look on his face which did not accord with
the feeling in his breast. At last, Ruth, conscious of her neglect,
turned to him with an effort to include him in the conversation. "Mr.
McKenzie is going over to Scotland this week to bring his mother out
to Canada," she said. "Now, isn't he a good boy?"

Mr. Moodey endeavored to look interested. His keen eyes rambled over
Donald's clothes, and conscious of the scrutiny, McKenzie squirmed in
his chair and hitched his sleeves up. "Ah, really!" He pronounced it
"rully." "Going ovah in the _Sardonia_, Mistah? She sails for Glasgow
this week." Donald gave him a clear-eyed gaze. "I don't know what ship
I'm going on," he answered.

"You haven't booked your passage yet? Bettah hurry--all the ships are
full--"

"Are you going as a passenger?" queried Ruth absently.

McKenzie reddened slightly. "No! I'm shipping before the mast if I can
get a chance," he answered calmly.

Moodey's eyebrows went up. "Oh!" He pronounced it "Ow!" "I see! You're
a sailoh then I take it?"

"I'm a fisherman," said Donald bluntly. Judson on the sofa with Helena
was listening intently while carrying on a tête-à-tête with his fair
companion.

"Oh, really!" The eyebrows went up still further and McKenzie thought
Mr. Moodey was about to hold his nose. His manicured fingers did lift
towards his face, but he changed his mind and pulled a silk
handkerchief out of his sleeve and carefully smoothed his hair back
from his forehead. "You ketch cods and kippahs and all that sort of
thing, do you? Out on the Banks, eh? It must be an awfully jolly life
pulling nets all day long--makes one think of the Apostles, eh,
what?--but it's such a messy, smelly one, I should imagine, eh?"

"We don't pull nets," said Donald a mite aggressively. "We use hooks
and lines."

"Quite so! Quite so!" returned Moodey unabashed. "I forgot ... cods.
Good money in cods, McKenzie?" There was a tone in his voice that
Donald did not like, nor Judson either. The latter had been listening
to the conversation and he wheeled around from Helena and observed in
a steely significant voice, "You sh'd know that, Moodey. Your old
gran'pop made all his little whack on the fishflakes. Many a cod the
ol' man split, salted an' turned on the flakes himself, and a terror
to bargain was the same Salt Hake Moodey. Useter cut th' whiskers off
the hakes an' try an' pass 'em off as cod-fish--" Both Moodey and Ruth
were fidgetting, and Helena, sensing something, rose and beckoned to
Donald. "Come on, Don! Let's have some music."

They spent some time at the piano playing and singing together. Mr.
Moodey exhibited some surprise at McKenzie's talents at first, but
latterly slid back in his chair with an air of boredom. They were
singing old songs and Walter did not care much for them, though Ruth
was listening with appreciation, and several times when he started to
speak, she held up her hand for silence.

"I say, old chap," he said to Donald at the conclusion of a piece,
"cawn't you give us something with a little life to it? That old
fire-side and heart-throb stuff is awfully depressing, don't y' know?
Give us some musical comedy or light opera stuff--but, I don't suppose
you know anything in that line?" The slight, and possibly
unintentional, sarcastic note in his voice when he spoke the last
words annoyed Donald. He would show this Halifax fop that a fisherman
wasn't necessarily a creature without culture or education, and when
it came down to playing and singing snatches from musical comedies or
operas--Huh! he had possibly seen and heard more of them in Glasgow
than Moodey ever knew existed.

"What'll you have? What do you know?" queried Donald calmly, without
turning from the piano. "_Florodora?_ _San Toy?_ _The Geisha?_
_Mikado?_ _The Cingalee?_ _Pinafore?_"

Walter's expressive eyebrows went up. "Oh, you do know something in
that line? How odd. Let's see--! Give us that snappy thing from
_Pinafore_! It's called 'Tell me, pretty maiden, are there any more at
home like you?'" A snort of disgust was barely stifled by Judson, and
without a smile on his face, Donald remarked, "That's from
_Florodora_!" And he played the song from memory while Helena sang.
For a while he remained at the piano running off several well-known
pieces, and occasionally he carolled the words. He was playing and
singing for a purpose. He wanted to show Mr. Moodey--whom he looked
upon as a rival for the affections of Ruth Nickerson--that he was
quite at home in the culture that was supposed to be Mr. Moodey's, and
he also wanted to impress Ruth that Mr. Moodey had nothing on him when
it came to social accomplishments. Were it not for the wretched
clothes he was wearing and which had taken a lot of his self-assurance
away from him, he could have crossed swords with the other youth in
anything.

Ruth was warming up to him again, and several times she asked him to
sing and play pieces which she selected from Helena's music cabinet,
and Donald played them with a great deal of pleasure. Mr. Moodey's
star was going down a little and he knew it, and Donald knew it. Both
youths were carrying on a subtle duel of wits which the girls were not
aware of, though Judson, keen judge of human nature that he was,
reclined on the sofa lazily and mentally seconded and applauded his
young protégé.

When Donald had played a number of pieces--purposely working in
snatches from "Il Trovatore," the sextette from "Lucia" and other
well-known airs popular among people who appreciate real music--Ruth
called to him. "Come over and have a rest, Donald," she said sweetly.
"You've been doing the lion's share of the entertaining and we've
enjoyed it immensely. I cannot understand how you can play so well
from memory and with such little practice, and it is too bad that your
talents should be lost to your friends by your going off to sea for
the best part of your life." She gave him an admiring glance from her
blue eyes and McKenzie felt very happy. His little bit of "swank" was
evidently worth the effort, for she had called him by his first name
again, and his youthful heart fluttered. Moodey was quick to note the
familiar appellation too, and he felt that he must do something to
pull his stock up to par.

"Er--Ruth," he said. "You're coming down to the game to-morrow
afternoon, aren't you? We're playing Acadiaville for the championship
and it'll be a tough game to-morrow afternoon, aren't you? We're
playing ball, McKenzie?"

"I used to play a bit while at school in Scotland."

"Rugby?"

"No! Soccer--Association."

"Oh," Walter gave a half-sneer. "That's a kid's game. We play Rugby."

Miss Nickerson interposed. "You know, Donald, Mr. Moodey here is a
great athlete. He is captain of the college team and immensely popular
here in Halifax. He is what they call a 'grid-iron hero'."

"A grid-iron?" The term puzzled Donald. "That's what they use in
cooking. Nothing to do with eating, has it?"

Ruth laughed and Moodey looked dark. "A grid-iron," he explained,
frostily, "is a slang term for a football ground. It is marked out in
squares like a grid-iron." And as Ruth was still laughing, he gave
Donald a look which gave him a hint of the "hero's" feelings towards
him.

Mr. Moodey was now launched into a subject in which he could shine,
and he commanded Ruth's attention for several minutes telling her of
past games, the prospects for the morrow, and a good deal of his talk
centered around his own personal prowess. "I'm in great shape now," he
observed. "I've trained down until I'm as hard as nails." He raised
his right arm and flexed his biceps. "Feel that, Ruth! Hard, isn't
it?" Ruth felt. "Oh, it certainly is hard!" she exclaimed. "You must
be strong, Walter. Just feel his muscle, Donald!" There was a merry
twinkle in her eye when she made the request. Donald, feeling rather
nauseated at Moodey's brag, gave the muscle a squeeze with his fingers
which caused Walter to wince a trifle. A sailor's grip, with fingers
toughened by canvas clawing and rope hauling, is not to be despised,
and McKenzie purposely gave the "grid-iron hero" a hard nip and Moodey
felt that he would like to get McKenzie where he could hit him for it.

Totally unconscious of the veiled hostility between the two, Ruth
chattered away, addressing her talk to both. When Donald spoke to
Moodey he was icily polite; when Moodey passed remarks to Donald, they
were thinly sarcastic and he, on occasions, introduced a nasty trick
of imitating McKenzie's slightly Scotch accent. Had the circumstances
been otherwise, Donald would not have taken any notice, but when these
conversational shots occurred, the young sailor felt like giving the
college man something more painful than the retort courteous. With the
two youths playing a dual role, the evening passed until Helena, who
had been holding an earnest colloquy with the skipper, cried out, "Did
you know that, Ruthie? Judson tells me that Donald saved his life when
the steamer ran them down. They were in the water for an hour." Ruth's
fine eyes flashed to Donald's face and there was an expression of
surprise and fear in their blue depths. He flushed and squirmed on his
chair and shot the creeping sleeves up again as Moodey drawled, with
another eye-brow raising, "Oh, really!"

"He sure did," vouchsafed Judson. "If it wasn't for him I wouldn't be
here now. You can thank him, Ruth, that your dear brother is not
feeding the fish on Quero Bank this night, for I was nearly a goner."

The girl glanced from McKenzie to her brother with a strange look on
her face. "I--I didn't know there was anything like this in your
accident," she said quiveringly. "I--I thought you were all picked up
in your dories a few minutes after the collision. That's what you
said, Juddy. You said it was nothing--"

"Juddy evidently didn't tell you the whole story," interrupted Helena.
"He has just been telling me how Donald swam about in the sea and
found him just as he was going under, and held him up and eventually
got him over to a spar and upon it. They were both thrown into the sea
by the steamer's bow and had a dreadfully narrow escape."

Ruth remained speechless for a moment, as if trying to comprehend it
all, then she gave McKenzie a most expressive glance--a look of
unspoken thankfulness--and she leaned forward and murmured softly to
him, "I don't know what to say, Donald, but--we'll talk about it
again." And the youth blushed still redder, felt hot, and to cover his
confusion, patted the recalcitrant coat collar into place.

Mr. Moodey, after a period of silence, cleared his throat. "You're a
swimmah, McKenzie?" he enquired.

Donald nodded. "I can swim a little."

"Jolly useful thing to know," continued the other, "specially if one's
a fisherman. They're always getting spilled out of their boats. I do
some swimming myself. It is one of the sports I pride myself on. Just
won this trinket the otha day for swimming out at the Nor'west Arm."
He took a watch-fob out of his pocket and handed it to Donald. It was
a gold medallion--a first prize for a half-mile contest--and Donald
knew enough about swimming to give Moodey credit for being an athlete
of distinction. "That's very nice," he remarked, handing the fob back.
"I've done a little racing when I was at school. Y'know, in Glasgow
schools swimming is compulsory, and I rather liked it." Modestly, he
made no mention of having won the Glasgow Amateur Swimming Shield for
schoolboys under 14 years of age.

After Helena's revelation, Moodey became quite cordial. He realized
that McKenzie was a superior sort of a fellow in spite of his vocation
and his frightful taste in clothes, and he dropped his patronizing and
sarcastic attitude towards him. Besides, he found in McKenzie a
foe-man worthy of his steel and he was quick to assume that any
baiting of the Scotch lad would lose him Ruth's friendship. It was
evident that this McKenzie chap had a strong stand-in with the
Nickersons and Helena Stuart, and an exhibition of antipathy would
probably end in Mr. Moodey being the loser. With the change in both
Ruth's and Moodey's attitude towards him, Donald found himself
spending the most enjoyable period of the evening.

After having some cake and coffee, the men rose to depart. Moodey took
his leave first--saying that he was in training and would have to get
to bed early for the game on the morrow--and he shook hands quite
cordially with Donald. "Try and get around to the game to-morrow
afternoon, old chap," he said, "and if you're going to be in Halifax
for a few days, why we might go over to the Arm and have a swim
togethaw." And after saying to the girls that he would look for them
in the grand stand--front row--next afternoon, he said "Good-night!"
and departed.

When McKenzie was leaving, Ruth took him to one side. "It was lovely
of you to come," she said sweetly, giving him a squeeze of the hand
and a glance from her blue eyes which set his heart in a whirl. "And
you've been so nice and obliging in playing and singing for us. And,
moreover, we Nickersons are very much in your debt for what you
did ... out on the Banks." Donald made a deprecatory gesture. "It was
nothing. I am a good swimmer," he murmured happily.

"If you are going to be in town to-morrow, Donald," said Helena, "you
must come up and have tea with us. Judson is coming, too." And when
Ruth echoed the invitation, Donald accepted with delight.

At their hotel that night, Judson seemed in great spirits. He and
Helena had had a wonderful evening together, and he was feeling very
happy. He whistled and hummed a song to himself as he undressed for
bed, and Donald knew things were going well with him. McKenzie was in
a similarly joyous mood. He felt that he had left Ruth on an extremely
good footing and Moodey ceased to worry him, and when Judson remarked
from the depths of his blankets, "I'd like to have that Moodey pup in
my watch aboard a wind-jammer for a spell, I'd give that haw-hawing
specimen of the cod-fish aristocracy a hot time, by Jupiter! I'd
harden his muscles up, by Jingo! Hear him talk as though he didn't
know what a codfish was ... and his old gran'pop made a fortune out of
the codfish he jewed aout of the poor devils of fishermen up the shore
and on the Gaspe coast. Huh! Him and his 'kippahs' and his 'pulling
nets all day long'--"

McKenzie laughed. "Oh, he's all right. He's a decent sort of a chap.
It's just his manner and the way he has been brought up."

Next morning he went down to the Shipping Master's office to see about
getting signed on in a steamer for Glasgow. The captain of a ship was
in the place at the time, and when McKenzie asked the official if he
was looking for any men to a British port, the ship-master turned and
spoke. "You looking for a ship?" Donald nodded. "Yes, sir! I'd like to
ship for the run to Glasgow, or, failing that, to any British port."

The other looked him over critically. "I'm looking for a hand--an able
seaman--and I'm Glasgow bound. Ever been to sea before?"

"Yes, sir!"

"Show me your discharges."

"Haven't got any," said Donald, slightly flustered.

"What ships were you serving in?"

"I made a voyage from the Old Country to the Pacific Coast in a
barque, and from Victoria, B.C., to Halifax in a schooner. I've been
fishing on a Banker for the past four months."

The captain looked at him narrowly. "You're Scotch, eh? What barque
were you in, and what did you do aboard her?"

"Never mind the name of the ship, sir, but I was serving my time--"

The other grunted. "Huh! Runaway apprentice, I guess, eh?"

Donald laughed, and after a pause he said, "The skipper of the
schooner I came around the Horn in is in Halifax now. He'll vouch for
me."

The Shipping Master looked over the desk. "Was that the _Helen
Starbuck_?"

"Yes, sir!"

The official smiled and observed to the captain, "I reckon, Cap'en,
that a lad that has made a voyage from the Coast to Halifax in a
ninety-five-ton schooner is a sailor."

The master nodded. "Can you steer?"

"Of course, but sail only."

"We-e-ell," the captain gave him a searching glance, "I guess you'll
do. You look bright. I'll sign you as an A.B. How's that?" McKenzie
replied in acceptance.

"Alright, Mister, sign him up!" Then to Donald he said, "Get your
clothes and get down aboard the ship right away. We're ready to sail.
Hurry now."

Donald had only time to run to his hotel, collect his sea kit and pay
the bill. Judson was out, but he scribbled a note to him and left it
on the dressing table. "Confound it!" he muttered, as he walked down
to the dock. "I didn't expect to get hustled out like this. And I was
looking forward so much to that tea to-night. Now it's all off and I
haven't even got a chance to telephone her. Hang the luck!"

That evening he was eating his tea in the starboard fo'c'sle of a big
freighter, in company with an all-nation gang of deck-hands, and the
place was swinging to the roll of the off-shore swell, while the
shores of Nova Scotia were fading away in the dim distance astern as
the propeller drove the steamer for Glasgow and his mother.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Donald was talking. "And, Mother, I've got the house and everything
all ready for you. All you've got to do is step into it. It's a pretty
little place up on a hill overlooking the harbor. Of course, it isn't
anything like our old home in Maxwell Park, but it'll do until I can
save some money to build another--"

Mrs. McKenzie, looking just a shade older, but there were little lines
around the eyes and mouth which told a story not of Time's making,
gazed lovingly at her sea-bronzed son. How he had grown! And how
strong and handsome he was! The sight of him revived memories ... he
reminded her of him who went out to Eternity in the maw of a big
Atlantic comber not so many years ago. She realized that the
pale-faced, sensitive little chap of two years ago had vanished, and
in his place was a strapping, ruddy-visaged youth who was almost a
man. His dark eyes flashed with the fire of life and the enjoyment of
it, and there was a timbre in his voice which expressed confidence,
fearlessness, and the ability to command if necessary. The sea had
worked wonders in him. It had given her a new son, and her heart
filled with pride at the capable, possessive manner in which he
sketched out her future with him. She drew his face down to hers and
kissed him on the cheek. "Anywhere with you, my bonny, will be home.
Be it cot or palace, it will be yours, Don, and it's proud I'll be to
keep it neat and sweet for my laddie."

Donald laughed happily. "Mother, do you remember when the
_Kelvinhaugh_ towed out? I saw you standing at the ferry slip by
Shearer's Yard that morning. My, but I was feeling miserable then! I
was ready to run away if I could."

The mother rose and opened a drawer. They were seated in her room at
the Home for the Aged, and Donald had just arrived from Glasgow but an
hour before. "Here's a clipping from a paper I saved for you," she
said. "It's about the _Kelvinhaugh_, and many's the prayer I've made
in thankfulness." Donald took the piece of newspaper, read it, and
whistled. It ran--a terse, unsentimental record of disaster:--

     LOSS OF A GLASGOW BARQUE.

     SYDNEY, N.S.W., Jan. 15:--The ship _Castor_ arrived here to-day
     from Chemainus, B.C., and reports passing a large quantity of
     wreckage in lat. 31 degrees North, long. 152 degrees West,
     which seems to prove the loss at sea of the Glasgow four mast
     barque, _Kelvinhaugh_. The wreckage consisted of lumber, yards
     and upper masts, and a damaged life-boat bore the name
     _KELVINHAUGH--GLASGOW_. The master of the _Castor_ is of the
     opinion that the barque foundered by capsizing in a squall. The
     ill-fated vessel carried a crew of twenty-five men, most of
     whom were signed on in Vancouver, B.C., from which port she
     loaded lumber for Sydney, N.S.W. She was a new vessel of 2,500
     tons, commanded by William Muirhead of 972 Glenburn Road,
     Glasgow, and owned by D. McKenzie & Co., Glasgow.

He laid the clipping down and looked into space. "So she went ... just
as Nickerson said she would. We're lucky ... darned lucky!" The mother
nodded as he spoke his thoughts aloud. "You don't know how thankful I
was that you had left that ship when I read that," she said. "Just
think ... if you had remained in her. It would have been dreadful!"

Donald slipped his arm around her shoulders and laughed. "I'm not born
to be drowned, Mother," he said. "Now tell me, what do you know about
that lovely uncle of mine? Is he dead, knighted, in jail, or what?"

Mrs. McKenzie gave a contemptuous grimace as she replied, "The wicked
ever prosper, Donald. He seems to be getting along wonderfully. I see
his name in the papers quite often, and he is reputed to be one of the
wealthiest men in Glasgow. He has a whole fleet of tramp steamers
now--the Dun Line--"

"It's well named," interrupted Donald grimly. "He should spell it
D-O-N-E--for it has been by _doing_ poor sailors and insurance
companies and others that he has made progress. I wonder what his
object was in trying to 'do' me? The fellow apparently meant to have
me put out of the way."

"I haven't the faintest idea, sonny-boy. I thought possibly it might
be something in connection with the Dunsany title and estate, but I
can't, for the life of me, see how you would have anything to do with
it. Sir Alastair died last year and his son, Roderick, inherited the
title and the property. I don't know much about him, except what I've
heard in various ways. He's a professional man of some kind, unmarried
and in poor health, and he spends most of his time in England. Your
Uncle David would claim the title should anything happen to Roderick,
and when David passed on, it would go to his son--young Alastair.
About the only decent trait in that man is the affection he seems to
have for that boy--so I've been told--and I only hope, some day, that
he is punished through his son for what he has done to you--" The
fierce spirit of the Highlander flamed in her eyes.

"Hush! hush! Mater dear, don't talk like that," Donald said, patting
her hands. "What do we need to care for him now? Let him slip away as
a bad memory. There'll come a time when he'll have to pay the price,
but we needn't be the ones to present the bill. Now, Mater, we'll go
up to Glasgow to-morrow and book passage for Halifax. I have reserved
two second cabin berths in the _Ontarian_, sailing Saturday." He
paused and gave her a keen scrutiny. "Bye-the-bye, Mother," he asked
gravely, "what made you use the passage-money I sent you? I mean,
what caused you to use it after leaving the Hydro?"

She tried to evade the question, but he insisted, and after much
coaxing she told the story. Dismissed suddenly and without a reference
from the Ross Bay Hydropathic, she had tried for place after place,
until she was forced to accept a position as waitress in a workman's
coffee room. "Good God!" ejaculated Donald. "In a workman's coffee
room? A waitress...?" Frightful thoughts went through his mind and his
mother seemed to divine them. "No, dearie, it wasn't so bad as you
think. The poor are good to the poor. I was never insulted or
abused ... nor heard bad language, except when a man was drunk." She
paused, then continued her tale. "It was very hard work, early and
late, and I took sick. I was ill for six or eight weeks and had to
draw on the money you sent me. I was down to the last shilling when a
kind lady, who had been a patient at the Ross Hydro, met me and got me
the position of night matron in this home."

Donald listened quietly, but his knuckles showed white on the tan of
his clenched hands, and there was an ominous glint in his eyes. "I'd
like to tear the heart out of him!" he growled fiercely, but the
mother soothed him. "Let's forget it all, sonny-dear, and talk of
Canada. I have ten pounds saved up. Will I need to buy heavy clothes
for the cold winters there? They tell me it's all frozen up for half
the year in Canada."

The vindictive glint in the youth's eyes faded away and he laughed
heartily. "Why, Mater, where did you get that yarn? I'll bet you won't
feel the cold as much there in winter as you do here. It was warm
enough when I left, goodness knows! What's good for winter here is
good enough for Nova Scotia. Now, we'll book second cabin passages
out, and for once I'll go as a passenger and find out what it feels
like to loaf around at sea."

After a stay of just three days in Glasgow, during which time McKenzie
called on Mrs. McGlashan and gave her news of her son, the two sailed
for Halifax. After an uneventful voyage, they arrived in the old
Canadian city by the sea on a fine October day, and Donald telephoned
the Nickersons at Eastville Harbor. Judson answered the call. "I'll
meet you at the boat, Donald," he said over the long distance wire,
"and I'll have a load of wood up to your shack, the stove lit, the
kittle on and grub in the locker. I'm tickled to death you're back,
and I've got a fine little brig for you to second mate in a couple of
weeks. And, bye-the-bye, Donny-boy"--he chuckled into the
instrument--"Ira Burton's landed his fish an' we've skinned him hands
daown. He jest came short of aour trip by ten quintals. It's the talk
of the taown, boy, and he's riproarin' sore abaout it. He lost a lot
of time at the Madaleens and he struck a bad breeze on the Banks and
lost an anchor and hawser, some of his dories and a pile o' gear. It's
a rare joke, but I ain't agoin' to take his money. He struck hard luck
all through. An' say, Donald, you'll find Ruth daown home here, but
she's got that codfish aristocrat with her. I've a notion to shanghai
him to the West Indies--Oh, gorry! they're here. I must knock off. So
long, Donny-me-lad! See you in the morning!"

So Moodey was down at Eastville! Donald was not very pleased at the
news, but then, a girl might have men friends without anything serious
being the intention. He was jealous, he said to himself, and Ruth was
not tied to him. He had neither a proprietory interest nor a monopoly
of her company, and he could not expect her to avoid the society of
all men-folk but Donald McKenzie. Thus cogitating, he laughed the
matter away, and called up Helena Stuart. "My! Donald, but I'm glad
you're back," she said after the first greetings. "And your mother is
with you? Bring her up to the house this afternoon and stay until your
boat leaves for Eastville. Mother will be delighted. Do come now!
Don't forget! Au revoir!"

Before going to the Stuarts, Mrs. McKenzie looked her son over
critically. He was wearing the much-detested suit, but his mother had
overhauled it and shortened the hated sleeves. It did not look good on
him, however, and the mother knew he disliked it. "Don," she
suggested, "I think you could afford to buy another suit. I want to
see you looking nice. Don't you think you could get one ready made to
put on before going up to your friend's house?"

Donald, with true Scotch canniness, counted his money. "I think I can,
Mater. I've got twenty-five dollars I can spend--some for you and some
for me. Let's go shopping!"

When he stepped into the Stuart parlor that afternoon, he was attired
in a neat grey tweed which really fitted his slim, well set-up figure.
Fifteen dollars could accomplish wonders! When Helena saw him, she
stepped back in surprise. "I really didn't know you," she cried, with
a smile of admiration on her pretty face. "You don't look a bit
like--like--what will I say?"

"Like a fisherman," volunteered Donald, laughing at her evident
confusion. "That's what you wanted to say, but you didn't like to say
it for fear of offending." She came close to him and whispered softly,
"If Ruth were to see you now, she'd fall in love with you right off!"
And McKenzie blushed furiously.

When his mother was busily engaged in conversation with Mrs. Stuart,
Donald got Helena away to a corner. He wanted to find out something,
and he thought Helena might tell him. "Helena," he said quietly, "I
look upon you as one of my best friends, and I want you to tell me if
Ruth really cares for Mr. Moodey?"

The girl looked up at him quickly with a smile in her dark eyes, but
when she saw the earnest look on his face, she became serious. "I--I
really don't know, Donald," she answered. "He has been going around
with her a great deal and she appears to be fond of him. He belongs to
a good family here in Halifax and his people are well off. He is
studying law at the College and is very popular with a certain set
here--quite an athlete and a social star--and he simply dances
attendance on Ruth when she is here."

Donald nodded gloomily. "Does Ruth think anything of me, Helena?"

"She thinks a great deal of you," replied his companion, "and often
talks about you. She thinks you are very clever and very brave, but I
don't think she likes your profession. You see, Ruth is a girl who has
always had everything she wanted. Her parents and her brothers have
spoiled her. I think she is afraid you'd never earn enough to give her
what she has been used to, and she detests the idea of marrying a
seafaring man. She has often remarked that she would never be a
sailor's wife."

McKenzie smiled rather bitterly. "You know, Helena, I'm very much
struck with Ruth. It's awfully foolish of me to be talking like this
to you, I know, but ... I want to get my bearings. If Moodey is the
favored man ... why, I'll withdraw. But, you know, Helena, I'm Scotch,
and I wouldn't withdraw unless I had absolutely no chance with her.
You say she thinks something of me? If she does, I'll stick around and
give Moodey a run for it, even though I am but a fisherman. Within a
few years I hope to be the best fisherman out of Nova Scotia. I have
no money, but money isn't everything."

Helena slipped her hand into his and gave it a warm squeeze. "That's
the way I like to hear you talk," she said encouragingly. "You just
stick to it. You and Ruth are very young yet--I'm taking advantage of
my two or three years' seniority to speak thus--and I think you have
plenty of time ahead of you. Ruth is a very dear sweet girl and I
really think she is too good for Walter Moodey--not that he isn't a
nice sort of boy, but I think he's too conceited. You must work hard
to get ahead in your vocation, and keep paying attentions to Ruth,
even though Walter is around."

"You'll keep this all a secret?" asked Donald shyly. "It's awfully
silly of me to talk to you like this." Helena laughed. How seriously
this eighteen-year-old boy talked! She admired his unsophisticated
charm, and wondered how this young fellow who had travelled and seen
so much could be so serious in his love and withal so boyish in his
confidences and child-like in his fears. Eighteen is early to talk of
love, yet at seventeen and eighteen love is blossoming into flower and
the newly-opened buds are often more beautiful than the mature bloom.
Besides, this lad had outgrown youth. He was a man. When most lads of
his age were still callow youths, with youthful thoughts and actions,
he was doing a man's work, living with men and thinking with men and
earning a man's pay. His life for the past two years had been fraught
with experiences which men of maturer years in shore occupations would
consider as adventures sufficiently notable to be classed as
outstanding events in a lifetime. The sea may keep the heart young,
but it ages mind and body, and the sailor of eighteen is the equal in
confidence, initiative and ability of land-living males twice older in
years. The midshipman of sixteen is often in command of men in
hazardous expeditions, and many a sailor youth in his teens has sailed
and navigated ships to all parts of the globe. Thus Helena reasoned,
and she regarded Donald's confidences as being the heart secrets of a
clear-minded, upright man, and not as the love-sick fears and fancies
of a susceptible boy.

When mother and son left the Stuart home for the Eastville packet
steamer, Helena whispered to Don in parting, "We are charmed with your
mother. She is a most delightful lady and you must take good care of
her, and ... keep up your attentions to our mutual friend. 'Faint
heart' ... you know. Au revoir!"

Eastville greeted the McKenzies next morning in most auspicious
weather, with a blue sky, smooth sea, and clear autumn sunshine, and
as they passed inside the Capes, Donald pointed out the various
landmarks. "And there's the spot, Mater, where we'll build our house
later on ... in that hollow among the spruce trees just back of the
head-land. You get a magnificent view of the sea and harbor from
there, and the hollow faces the south and is sheltered from the cold
winds. The sun shines there all day long ... it's a lovely spot." And
he rambled on, until at last they were on the wharf and shaking hands
with Judson Nickerson.

"Come along up to the house, Mrs. McKenzie," he said cordially. "We'll
have breakfast there. Your trunks will be sent up to your own
place--don't worry about them. I'm glad to see you both safely landed
here." And he chattered away in an effort to make both feel that they
were at home and among friends.

Breakfast at the Nickerson home that morning was an event, and Janet
McKenzie was most cordially received. The old ship-builder's voice
boomed in welcome, and his keen eyes beamed hospitably through his
steel-rimmed glasses, and Mrs. Nickerson and Ruth charmed the mother
with their courtesy and kindness. They had been up to the cottage the
day before and had fixed it all ready for occupancy, and Jud had piled
the wood-shed with kindling and stove-wood. And the breakfast itself
was a thing to be remembered. Corn meal porridge and hot corn cake,
fried fresh mackerel and bacon strips and hash brown potatoes,
new-baked biscuits, honey, stewed blueberries and delicious coffee--a
typical Down-east matutinal meal! Mrs. McKenzie was delighted with
everything, and with a heart aglow with happiness, confided to her
son, "I'm sure I'll love this place. Your friends are so kind. What
lovely people they are. I'm very, very happy, Donald-laddie, now that
I have a home and you!"

And when he took his mother up to the cottage on the hill--Shelter
Harbor--that was a joyous occasion. "This is our little place, Mater,"
he said proudly as they walked, arm in arm, up the front path. "It's
small, but it's cosy." He opened the door and ushered her in, and when
she surveyed the clean and homey interior, he waited, almost
breathlessly for her comments. From room to room they went, and when
every part of the place had been examined, Mrs. McKenzie sat down in a
chair and with eyes glowing, said with excess of happiness in her
voice, "My! ... it's just lovely, Donny-dear! Just perfect!" And
Donald felt, with her pronouncement, that life was indeed sweet and
everything was worth while. "Of course, Mater, it isn't anything like
our old villa in Glasgow, but it's not too bad," he went on. "Here's
the stove for heating the place--you'll have to get used to these
Canadian heaters--and the pump is just at the kitchen door. It'll be a
little hard for you here while I'm at sea, as you'll have to get your
wood out of the shed and your water from the pump--"

The mother laughed. "And you think that is a hardship? Why, my dear
child, I was brought up on a farm and I had to do a great deal harder
work than that. I cleaned stables, planted and pulled potatoes in the
fields, milked cows, and gathered hay and oats and stacked them. I was
born a poor country girl and know what work is. Don't you worry about
me in this cosy little place. It's paradise compared with what I've
had to do." By these admissions, Janet McKenzie showed that she had
profited by misfortune and the old arrogance and "high-falutin'" ideas
of palmier days had passed away. She, too, had gone through the mill
and come out ground!

The Nickersons had invited them to stay with them for a day or two,
but Janet courteously declined. She was eager to get into her own
home, and within a half-hour of her entry, she had the kitchen stove
alight, the kettle on, and a dinner under way, and Donald busied
himself stacking up fire-wood in the wood-box behind the stove. "We
must have some chickens," observed the mother as she peeled potatoes,
"and next spring I'll plant a vegetable garden so that we can have our
own potatoes, onions, cabbages and such. Maybe, later on, we can buy a
cow, and I'll make butter and I'll be able to give you real cream, and
butter made with my own hands."

Donald made a negative gesture. "That's very nice, Mater, but a cow
means hard work for you. I don't want you to slave--"

His mother gave a sniff of pretended indignation. "What have I got to
do in this little place when you are away? Do you think I can't do the
work. I'm not going to act the lady and sit with my hands in my lap
all the time, Donny-dear! We'll get the chickens, the garden and the
cow, and I'll show you I know all about milking and butter-making. I
used to be a dairy-maid, and a good dairy-maid, too. My butter won a
prize at a fair one year." And she smiled happily, when Donald said,
"Alright, Mater, you'll have your chickens, your garden and your cow,
and I'll be able to judge if your butter is all that you say it'll
be."

Judson came up in the afternoon. He was in working clothes and sat
down in the kitchen. "I don't want to rush you, Don, but I guess you
want to git to work and earn some money. I'm going skipper of that
little brig down to the wharf there loading dried fish and lumber for
Havana, and I want to git her sails bent and her gear overhauled. I'm
holding the second mate's berth open for you. D'ye s'pose you can
start right in naow and bear a hand? You might as well be doing
something and earn a dollar. What d'ye say?"

"I'll be with you in ten minutes, Skipper," answered Don eagerly. "I'm
anxious to get to work. A brig you say? I'll have to remember my
square-rig sailorizing for her. Bye-the-bye, did you know the
_Kelvinhaugh_ is gone? Here's the newspaper report."

Judson read it and there was no surprise on his face. "I knew it," he
said. "She was too heavily sparred and unwieldy for such a small crew,
and I cal'late she got caught in a squall with her kites up and rolled
over. I guess old Muirhead was full, too.... Oh, well, I'm not sorry I
skipped aout of her. She was a barge if there ever was one, and I'm
sorry for the poor devils that shipped in her." And with that, he
dismissed the matter.

The brig was a Nova Scotia product of about three hundred and fifty
tons, and called the _Queen's County_. She was a smart little craft
and by the lines of her, promised to be a fast sailer. Her hull was
painted white, also the houses and the insides of the bulwarks. The
trunk cabin aft contained comfortable rooms for three officers and a
cook-steward, and for'ard, a house was built partly into a short
topgallant forecastle, and this contained accommodations for eight
hands. The second mate was supposed to act as boatswain also, and this
was to be Donald's job.

She had two masts, both square-rigged, and carried double-topsail
yards, single topgallants and royals. The masts and yards were of wood
and scraped and greased. The blocks, mast-heads, yard-arms and trucks
were painted white, and her cleanliness, bright wood, and white paint
proclaimed her a typical "Bluenose" packet--a lazy sailor's nightmare.

"I see where there's a lot of sand-and-canvas work aboard this little
craft," remarked Donald. "I hope we get a crew worth while."

"Oh, they'll all be home fellers," said the skipper. "You and I and
the mate and McGlashan will live aft, but the grub'll be the same for
all hands. There'll be ten of us to handle her, and that's a good
crowd for this hooker in any weather."

The _Queen's County_ was partly owned by an old Eastville captain who
only went to sea in the summer, and she plied almost exclusively in
the West Indian trade between Eastville and the Island ports. Dried
fish and lumber out, and molasses to Halifax, home, constituted her
cargoes. It was an ideal trade for winter, and Donald looked forward
to voyaging in the little brig with a great deal of pleasure.

While he was aloft on the main-royal yard tieing the rovings which
lash the head of the sail to the jack-stay, he saw Ruth and Walter
Moodey on the wharf below talking to the skipper. His heart gave a
queer little jump at the sight, and something of a depressed feeling
seized him when he saw Moodey helping her up the gang-plank, but he
went on with his work. He was on wages and had no right to knock-off
for social receptions unless his commander gave him permission. From
his perch, a hundred and forty feet aloft, he saw Judson pilot the two
about the brig's decks, and from the corner of his eye he could see
Ruth looking up at him, but he made no sign that he had seen her.
Finally, they went into the cabin.

From bending the sail, he commenced to overhaul the furling gear and
was reeving the bunt-lines through the leads when Judson's voice came
rolling up from below, "R'yal yard there! Lay down from aloft!" He was
standing on the poop with his sister and Moodey, and they were
chatting and joking. McKenzie took the short cut to the deck by
sliding down the royal backstay and when he stepped on the poop, he
whipped off his cap and bowed to Ruth and extended a tarry hand to
Walter with a "Hullo, Moodey, how are you?"

The other shook hands cordially and there was no resentment in his
expression at the dropping of the "Mister." If it had been anybody
else whose station in life was similar to McKenzie's, Moodey would
have had something to say on the omission. Ruth took Donald by the arm
and walked him over to the rail. "You wouldn't look at me when I came
down," she pouted prettily. "I've been getting a crick in my neck
looking up at you and trying to catch your eye, but you went on
playing with your strings and cords and refused to look at me."

Donald laughed. "Well, you know, Ruth, I'm on the ship's books now and
I can't do as I like. I thought you might not care to have a
dirty-looking sailor hailing you from the mast. I humbly apologize for
my neglect."

"My friends are all gentlemen no matter what their garb or their
work," answered the girl, "and you are a friend of mine." Mentally,
the youth wished he could be more than a friend, and with that wish in
his heart he could not frame a suitable answer. Instead he asked,
"What do you think of our little ship?"

They chatted for a while until Moodey, who was talking with the
skipper, cried out, "Will we go along now, Ruth?" There was a
proprietory tone in his voice which Donald was quick to note, and it
pleased him when Miss Nickerson replied, "I'll be with you in a
minute!" And to McKenzie she said, "Will you come over to-night? Bring
your mother with you. You know, I'm going to Halifax on Monday to
study music and painting, and I'll be staying with the Stuarts until
the spring. You'll come--won't you?"

Donald promised readily and when she went off with her escort he
watched her slim figure walking gracefully up the wharf with a feeling
of mixed admiration and regret in his breast. Moodey's presence
disturbed him and the thought of her being in Halifax all
winter--which meant being in the too-near proximity of Walter--did not
make him feel happy. It was very easy for a girl to forget the absent
one. He turned to make his way aloft again, when the skipper remarked,
"Y'know, Don, I can't cotton to that blighter somehow. He's
chock-full of bazoo about himself, and he's forever hitching at his
tie or scrapin' his nails or patting his hair. He's got a notion that
he's hell'n-all 'raound here and that he's patronizing us Nickersons
by paying attentions to my sister. I said so to her last night, but
she gave me an earfull and told me to mind my own business so I have
to be nice, for Ruth's sake, to that pink-faced, powdered, manicured,
scented pup!"

"You're too hard on him," grinned McKenzie. "That's only his manner.
I'll bet he's alright at heart, or Ruth wouldn't tolerate him. I was a
bit of a namby-pamby kid myself one time, until I went to sea and got
it all knocked out of me--and you did some of the knocking out
yourself, Judson."

The other growled, "Oh, shucks, Don, you were different. I hustled you
araound to make a sailor out of you, but you had the stuff in you even
though you were a mammy's boy. But that feller? I'll bet he's got a
yeller streak in him a yard wide. I can tell! I'm a judge of men, and
some day you'll see.... Naow, Don, we'll go through the bos'n's locker
and see what we need for the voyage."

For the next two days, Donald saw Ruth each evening. Of course Moodey
was there, but it seemed as if the girl favored McKenzie more than the
Halifax youth. Dressed in clothes which enabled him to feel at home in
her company, the young fisherman felt that only Moodey's presence
prevented him from cultivating the intimacy he yearned for. The Monday
morning came all too quick for Donald, though Moodey felt no regret.
McKenzie was bound "to the south'ard" and would not see her again for
possibly two or three months. Moodey, in Halifax, could visit her
whenever she permitted. McKenzie squirmed when he thought about it,
and pictured his rival wooing Ruth with a free rein and no opposition.
He would have to do something to keep his memory green, mused Donald,
and when she was about to drive away in the team to catch the Halifax
train at the station ten miles away, he managed to secure a few
minutes' talk with her _à la solitaire_ and screwed his courage up to
ask if he might write to her in Halifax.

With a sweet smile, she said, "Most certainly, Don. I shall be
delighted if you will. Write and let me know all about Havana and the
places you visit. We're pals, aren't we? Write me a nice chummy
letter, and if you come to Halifax during the winter telephone me
first thing, so's we can have an evening together." And with her merry
blue eyes and pretty face photographed on his mind and her farewell
greetings ringing in his ears, he turned from thoughts of love and
wooing to more mundane and sterner things.

On a cold November morning, the _Queen's County_, with a hold packed
with drums and casks of dried cod-fish and a deck-load of spruce
lumber filling the space between fo'c'sle head and poop-break, towed
out of Eastville Harbor and to sea. A couple of miles offshore, the
tug cast them off and the brig swung south for warmer climes, with her
crew crowding the canvas on her. It was a very happy Donald that paced
her weather alley that night, smoking and musing. As _Mister_
McKenzie, second mate of a beautiful little clipper brig, he was
standing his watch in charge of the ship, and he kept an eye on the
weather-leach of the straining t'gallan's'ls, and thought of his
mother, his home on the hill, and Ruth.

"Eighteen years of age and keeping a home of my own, and with the dear
old Mater comfortably settled in it, and me, second mate of this fine
little packet! Donald Percival McKenzie--you're a very lucky boy! And,
maybe, if you watch yourself, and play your cards right, you'll win
the dearest and loveliest.... Um-um!" He smiled happily to himself and
sensing a flap aloft of the t'gallan's'l leach, he turned to shout to
the wheelsman, "No higher, Jack! You're shaking her!"

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

Donald Mckenzie celebrated two noteworthy events in Havana, Cuba. One
was his twenty-first birthday, and the other was the successful
completion of his first voyage as master of a vessel. She wasn't a
very big vessel--being but a fishing schooner of 99 tons--but still
she was a vessel and required as much skill in sailing and navigating
as a craft ten times her size. Judson Nickerson, in the brig _Queen's
County_, had arrived in Matanzas a couple of days before McKenzie
attained his majority, and he journeyed the forty miles or so to
Havana to help his friend celebrate the occasion.

McKenzie, a man grown, tall, lithe and sinewy, sea-tanned and good
looking, and dressed in white ducks and a Panama hat, met his former
skipper in the rotunda of the Hotel Sevilla. "Waal, by Jupiter!" cried
Nickerson, wringing his hand. "You got daown here anyways, an' you
ain't pushed any of th' Bahamas off th' charts in gittin' here, have
you? And you're twenty-one, eh? Lord Harry, Donny-boy, you make me
feel old--"

"Yes, you look old, you ancient crock!" laughed the other, staring at
his friend critically. Judson had lost some of his ranginess, his
angularities had filled out, and his sharp face had smoothed and
rounded, until he looked younger than ever he did in _Kelvinhaugh_
days. "Why you're only a mere fifteen-year jump ahead of me, and
since you've been living a quiet, settled life for the past four
years, the lines of dissipation have faded--"

"The lines of starvation, you mean," cried the other. "Since I left
your hard-feeding Scotch ships an' got home into Bluenosers again,
I've gained weight, and so have you, let me tell you. Where do we
celebrate?"

"Right here, old timer," answered Donald. "I've got a meal ordered
that will make your mouth water, and with everything to drink from
_pina frias_ to planter's punch." And they entered the cool,
high-ceilinged dining room and sat down at a table by the _patio_.

"I suppose you'll try to go afishin' in that ol' hooker of yours this
spring," queried Judson. "You should do all right. You know the ropes
naow an' ye've done two seasons in the dory with me. Will Heneker give
you the _Alameda_ for a fishin' trip this spring, d'ye think?"

McKenzie pursed his lips. "I'm not sure, Jud. You see I offered to
take her down here with a load of salt fish when Tom Himmelman took
sick, as you know, and I didn't get a chance to broach the subject. I
was glad of the opportunity to skipper a vessel, and I didn't ask for
too much. But when I get home I'll ask Heneker to give me a chance as
skipper afishing, and if I take good care of the old _Alameda_ he
might give me charge of her or another of his hookers. Fishing is the
only game to make money in. There isn't much in this freighting work,
but it's a good way to pass the winter and earn a dollar or two. Do
you know, you old fox, I think you had a hand in getting me this
command?"

Captain Nickerson gave an enigmatical smile. "Skipper of a
double-trawl dory is better than being mate of the finest wind-jammer
afloat. You're boss anyway--no matter the size. You 'member the old
yarn 'bout the big P. and O. liner going out of London River? Her
mate, brass-bound to the eyes, was standing in the bows when an old
barge sculled across the river in front of the liner an' th' mate had
to signal to the bridge to slow the engines to prevent a collision.
Then he opens up on the bargee. 'You blankety-blank scowbanker!' he
bawls. 'What in Tophet d'ye mean by scullin' yer old punt 'crost th'
bows of a liner carryin' Her Majesty's mails an' a thousan'
passengers?' The bargee shoots a squirt of tobacco juice over th'
liner's stem as he sculls past, and he looks up at th' brass-bound
mate with all of a London bargee's contempt for a deep waterman. 'Oo
th' 'ell are you aboard that 'ooker?' he shouts. 'I'm the chief
officer of this packet!' answers the mate. Mister Bargee spits again
and retorts, 'Well, Mister Chief H'officer,' he says, 'I'm capting of
this 'ere barge, so you'd better go'n talk to yer equals, you
brass-bound bridge monkey!'"

The guffaws of the two sailors at this hoary old joke caused the
tourists at adjacent tables to look questioningly in their direction.

Working through the dinner from soup to fruit, the two skippers passed
a jovial couple of hours, and when the punch came along, Judson filled
his glass. "Here's to you, old son," he said. "Twenty-one years of age
an' master of a vessel. Not too bad, boy! Not too bad! Here's hoping
that the next time I drink your health it will be at your wedding.
Salut!" McKenzie acknowledged the toast with a smile. "And you, Jud?
Here's hoping I'll have a similar pleasure, and I hope it will be
soon. Bye-the-way, have you heard from Helena this time?"

The other reddened a little under his tan. "Yes, I got a note from her
at Matanzas," he said slowly, and then he added, "You know, we
seafarin' men are at a disadvantage. These pretty and popular girls
have a swarm of shore-hawks dancin' araound them all th' time, while
we poor devils only get an evening with them two or three times a
year. Helena has a bunch of admirers in Halifax--there was two fellers
visitin' her the last time I went to call on her--an' darned if I
could get a word in edgewise. They gushed about hockey matches,
dances, teas and theayters, an' I had to sit an' listen to their bunk
an' amuse myself tryin' to figure aout th' price of fish, until I sat
the blighters aout an' got a few minutes alone with her 'bout
midnight. Durned if I know whether she likes me or not."

Donald sighed sympathetically. His experiences were of a similar
nature. He, too, had dallied precious hours waiting rare minutes of
tête-à-tête with Ruth, but four years of persistent wooing seemed to
have been rather futile, and he was in a state of maddening
uncertainty as to his standing with the girl of his desire. He never
talked to Judson about his fondness for Ruth, and the latter never
mentioned the subject to him. Oftentimes he wished he could make a
confidant of the brother, but as the other had never broached the
subject, Donald hesitated to open it with him. From Jud, however, he
got scraps of news, but they were not calculated to make him happy.