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.