Next day after, in a calm, Clancy and I had to take the dory and row
out among the fleet for some salt. The skipper thought it likely that
some of the vessels that were going home might have salt to spare. He
doubted if he himself would have enough in case we struck another good
school. So we rowed out. We went from one vessel to another without
any luck, until we found ourselves aboard Tom O'Donnell--the Colleen
Bawn. And just as we got aboard a school showed near by her, and they
made a dash for it. The Colleen was pretty well inshore then, and yet
safe outside the three-mile limit in our judgment. Even in the
judgment of one of the Canadian revenue cutters, the Mink, she was
outside the limit. "You're all right, go ahead," her commander sang
out from the bridge.
Yet trouble came of it. The Colleen's gang were making a set when
along came the Lynx, the same cutter that had ordered our own skipper
not to set two or three days back in the fog, and we had set in spite
of him. I think I said that he had a bad reputation among our fleet.
In this case some said afterwards that he had been watching the Duncan
since that time, and having seen a dory put out from her and go aboard
Tom O'Donnell, that he then had a special watch for O'Donnell. Anyway,
we know that as the Colleen Bawn's crew were pursing in the seine he
came along and ordered them to cast loose the fish. "You're inside the
limit," said this fellow now.
"I may be, but I don't think so," said O'Donnell to that.
"You're inside and you know it."
"You're a liar if you say I know it."
O'Donnell had had trouble with the Lynx before, and had small patience
with her captain. More words came out of it, and while they were
talking back and forth another of the fleet a mile to the east'ard put
out a boat.
The cutter went after him, her captain singing out as he went, "You
wait here till I come back." "Wait like hell!" said O'Donnell, "and
this breeze making," and continued to purse up. Pursed up, the fish
aboard--there were forty or fifty barrels--he started off. One of
those sudden breezes were springing up and it promised to be wind
enough to suit anybody. We made out the Johnnie Duncan bearing down,
intending no doubt to take off Clancy and me. But the cutter was
coming toward us then, and O'Donnell said we had better stay aboard
or we would be picked up on the way by the cutter's people and maybe
get the Duncan and our skipper into trouble. That last--the thought
that our skipper or the vessel might get mixed up in it--kept us
aboard the Colleen Bawn.
The Lynx could steam as fast as any cutter they had on the Cape shore
at that time, but the Colleen was a witch and O'Donnell a wonder at
sailing her. So we stayed with O'Donnell and watched him and the
cutter have it out. They had it, the cutter letting drive a shot every
once in a while. The first shot, I remember, went whistling by the ear
of one of O'Donnell's crew who was standing back-to in the waist, and
so astonished him, he not expecting it, that he fell into the
forehold. He raised a great racket among a lot of empty barrels. The
fall never hurt him, but the things he said when he came on deck
again! O'Donnell made him lie flat--and then all of us but Clancy, who
refused to lie down but compromised by leaning over the house and
watching the cutter and making comments on her actions for the benefit
of the rest of us. Through it all O'Donnell stood to the wheel and the
nearest he came to honoring the cutter by a compliment was when he'd
half turn his head, spit over the rail and swear at her. The wind and
sea-way together were too much for the cutter. The Colleen left her
behind, and she at last drew off after bunching a few farewell shots.
O'Donnell then hove-to and took his seine-boat on deck. He had been
towing it the wrong end foremost for the whole forty miles, and he was
worried over it. "It's strained her maybe--and she almost a new boat,"
he lamented. "For the rest I don't care. That lad had it in for me all
along. The other one though, he's decent--never bothers a man without
a little reason. I was going home anyway for the race, and so it don't
matter. I suppose Maurice will be along soon, Tommie? Did you see him
coming after the cutter--he held her fine and he in no trim. What's it
they say about Hollis beating the Johnnie yesterday? If he did, be
sure he was specially prepared, and the Johnnie had an off-day. But I
suppose he'll be holding on now for Gloucester?"
Clancy said maybe, but no telling, and explained how it had been--the
skipper's discouragement after Hollis had beaten him.
O'Donnell said he was foolish to worry over a thing like that. "I know
Sam Hollis," he said--"'twas a trap he laid for Maurice. He's got a
smart vessel in the Withrow, but he can't run away from Maurice. No,
nor beat him I doubt--with both in trim. But wait a while--let the day
of the race get near and Maurice to thinking it over, and you'll see
him flyin' home."
We hoped so. For ourselves we went home on the Colleen. There was
nothing else for us to do. We had quite a time of it that trip with
O'Donnell. He sailed about five hundred miles out of his way--away to
the eastward and s'uth'ard. There might be cruisers and cutters galore
after him, he said--they might put out from Halifax, or telegraph
ahead--you couldn't tell what they might do, he said, and so he sailed
the Colleen out to sea. But we came across the Bay one dark night
without side-lights, and reached Boston all right. O'Donnell had a
suit of sails stowed away in an East Boston wharf that he wanted to
get out for the race. And also he didn't like his new foremast and was
going to have a new one put in if there was time.