“Gimme a match, jest to start me bit o’ plug. It’s lonesome fixed here
without a pard. Here’s half a pipe-load, an’ it’ll smoke good. Don’t ye
be scared of a blaze this wet mornin’.”
Somehow I did not intend to yield to his pleading, and went on my way,
whereupon the sailor changed his tactics, and shouted:
“You’re the mean pard of the white-face Icelander skunk what went by
jest now. He swore at me when I spoke him perlite, ‘Gimme a match,
pard,’ and I swore at him back. You’re a pair of loose cat-fish!”
I did not know at the time that the phrase, “a loose cat-fish,”
signified upon Lake Peace a man’s supreme contempt for an adversary;
I only observed the phrase, “a white-face Icelander,” and that was
enough to stop me. We had heard nothing of Redpath or his accomplice,
although MacCaskill was confident that they must have proceeded to Gull
Island, which was the nearest point in communication with our common
destination.
“Which way did he go?” I said, turning back.
The sailor rubbed the moisture from his heavy eyebrows.
“We’re startin’ to shout!” he said, with a husky laugh. “Gimme a match.”
I took a few sulphur matches from my pocket, and passed them into the
grimy hand.
“Me mem’ry’s sorter wakin’,” went on the sailor cheerfully, “but a
dollar bill would live it along surprisin’.”