Oh, that was a lonely sea! It was gray and surly and ominous.
Black smoke from the distant tugs waved dismal farewell. A chill wind
had begun to harp through the cordage of the little schooner; the
moan--far flung, mystic, a voice from nowhere--that presages the tempest
crooned in his ears.
"I can smell something in this weather that's worse than scorched-on
hasty pudding," stated Captain Can-dage. "I don't know just how you
feel, sir, but if a feller should ride up here in a hearse about now
and want my option on her for what I paid, I believe I'd dicker with him
before we come to blows."
"I can't blame you," confessed the young man. "This seems to be another
case of 'Now that we've got it, what the devil shall we do with it?'"
"Let's pile ashore on the trail of them lighters and dicker it, and be
sensible," advised his associate. "I feel as if I owned a share in old
Poppocatterpettul--or whatever that mountain is--and had been ordered to
move it in a shawl-strap."
Mayo surveyed their newly acquired property through the advancing dusk.
"I believe I know a feller we can unload onto," persisted Candage. "He
has done some wrecking, and is a reckless cuss."
"Look here," snapped his associate, "we'll settle one point right now,
sir. I'm not hurrahing over this prospect--not at all. But I'm in it,
and I'm going to stick on my original plan. I don't want anybody in with
me who is going to keep looking back and whining. If everything goes by
the board, you won't hear a whicker out of me. If you want to quit now,
Captain Candage, go ahead, and I'll mortgage my future to pay back what
you have risked. Now what do you say?"
"Why, I say you're talking just the way I like to hear a man talk,"
declared the skipper, stoutly. "I'll be cursed if I like to go into a
thing with any half-hearted feller. You're my kind, and after this
you'll find me your kind." He turned and shouted commands. "Get in
mains'l, close reef fores'l, and let her ride with that and jumbo."
"That's the idea!" commended Mayo. "The Atlantic Ocean is getting ready
to deal a hand in this game. We have got to stick close if we're going
to see what cards we draw."
A fishing-schooner, if well handled, is a veritable stormy petrel in
riding out a blow. Even the ominous signs of tempest did not daunt the
two captains. They were there to guard their property and to have their
hopes or their fears realized.