We certainly were feeling pretty good along about that time, and we felt better when next day, cruising in and out among the fleet, other crews began to take notice of our catch. By that time the word had gone around. One after another they came sailing up––as if to size us up was the last thing that could enter their heads––rounding to, and then a hail. Something like this it went:

“Hulloh, Maurice.”

“Hulloh, Wesley,” or George Drake, or Al McNeill, or whoever it might be.

“That’s a mighty pretty deckload of fish. When’d y’get ’em?”

“Oh, twenty barrels yesterday morning and the rest last night.”

“That so? How many d’y’call ’em, Maurice?”

“How many? Oh, two hundred and eighty or ninety wash barrels. Ought to head up about two sixty.”

“That so? Fine, Maurice, fine. As handsome a deckload as I’ve seen this year.”

And he would bear off, and another vessel would come and go through the same ceremony. It was very satisfying to us and the skipper must have felt proud. Not that a lot bigger hauls had not been made by other men before––indeed, yes, and by the very men perhaps who were complimenting him. But three hundred barrels, or near it, in pickle at one time does look fine on a vessel’s deck, and they looked especially fine at this time because there was not another vessel in the fleet that had half as many, so far as we knew.

Not another but Sam Hollis––or so he claimed. He came ranging up that same day and began asking how the Duncan was sailing lately, and followed that up by saying he himself had two hundred odd barrels in the hold. He showed about sixty wash barrels on deck. We did not believe he had twenty below. She looked cork light. “If she sets as high out of water with two hundred and forty barrels, then you ought to put two hundred and forty more in her and she’d fly,” called out Clancy to Hollis, and that was pretty much what we all thought.

And ’twas Sam Hollis made trouble for the Duncan that day. He bore off then but came back in the afternoon. More talk there was, and it wound up by our racing with him. We did not start out to race, but gradually, as we found ourselves 204 jogging along side by side, jibs were drawn away and sheets began to be trimmed. The first thing we knew we found ourselves swaying up sails, and then before we really woke up to it we were both off and away before a little breeze.

Hollis had all the best of it. He was bound to, with the Duncan carrying most of her mackerel aft and away down by the stern. Even had we had time to––we did shift some of it forward––we were too deep for any kind of racing in that moderate breeze. We said that to ourselves, anyway, and yet we held on. But it was no use––it wound up by Hollis giving us a scandalous beating. And after running away from us he kept straight on to the westward, and by that we knew that he was bound for Gloucester to get ready for the big race.

The skipper felt it. He was one that took things to heart.

“I’ve been bragging about this one––what she could do. I told the old man only the last time we were in that he could go broke that I’d beat Sam Hollis, and here the first time we come together he makes her look like a wood-carrier. The best thing I can do, I guess, is to keep out of the race; maybe it will save the old man some money. I expected he’d beat us, the trim we were in––but to beat us the way he did!”

Nothing the crew could say seemed to make him think otherwise, and that night it was not nearly so joyful below in the Johnnie Duncan. The talk was that she would not go home for the race. Only Clancy seemed to be as cheerful as ever. “Don’t any of you get to worrying,” he said. “I know the skipper––the Johnnie Duncan’ll be there when the time comes.”

Yet next morning when Wesley Marrs went by us with the Lucy Foster bound for home and sang out, “Come along, Maurice, and get ready for the race––we’ll have a brush on the way,” our skipper only waved his hand and said, “No––this old plug can’t sail.” Wesley looked mighty puzzled at that, but kept on his way.