After making a few sets on Western Bank, they ran up on to Grand again and anchored on the south-western edge of the ground. Donald went in the dory with Jack Thomas, and the two of them got along very well together, but Donald found the dory work considerably different from the deck labor of a fishing vessel. Rowing the heavy boat to windward or against the tide for a mile or two was genuine hard work, and hauling a trawl against the same wind and tide for the best part of a day was a job well-calculated to try the muscles of the arms and back. However, with time, he soon “caught on,” and after a couple of weeks over the side, he could do his share of hauling trawl in the dory-bow and at baiting up the gear.

When he got into the swing of it, Donald really enjoyed the work. There was something indescribably alluring in being out on old ocean’s breast in a frail boat a hundred miles from the nearest land and pulling up the finny spoil from the sea floor, anywhere from two hundred to five hundred feet below. And one never knew what was on the hooks until they were hauled up fathom by fathom, but standing in the dory bow on smooth days, one could see a long way into the pellucid green, and the wriggling fish would show a flash of white belly thirty or forty feet from the surface. To the man of scientific leanings, much could be learned from this very intimacy with the ocean. Whales often broke water within a biscuit toss of the dories, and sharks—snapping at the fish on the trawl—were common sights. Porpoises and black-fish played around them in schools on numerous occasions, and Donald once witnessed a most terrific fight between a whale, a sword-fish and a thrasher. Prodded or slashed by the sword-fish from below and flayed by the tail of the thrasher from above, the huge cetacean forged to the surface and hove its great bulk out of the sea in a desperate effort to shake off its tormentors, and the splash of its impact with the sea again reverberated across the water for miles.

Besides cod, haddock, cusk, pollock and hake, which they usually got on the hooks, a numerous variety of other fish were caught, and Donald examined them with studious interest. Star-fish of many kinds, sea anemones, sea vegetables—lemons, cucumbers, potatoes and cabbage, came from the depths, besides crabs, scallops and cockles, and odd fish species, such as sculpins, anglers or monk-fish, dogfish, wolf-fish, cat-fish, lump-fish, halibut, flounders, skate and others. These “curiosities” he brought aboard and examined and dissected, and the postmortems often revealed strange facts. In the stomach of an angler would be found a large spiny sculpin; in that of a wolf, or cat-fish, the crushed shells of scallops and crabs ground up by the powerful jaws and canine teeth of these fish, and Donald would wonder how it is possible for such tough fare to be digested.

Sometimes they had the sea all to themselves; at others, the horizon would be dotted with fishing craft, and occasionally they would be in company with a St. Malo barque, or St. Servan brig, fishing on the ground. Oftentimes, steamers would pass, but, strangely enough, more could be heard in fogs, than seen in clear weather. On a memorable occasion, they saw a huge iceberg stranded on the Eastern Shoals of Grand Bank, and they sent the dories in to pick up pieces of the broken ice drifting to leeward of the monster for the purposes of keeping their squid bait fresh.

Thus the August days passed and time slipped along into September. Days of lazy calms, when the sea stretched oily and undulated with a slow heave like the breast of a giant in slumber, and the vessel rolled so lightly as to be almost imperceptible; days of brave west winds, when the sea was whipped into blue corrugations crested with foam which glistened in the sun and tossed the dories up and down on comber and trough; days of storm, with rain and savage squalls, which forced the schooner to drift under a foresail and jumbo until the blow passed and they could commence fishing again after the enforced, but welcome rest; and most dreaded of all, days of smoking fogs which covered the sea in a thick, viewless pall and kept the fishermen nervous and wide-awake for the shrieking sirens of the liners racing across the Banks. And they had reason for fear!

On September 12th, the West Wind was lying to a hawser anchor in twenty-six fathoms on the eastern edge of Banquereau, or Quero Bank. It was foggy when the men went over the side in the morning, and towards noon the fog shut down so thick that Captain Nickerson decided to keep the gang aboard after they discharged their first haul of fish. The first dory to get alongside was Thomas and McKenzie, and they pitched their catch out and hoisted their dory on the rail and left the tackles hooked into the bow and stern beckets. Thomas went down into the forecastle to get a mug of tea from McGlashan, while Donald went aft to talk with the skipper. While they sat chatting on the cabin house, they were startled out of their wits by the jarring roar of a steamer’s whistle close aboard.

Thomas, in the forecastle, was up on deck in a trice, closely followed by Joak, and Nickerson bawled, “Ring th’ bell! Ring th’ bell! He’s acomin’ slap bang for us!” Donald jumped down into the cabin for the skipper’s shot-gun and a few shells, and was just coming up the companion steps when he heard Nickerson shout, “God Almighty! He’s into us!” There was a terrific crash, followed instantly by the rending, grinding and splintering of wood, and as the schooner rolled down, McKenzie leaped out of the cabin companionway in time to avoid the sweep of the mainmast and maintopmast as it thundered down across the quarter. For a second he was dazed, and only conscious of a huge bulk immediately back of him, then the deck tilted up beneath his feet and he was hurled violently into the water.

His first instinct was to swim away from the monster smashing and rending him, and with his head down he trudgeoned hard for almost half a minute. Then, pausing for breath, he swung around, and trod water. The first thing that met his eyes was the rust-streaked hull of a large steamer gliding past in the mist but a scanty fifty feet away. He could see her funnel and boat deck looming in the fog, but his vision was mostly centred on the red strake of her water-line, a white-painted load-line mark, the condenser water pouring from a sluice in that blank wall of riveted steel plating, and the broil of foam from the churning screw. The latter sight caused him to swing around again and swim for a frantic half-minute. He did not want to get caught in that vortex and cut to pieces, and when he had exhausted himself in his spurt, he turned under the ship’s stern and read the name, Livadia—Piraeus.

Panting for breath, he attempted to shout, but was unable to render more than a husky croak, “Help! Help!” A piece of the schooner’s deck surged up out of the water close beside him, and as he grasped it, he saw the Livadia’s fantail become misty in the fog, and finally vanish altogether. “Swine!” gasped Donald. “He’s leaving us.... Greek swine!” And for a minute he clung to the wreckage regaining his wind and scattered senses.

“Help! Help!” A faint cry came out of the mist to his right. It sounded like the skipper’s voice. “Hold on! I’m coming!” shouted Donald, and taking a deep breath, he slipped into the sea again and struck out in the direction of the cry. Dodging pieces of splintered timber, he came upon Nickerson hanging to the cover of the wheel-box. It was scarce enough to float him and his head was very low in the water, while every now and again he would go under altogether. Blood flowed from a gash in his scalp, and by the look on his face he was nearly all in.

“Here I am, Skipper!” cried Donald, swimming up to him and thrusting an arm under his elbow to lift his head out.

Judson’s eyes turned and looked into his. “I—I—can’t—swim!” he gasped. Donald nodded. “Don’t get nervous, Jud!” he cried, reassuringly. “I’ll fix you up in a minute if you’ll do as I tell you. Grab that box with both hands and kick your feet out like a frog.”

“Can’t.... Too—heavy—boots!” gasped the other.

“Wait! I’ll slip them off!” And Donald, free of his own, ducked under and hauled the skipper’s heavy leather boots off his legs. Blowing and puffing, he came up. “Now you’re all right,” he said. “Do as I tell you and I’ll get you over to a larger piece of wreckage.”

The skipper nodded and commenced striking out with his feet. Donald, treading water beside him, scanned the sea for wreckage. At last he spied what looked like the main-mast about a hundred feet away. “I see the mast over there,” he said. “You keep paddling, Jud, and I’ll swim over and bring back a line and tow you!” In a few minutes he was back with the gaff-topsail sheet, and hitching this through a ring in the wheel-box cover, he cautioned Judson to hang on. Swimming over to the mast with the line in his teeth, he gained the spar and managed to haul the skipper up to it.

Sitting astride the long pole, Donald caught Nickerson by the shoulders and dragged him over it. Judson was heavy, and he seemed to have no strength in his arms, and McKenzie was pretty well played out by the time he got the skipper on the spar and with his legs astride of it. “Take a breather for a spell, Skipper,” he said. “Just lie quiet. I’ll see that you don’t roll off.” For ten minutes Nickerson lay prone—sick with the salt water he had swallowed—but after a while, the color returned to his face and he looked up.

“I’m all right naow, Don,” he said. “Who was that sweep that hit us? Don’t appear to have stopped ... or launched a boat.”

McKenzie replied with bitterness in his voice, “A dirty Greek. I got her name—Livadia of Piraeus.”

Nickerson nodded. “That’s near Athens,” he observed. “A clumsy, lubberly Greek. He cut his stick for fear of the consequences, but he won’t get away with it. We’ll make him sweat, by Godfrey! Livadia of Piraeus! Humph!”

Pieces of the West Wind floated past them in the smooth sea, and the skipper began identifying them. “There’s a bit of the cabin house. There’s a bait-knife still stuck in the cleat, see? There’s the chain cable box, and there’s a slew o’ pen boards. Some of the boys’ blankets over yonder—Godfrey! my head’s buzzin’ and achin’. Th’ main-mast or the gaff gave me a devil of a wipe when it came down an’ knocked me overboard!”

Nickerson evidently received a hard blow, and as time passed he began to jabber meaningless phrases. “I want a drink in the worst way, Don,” he cried. “Get me a drink, like a good chap!” It was very quiet on the water and the fog blanket lay very thick. Donald was shouting for help at intervals, but the mist seemed to stifle his voice. The prospects were beginning to look black, and he yelled and shouted until his voice began to crack. Real fear began to clutch at his heart. If other vessels or dories were in the vicinity, they might pass close by and never see or hear them.

They had been on the spar for almost an hour, and Donald was really anxious. Nothing could be heard save the lapping of the water around the broken mast and Nickerson’s mutterings. He was lying face down, apparently oblivious of his surroundings, and McKenzie had passed a line around his body to prevent him sliding off. He collected his energies for another spell of yelling and had bawled the first “Help! Help!” when an answer came, “Keep ashoutin’ ’til we pick you up!”

In a voice as hoarse as a crow’s, he continued crying out, until a dory loomed out of the mist and rounded alongside the spar. She was a fisherman’s dory, and there were two men at the oars.

“Get the skipper in first,” croaked Don. “He’s had a crack on the head. Who are you? Where’s your vessel?”

“We’re off the Frank and Mary—of Gloucester,” replied one of the men. “We picked up th’ rest o’ your gang in th’ dories, an’ some of us are scoutin’ around lookin’ for youse.”

“Did you get our cook and my dory-mate—a man called Thomas?” asked Donald anxiously, as he clambered into the boat.

The fisherman shook their heads. “Naw,” they answered. “We only picked up fellers in dories. We never got any fellers but youse out the water.” McKenzie’s heart flopped like a lump of lead in his breast. “Poor Joak,” he murmured almost tearfully. “Poor Joak ... my old chum. And Jack Thomas ... one of the best!” He looked over the mist-wreathed water with his fingers twining together nervously. Then he recalled the vision of a steel stem—grinding, smashing and rending—the Beast of the Banks—and he ground his teeth in an excess of rage and bitterness at the suddeness and the ruthlessness of their hurling into Eternity. He gripped the dory gunnel convulsively in fingers of steel. “They’ll pay for this! They’ll pay for this!” he cried aloud.

“You got th’ steamer’s name?” queried a fisherman, pulling away.

McKenzie started. “Aye ... we got her name!”

A big schooner under sail loomed out of the mist and a voice shouted, “Here they are, an’ they’ve got a couple o’ them!” Within a minute they rounded up alongside and the skipper was handed over the rail and taken down into the cabin. He was in a dazed state from exhaustion and the effects of the blow on the head. Donald, little the worse for his experience, went down into the forecastle, where he was surrounded by the West Wind’s gang and questioned as to how it all happened. After he had related the affair as he knew it, they shook their heads dolefully. “Poor cook! Poor Thomas!” they murmured. John McGlashan and James Thomas could be listed with the yearly toll of the Banks.

“Drowned on Banquereau when the fishing schr. West Wind of Eastville, N.S., Nickerson, Master, was run down while at anchor and sunk by the Greek steamer Livadia of Piraeus.”

That would be their epitaph! After drinking a cup of hot coffee and a bowl of warm soup, Donald turned into a bunk, and thinking over the loss of his chum and his dory-mate, cried—not like a baby—but like a man.

He lay quiet for an hour, then he got up. His clothes were being dried at the cook’s stove, so he wore a pair of pants and a sweater lent him by one of the Frank and Mary’s crew. “How’re ye feelin’?” asked the men lounging around on the lockers and bunks.

“Not so dusty,” answered McKenzie.

“Yer skipper says ye saved his life,” observed the cook from the stove. “He was jest alettin’ go when you came up an’ hauled him to that spar. It’s a great thing to be able to swim.”

“How is he?” enquired the youth eagerly.

“He’ll be alright,” replied the other. “I fixed up his head an’ gave him a slug of old Jamaikey to wash the salt water outa his stomach. He’s asleep now, but he’ll be fit when he wakes.”

One of the West Wind’s crowd spoke. “We’ve cruised all around the wreckage, Donald, but thar’ ain’t no sign of the cook or Thomas. Cal’late they must ha’ gone under when th’ steamer crashed into yez. Lucky thing for us we was out in the dories, or there’d ha’ bin a bigger drowndin’ scrape.”

McKenzie sat quiet for a moment, until he heard the dull mutter of a bow wave outside and felt the slight rolling of the vessel. “Under way?” he enquired.

“Baound fur Halifax,” answered the cook. “Aour skipper’s agoin’ to land yez there.” He busied himself around the stove for a while and then remarked, “Lucky thing for youse fellers that you landed most of yer season’s fish. You ain’t agoin’ to lose too much—”

“Won’t we?” ejaculated a West Winder. “We’ll lose a bet we had with the Annie L. Brown’s gang. I had a hundred dollars on that. Th’ skipper had five hundred, an’ most of the boys put up a dollar or two. We’d ha’ trimmed that outfit hands daown. Ira Burton ain’t in it with Jud Nickerson fur ketchin’ fish.” And he growled anathema on the Grecian ship.

Captain Nickerson was himself again by supper time, but was dreadfully upset on hearing of the loss of McGlashan and Thomas. “I would have gone, too, if it hadn’t been for you, Donny-boy,” he said. “Can’t swim, y’know, and there’s not many fishermen that can. Water’s too cold around our coasts for bathing. You pulled me through, son—”

“Just as you did on a good many other occasions,” interrupted Donald, “so that makes us quits.”

The skipper smiled faintly. “We also lose our bet, I’m afraid, though I don’t think Ira Burton can collect from us. However, it don’t matter. I’ll get another vessel again—the West Wind was insured—and I’ll have no trouble next season in getting a gang—that’s certain.”

They were landed in Halifax forty hours after the accident, and Captain Nickerson immediately reported the facts of the collision to the marine authorities. As luck would have it, the Grecian steamer was then in the harbor. She had made no report of the mishap—a damning feature—and, as she was about to sail for Baltimore, she was libelled and held, and her master and watch officers were hailed before the authorities to explain. At first they absolutely denied sinking any schooner, or even scraping one, and they had even altered the ship’s log-book to show that they were not in the vicinity when the collision happened, but under expert cross-examination their story broke down, even though they refused to admit the facts. Inspection of the steamer’s bows revealed dents and scrapes freshly painted over, and eventually, a sailor with a grudge, failed to corroborate the officers’ evidence and bluntly stated that they had run down an anchored schooner on the Banks and deliberately steamed away from the scene. The master and owners of the Livadia were required to furnish bonds for fifty thousand dollars before the steamer was allowed to proceed. The official inquiry was set for the week following, at which all parties were required to attend the Court in Halifax.

Captain Nickerson, Donald and the West Wind’s crew boarded the packet steamer that evening for Eastville Harbor, and just a minute prior to sailing, two men came running down the wharf. Shouting “Wait a minute!” they ran up the gang-plank and staggered into the midst of the West Wind’s crowd, who greeted their unceremonious boarding with incredulous oaths and shouts of surprise. It was Joak McGlashan and Jack Thomas!

“Where in the name of all that’s sacred did you fellers spring from?” gasped the skipper, while Donald grabbed Joak to see if he were really alive. “Jist came in, Skipper,” answered McGlashan breathlessly. “Jist got put aff a schooner a wee while ago an’ we’ve had tae rin like blazes tae catch this wee boat here. They tel’t us on the wharf that yez was a’ picket up.”

“By Jingo, Joak,” said McKenzie, “I’ve been weeping over you as being drowned on Quero. How the deuce did you escape?”

“Gimme a chanst tae get ma wind!” McGlashan sat down on a pile of freight and wiped the perspiration from his brow. “It was like this, ye see,” he said, when he had recovered his breath. “We came up on deck when yon steamer whustled, an’ we ran fur the dory which Donald and Jack had jist left hanging on the rail. The steamer hit her abaft the main-mast, aboot the gurry-kid, and it didna hit the dory. Me’n Jack jist tumbled intae it, and when the mast went, the dory went intae the water. We lost the oars and were driftit awa’ frae the schooner, but efter two hours floatin’ aboot we were picket up by a Yankee schooner and landed in Halifax a while syne. That’s all there is tae tell, except that we were sure the skipper and Donald were lost, as we knew you were baith aft when the steamer hit.” He gave a deep sigh and continued. “Anyway, we’re all here, thank God, but the schooner’s gone, and ma good clothes are gone, and ma alarrm clock, too, and I had a fine codfish chowder on the stove fur yer dinners that day that also went—” He spoke so solemnly that the listeners laughed immoderately. “By gorry, cook, you’re a haound!” they chuckled. What was at first thought to be a tragedy, was now looked upon as an experience, an incident for yarning and joking about, and they spent much time in chaffing McGlashan about the loss of his “alarrm clock,” his clothes and the chowder.

Arriving back in Eastville Harbor, Donald and the skipper were disappointed to find that Ruth was in Halifax staying with the Stuarts. Had they known, they would have looked the girls up before coming home. However, they would be in Halifax at the inquiry the following week, and Donald looked forward to seeing Ruth then with feelings of anticipatory pleasure. He had not seen or heard from her for four months, and when a youth is in love with a pretty and very desirable girl, four months is a terribly lengthy period.

At the Nickerson home, Jud’s parents were kindness personified. Old Mrs. Nickerson took Donald in hand and purchased him an outfit of both sea and shore clothes. They were not expensive clothes, but they were of good wearing stuff. For the first time in over a year, he possessed a shore suit, and, even though it was ready-made store clothes and of a fit and pattern a good deal poorer than he had worn at other times and in other circumstances, he was glad to have them and to know that he could call on Ruth in Halifax without qualms as to his personal dressing. He fancied nice clothes, and would like to be able to purchase a complete rig-out of good quality and finished tailoring, but when a lad is earning thirty-five dollars a month and saving to make a home for his mother, he cannot spend money in dress. Donald accepted Mrs. Nickerson’s gifts with deep appreciation, but with a sneaking suspicion that Judson had engineered the whole thing as a reward for services rendered.

The West Wind’s two trips of fish were sold, and the skipper announced that they had landed altogether three thousand five hundred quintals. Had they completed the season, the West Wind would have made a record catch, but, as it was, the crew were eminently satisfied with share checks in the neighbourhood of $600 per man, with a possible addition for gear, clothes and fish lost when the collision case was tried and judgment secured against the Greek steamer’s owners. Donald received a check for $140. “And there’s more acomin’ to you,” said Judson when he paid him. “You’ll draw a fisherman’s share for this last trip, but we’ve got to get the money from those Greeks first. They’ll pay us enough to help build a new vessel, for the fish we lost, and all our outfit and gear. They’ll have to pay, for they haven’t a leg to stand on. The money is as good as ours naow!” And he chuckled grimly.

When the inquiry was over, Donald intended to ship in a vessel for Glasgow and bring his mother out to Nova Scotia. He had already written her to that effect, and before he went to Halifax, he and Mrs. Nickerson arranged to rent a neat little cottage on the hill street just back of the town, and not far from the Nickerson home. It was secured furnished, and as it was at present untenanted, Donald worked around the place for a few days painting the floors, doors and wood-work, after scrubbing it out thoroughly from top to bottom. It was not a large cottage, but it was a warm one, and built of squared spruce logs shingled on the outside and match-boarded inside. There was a kitchen addition, and the main part of the house had a dining-room, parlor, and two small bedrooms upstairs. It was a vastly different place from the red sandstone villa in Maxwell Park, with its tiled bathrooms, hot and cold water, electricity and gas, but it was clean and cosy, and the rent was extremely moderate. The furniture was plain and meant to be utilized. Most of it was made by ship-carpenters, and there was no veneer or elaborate carvings. The beds were of wood, and in lieu of springs, there were mattresses of plucked feathers so soft and downy that one almost vanished in their cosy embrace. Picked rag mats covered the floors, and the place was heated in winter by a small box stove which burned wood, and which stood in the dining-room, and disseminated heat into the parlor through a square opening in the wall.

An acre of good garden ground went with the place, and there was a small building suitable for a stable and wood-shed immediately back of the dwelling. A well, equipped with a pump, stood near the kitchen door in handy proximity to save laborious water carrying, and the former tenants had planted vines which clustered over the little front porch, and there were rose bushes, lilacs, and hollyhocks around the front and sides of the house.

On the eve of his departure for Halifax and Scotland, Donald viewed his future home and tried to imagine what it would be like when his mother arrived and was installed within. He could picture her reading by the stove of a winter’s night, or working in the garden in summer. She would have chickens, of course, and maybe a pig or two. His mother knew all about these things. Then he thought of Ruth.... Of course, she wouldn’t live in a cabin like that, but by the time he was in a position to marry her, he hoped to have a home of his own—a big wooden house like what other Eastville skippers owned—a house with four or five bedrooms, hot air furnaces and plastered walls and modern plumbing. They all had pianos, a horse and buggy, and good furniture imported from Halifax. He would get that ... in time. He’d go with Judson in the dory again next summer, then he would go to navigation school in Halifax and get his second mate’s ticket for off-shore. He was able to pass the examination now, but he hadn’t the necessary sea-time in to qualify. Another year or two fishing and he would go skipper—fishing in the summer and running fish and lumber to the West Indies in winter. He would be skipper, if all went well, by the time he was twenty, and when he attained his majority, he would ask Ruth to marry him. With these pleasant thoughts, he squared up a rumpled rag mat on the floor of his future home, straightened a deal table and studied the effect of a cheap vase—he knew it was cheap and gaudy and he wanted to stow it away—on the sideboard—and after a final look around, he gave a satisfied sigh and locked the front door. At the front fence, he looked back at the cottage—nestling cosily amid a few dwarf spruce—and whistling cheerfully he swung down the road ruminating over a suitable name for his coming domicile. “Shelter Harbor! That’s a good one,” he murmured. “I think mother would like that. M-m! Shelter Harbor—that’s the name, for it’ll be a shelter harbor for the both of us!”