The West Wind slipped out of the harbor and Don stared up at the Nickerson house to see if Ruth would wave. A female figure stood on the verandah and Donald made a farewell gesture with his cap. It might have been Ruth—he was not sure—but the girl waved in return, Donald was certain, and the skipper, taking a squint through his binoculars, said it was his sister.

“Wonder where Helena is?” said McKenzie.

“Oh, guess she’s in the house somewhere,” replied the skipper somewhat dolefully, looking back at the receding house on the hill. He turned to the wheel. “She’s a mighty fine girl, Miss Stuart,” he remarked, looking aloft at the main-gaff. The other smiled. “She sure is, Captain. A fine girl!”

Clear of the Eastville Cape, they hoisted the light sails and headed up the coast to the eastward, bound for the Magdalen Islands in the Gulf of St. Lawrence for a baiting of fresh herring. With this secured, they would fish in the Gulf and on the Newfoundland Banks during the summer, until their “salt was wetted.” “We’ve got to hustle to beat Ira Burton,” remarked the skipper. “He’s at the Islands now, I’ll be bound, and yet ... he may not. I h’ard there was a mull of ice in Canso Straits and I’m wondering what is the best course to take.”

Next morning they were up with Cranberry Island—the north-eastern extremity of Nova Scotia, and the skipper piloted the schooner into Canso Harbor. “Um!” he grunted as he scanned the anchorage. “No schooners here. Must ha’ gone up the Straits.” They came to an anchor, dropping the headsails only, and the skipper and Don pulled ashore in a dory. “We’ll go up to the Post Office first, Don, an’ see the weather bulletins, and then we’ll do some scouting around for news of what’s doing in the Straits.” At the Post Office, Captain Nickerson asked to see the weather reports for two weeks past, and when they were handed to him, he read them carefully. Then he went to a telephone and called up Port Hawkesbury—a small town in the Straits about twenty-five miles from Canso. When he came from the telephone he had a concerned look on his face and was pulling nervously at his moustache. “Ira Burton was there a day or two ago,” he said, “but they tell me he slipped away in the night. Naow, I see by the bulletins that the wind for the last two weeks a’most has been from a quarter that’ll drive all the Gulf ice into the mouth of Canso Straits, and it’ll need a stiff southerly or easterly to clear it. I’m thinkin’ Burton has figured that all aout, and he’ll be gone north-about, same as I’m plannin’, and he’ll get to the Madaleens through Cabot Straits. When the drift ice is crowdin’ down here it’ll be clear up above.”

They got aboard, they got their anchor, hoisted the headsails and shot out of Canso and up the coast and around Cape Breton Island. In the Gulf of St. Lawrence, between Cape North and the islands of St. Paul, they came up with two fishing schooners steering west. It had just broken daylight and the wind was light, and when the day grew brighter they saw that one vessel was a Lunenburg schooner of a new model, but the sight of the other craft caused Nickerson to jump below for his binoculars.

“It’s Burton!” he cried, after a short scrutiny. “I’d know his old hooker’s small fores’l and long bowsprit anywheres.” He paced the quarter, whistling softly to himself—a curious whistle, as though he were calling a dog—and ever and anon he would murmur, “Come wind! Come wind! Come wind!” The gang stared at the schooners to leeward and one of their number pulled a bait-knife from a cleat. “I’ll raise something,” he said with a laugh. “I’ll stick this in th’ forem’st. That’ll raise a breeze, by Jupiter! Never knew it to fail yet!”

The wind was light and variable under the lee of the Cape Breton mountains, towering a thousand feet high to port, but when they glided past Cape St. Lawrence, it came away in fresh gusts from the south’ard. The sky was overcast and there was a rainy haze around the horizon.

“It’s agoin’ to blow right enough,” said Nickerson, taking over the wheel from Donald. “We’ll get aour breeze afore long ... all we want of it!” And he sniffed the air and looked to leeward. The other schooners had caught the draught flowing over St. Lawrence’s high head-land and were bowling off for the Magdalen Islands and rapidly leaving the West Wind astern.

“Jig up everything, boys!” bawled the skipper. “An’ get yer sheets aft. We’ll have a little shoot of fifty miles with those jokers ahead, and I be damned if we’re agoin’ to be the last. Th’ Lunenburger might trim us, but I’ll be cussed if Burton does. They’re mayn’t be much herring at the Islands, but we want to get what there is an’ get it quick!” The breeze caught the West Wind as the gang sweated up and sheeted-in, and she tore after the other vessels under four lowers, main-topsail, main-staysail and balloon jib. Nickerson himself took the wheel and held her to a N.W. by W. course for Amherst Harbor on Amherst Island of the Magdalen group.

The barometer had dropped to 29.6, and with the southerly came a cold, rainy mist. Within a half-hour of its commencement, the wind stiffened into a squally blow and a short, violent chop arose, which had the schooner plunging and rolling and driving sprays over her bows. But through it all, she was running along like a hound, with the white-water racing aft and the wake abroiling.

“It kicks up nasty here,” remarked the skipper from the wheel. “There’s a surface current of the water from the melting ice up the River St. Lawrence streaming down the Gulf this time of year, and it sets hard to the east’ard. With this southerly blowing across it and the tide arunning up the Gulf and only twenty fathom under our bottom, it makes a dirty jobble of sea hereabouts.”

When the ice moves out of the Gulf of St. Lawrence in the spring, the migrating herring “strike in” around the shores of the Magdalen Islands in countless swarms. They have done so for many years, and the inhabitants of those bleak and isolated islets trap them in nets as they seek the shores to deposit their spawn, and while some are pickled and barrelled for use as food, a considerable quantity is sold to the fishing schooners for use as bait. In May and June, a large fleet of Canadian, American, Newfoundland and French fishing craft repair to the Magdalens to secure fresh bait, and the rule is “first come, first served.” Nickerson knew this, and the skippers of the other schooners knew it, too, and all three drove their vessels as hard as they would go. A further incentive to speed lay in the fact that there would be a fleet of a hundred sail storming out from Canso Straits with the southerly driving the ice barrier away. With so many vessels hunting for bait, the demand would be greater than the supply.

Within an hour the breeze had freshened into half a gale, and the three schooners were laying down to it with their lee scuppers awash and their decks, gear and canvas drenched with spray and rain. On the West Wind, which was slightly astern of the other two, the gang were all on deck and lounging aft with sou’westers and oilskins and sea-boots on, and the skipper, seated astride of the wheel-box, gripped the spokes in his strong hands and glanced, ever and anon, at sails, compass and the schooners ahead and to leeward.

There is nothing a Bank fisherman loves more than a race. Not one of your summer jaunts of a few miles on a measured course in a ladies’ wind, but a genuine thrash to windward in a scupper breeze with all the “muslin” hung. A race of fifty, or a hundred miles, or even more, which gives the contestants a chance to show what they can do, is fishermen’s sport, and Donald got an opportunity, in this fifty-mile “shoot” to the Magdalens, to see the Banksmen on their mettle.

With faces wet and reddened with the wind and slashing rain and spray, oilskins glistening and dripping water, the men lolled on the cabin house, laughing and joking, singing and smoking, and when she rolled down in the puffs, they howled with hilarious delight and prayed for a breeze “to tear a patch off’n her!”

“Neptune! Boreas! Amphitrite! and all the little windy sea-gods, give us a breeze!” shouted Nickerson, laughing at McKenzie. He had hardly spoken, when, with the suddeness which is a characteristic of Gulf “blows,” the southerly began snapping up in savage squalls. The schooners to leeward were blotted out in the rainstorms, and the West Wind, with never a sheet started, dragged her lee rail under and the lower dead-eyes of the rigging tore through the broil of water to loo’ard and the scuppers frothed half-way up the deck. It was brave sailing, as over the short, savage seas the schooner plunged and reared, and clouds of spray enveloped her as she stormed along at fourteen knots.

Bang! With a report like a shot from a gun, the main-gafftopsail split, and within a moment slatted into a sunburst of ribboned rags. “Clew up what’s left!” bawled the skipper calmly, and to Donald he shouted. “A job o’ sail mending for you, son! I hope ye can handle palm an’ needle?”

The other grinned. “You bust ’em and I’ll sit up nights mending ’em,” he shouted excitedly. “This is what I call sailing! Give it to her, Skipper, and trim our friend Burton there.”

Nickerson nodded. “Leave it to me!” he replied grimly. “I’ll trim him or jump the masts out of this one, by Jupiter!” And by the look in his eyes, he meant it.

The rags of the topsail were scarce clewed up when another blast struck the West Wind and she rolled down until her whole lee deck vanished out of sight in the seething water. The gang jumped like scared cats for the weather rail and the port nest of dories, and from these places they actually looked down into the foaming water which churned and sloshed over the cable and the nest of dories on the starboard side. With the vessel heeling over at a dangerous angle, the men glanced nervously at the skipper, but that individual was hanging on to the wheel-spokes, chewing nonchalantly, and standing with his feet braced against the side of the wheel-box. “That guy’s a perishin’ terror!” shouted someone excitedly. “I wonder ef he knows what a vessel’ll stand? He’ll spill us all into th’ drink afore we’re through, by Judas!”

Cr-a-ack! Bang! Bang! Flap! Flap! A thundering row aloft—the big staysail was adrift, slatting and banging and threatening to whip the top-mast out of her. “Stays’l sheet’s carried away! Belayin’ pin broke!” cried a fisherman, and the skipper barked, “I reckon so! Get that sheet, boys, an’ make her fast again!”

A mob of oilskinned men slid down into the water to leeward and scrambled up the slack lee main rigging. Aloft, the sail was thrashing about and the sheet was whirling around like a whip and slashing at the rigging as the canvas flogged in the wind. When the rope flicked inboard, a dozen hands would make a grab for it.

“Shoot her up, Skipper—” shouted a fisherman.

“An’ be damned!” bawled Nickerson, with something of his old Kelvinhaugh truculence. “None o’ you fellows got guts enough to grab a loose bit o’ string? Don’t be scared of it—’twon’t bite ye!” Thus adjured, and after receiving some savage blows from the snapping rope, they managed to grab it, and while sixteen men stood up to their thighs in water laying their weight on the straining sheet which held the sail, Donald jammed an iron belaying pin into the rail and took a turn of the rope around it. With wild shouts and lurid phrases, the fishermen hauled in the slack and belayed, then returned, panting to their weather-side perches.

A man jumped out of the fo’c’sle companion in the sprays and clawed his way aft. He was laughing. “Golly, fellers, ye sh’d be below in th’ fo’c’sle naow!” he shouted above the roar of wind and sea. “Cook’s wild! She’s chucked all his pots off’n th’ stove an’ half his plates are smashed. Th’ fo’c’sle floor is slushin’ with pea-soup, rice pudding an’ beans an’ everything’s swilling with th’ water acomin’ daown th’ scuttle and th’ ventilator. Scotty’s in one hell of a rage and he’s alyin’ in his bunk cursin’ an’ swearin’ that he won’t cook or clean up a gol-derned thing ontil this here sail-draggin’ is over!”

The skipper grinned and gave a hasty glance to windward. “By Gorry, boys, there’s a black squall acomin’,” he bawled quickly. “Jump an’ haul daown yer balloon an’ stays’l or th’ sticks’ll go. Look sharp!” The men raced to obey the command; halliards were cast off; downhauls manned, and as the canvas was dragged from aloft, bellying and flapping thunderously, the squall struck the vessel as the skipper eased the helm down.

The West Wind seemed to stagger to its onslaught and rolled over until the sea rose to the lee-side of the cabin house and frothed over the coamings of the main-hatch. Donald, at the stays’l downhaul, thought she was going to capsize, and one of the men yelled in fright, “God save us! She’s goin’ over—she’s goin’ over! Cut yer dory gripes! Cut yer dory gripes!” Two men reached for bait-knives and began to hack at the stout ropes that lashed the weather nest of dories, when the skipper roared menacingly, “Leave them gaul-derned gripes alone, you crazy lunk-heads! She’s all right, I’m tellin’ ye! ’Tis only a puff!”

“Only a puff?” growled a fisherman. “Only a puff? Another like that one and there’ll be a drowndin’ scrape araound here—” He stopped and yelled, “For th’ roarin’ ol’ Judas! Look at him! He’s swingin’ her off! He’s swingin’ her off!” Nickerson was spoking the helm up, and Donald hung on to the main-rigging in time to save himself from flying over the lee rail when she careened to the weight of the wind. “This is th’ perishin’ worst I ever saw in sail-draggin’!” remarked someone huskily. “Does that bucko at th’ wheel there think he’s sailin’ th’ Flyin’ Cloud ’round Cape Horn? Ef he don’t strip her or lift th’ spars out the ol’ hooker yet, I’m a Dutchman!”

The least concerned in the crowd was Nickerson. Cool and calm, with a truculent look on his stern face, he strained at the spokes with just the suspicion of a grin on his lips. With his bronzed face streaming water and his mustache dripping, he glanced into compass and up at the straining sails and gear with exultant eyes. “Good iron! Good timber!” he murmured, and broke into the words of an old chantey—

The man seemed to be carried away with the thrill of it—this wild, roaring, hurling through the water, and Donald gazed on vessel and steersman with shining, worshipping eyes. Here was a man—a marine Ajax defying the wind and sea!

It was an inspiring sight, truly! The whole lee side of the schooner was under from cat-head to the end of the cabin house, and she was storming along, leaping and plunging, with the sea to leeward in a welter of white water, seething and roaring, in the drive of her passage. The wind was whistling in the rigging and drumming in low thunder from under the bending booms, and with sheets and weather shrouds bar-taut and the sails as full and as hard as though cut in marble, the West Wind tore along with her gang hanging on to the weather gear and her skipper holding her cleaving bow down to her course.

“Look at Burton!” yelled someone. In the lift of the rain, they saw the Annie L. Brown astern and running off. Her foretopmast had carried away and her balloon jib, the topmast, and a raffle of wire stays and halliards were being salved by her crew. “He’s out of it now,” remarked a fisherman, “but he did well. Where’s th’ Lunenburg feller?”

For a minute she could not be discerned, but when the rain dissipated, she showed up on the beam, forging along under her four lowers. She was a big vessel—a West India voyager, strongly rigged and well ballasted. The first fury of the squall was easing off now and the West Wind was showing her rail again.

“Away ye go on yer stays’l!” bawled Nickerson. “That feller’ll trim us ef we don’t watch aout!” And when the big fisherman’s stays’l went up between the masts, the whole gang tallied on to the sheet and swayed it down with excited yells, and the schooner rolled her rail under again.

In his seafaring, Donald had never experienced such a contest. He had seen some sail-carrying on the Kelvinhaugh and Helen Starbuck, but nothing to equal this. Judson was pressing the vessel to the limit, but he could do it, as he had nineteen husky men he could depend on to haul the sail off her when the time came. In the Kelvinhaugh, with her gang of no-sailors and weaklings, it couldn’t be done; in the Starbuck, with a small crowd, it would be suicidal. “If it were only for these races alone, I’d love this fishing game,” said Donald to the skipper. “This is simply great!” And he chuckled and snapped his fingers with the exhilaration of this windy driving of wood, iron and canvas.

With the stays’l on her, the West Wind drew ahead and the Lunenburger was evidently content to allow her the advantage, as he did not send his stays’l up. It was found out afterwards that he had none to send up—it having split to rags in one of the squalls. The skipper laughed. “We’ve trimmed ’em both,” he remarked happily. To Donald, he said, “Read the log!”

“Forty-six miles, skipper!”

“Good!” he said. “Forty-six miles in three hours and a half is fair going. We must ha’ logged sixteen knots in some o’ them bursts of wind. It’s easing off naow—her rail’s showin’.” And he grinned contentedly, while a fisherman remarked, “We kin trim Burton sailin’ anyway, an’ I cal’late we kin trim him afishin’ too—”

“Land ahead!” came the shout from for’ard. The skipper peered into the rainy mist and put the wheel over a spoke. A huge block of reddish stone showed up on the port bow a mile ahead. “Entry Island!” he observed. “I steer as good as Captain Clincher when he laid a course for the Eddystone Light and knocked it daown! Ye can keep a look-out for Pearl Rock buoy on the starb’d hand and get fifteen fathom of chain over th’ windlass.”

When they passed the island, the sea became smoother and the wind eased off. A misty rain was falling, which obscured the land, but a steamer could be seen anchored ahead. “Ice-breaker or Fishery Cruiser, I cal’late,” said Judson. “He’ll be anchored in plenty water, so we’ll jest jog to the west’ard of him without letting go the hook. Haul yer stays’l daown an’ git a dory over!”

They ran slowly past the Fishery Cruiser, and a rising of the mist revealed the bare hills of Amherst Harbor and the little wooden houses of the village. A flag was flying from a staff on a hill above the harbor, and the skipper commented, “There’s the bait flag aflyin’! There must be bait around somewheres.” Leaving the schooner in charge of Donald, Captain Nickerson jumped into a dory and was pulled ashore. Within half an hour he was aboard. “There’s a little herring at Alright Island,” he announced. “Ef we’re spry, we’ll get it. Slack off yer sheets!” He took the wheel again. “We’re darned lucky,” he said. “There’s been a lot of bad weather here an’ they haven’t had much herring so far. Burton’ll have a job to get any for a while.”

They stood over for Cape Alright a few miles away, and met the Lunenburg schooner running into Amherst. Nickerson hailed him. “Come over to Alright, Cap’en! There’s some herring there—enough for two of us!” The other skipper waved his hand and his schooner followed in the West Wind’s wake.

Off the island, the dories were hoisted out and pulled in to the traps anchored off the beach. Here they were loaded with living herring bailed from the seine, and the men rowed back to the West Wind, sitting in herring up to the thwart strips. With eight dory-loads aboard and stowed on ice in the hold, the skipper chuckled gleefully, “Me’n th’ Lunenburg feller hev scoffed all the bait hereabouts. Ira Burton’ll hev to do some pokin’ araound these Islands when he hits here, and he’ll hev fifty or a hundred other craft to compete against. Now, boys, we’ll get under way an’ start for the grounds. We’ll shoot for th’ Straits and the Western Bank again.”

As they ran out of the bay, the mist lifted and the Annie L. Brown came bowling up. Her fore-topmast showed but a splintered stump just above the fore-mast cap. “Haul in by him, skip!” earnestly requested the gang, and Judson swung the West Wind towards the oncoming schooner. As she approached, the West Winders seized herrings, and holding them aloft, jeered and yelled, “Thar ain’t no more, bullies! We scoffed ’em all!” Sallies and jibes flew thick and fast between the rival crews, but the two skippers steered and remained silent.

“Why’n blazes, Harry, don’t ye ship in a craft what kin sail?” roared a West Winder to a friend on the Brown.

“There goes the Old Trawler’s Home!” shouted another in derision. “Come a trip with us, me sons, an’ you’ll bait small an’ catch large, as well as learn haow to sail a vessel. Why ain’t you got yer ridin’ sail on her? Ye’re gittin’ reckless!” And so they jibed and shouted until the other vessel passed out of hearing.

Running to the south’ard for the Canso Straits, the wind veered and the mist blew away and revealed a wonderful sight. Standing in to the Islands under all sail, came a mighty Armada of fishermen—fifty or sixty beautiful, clean-lined schooners, yacht-like with their white canvas and painted and varnished spars—and all were racing for bait. With booms sheeted in and decks sloped at angles which had the froth boiling in the scuppers, they stormed along with the white-water shearing away from their sharp bows and their crews shouting and bawling rude jests at each other. The West Wind ran down among them, and as they flew past, she was greeted with cheers as the “first hooker to bait at the Madaleens!”

“Any herrin’ left for us?” they enquired in stentorian tones. And this question was asked by all the vessels which passed them within hail.

“By George,” exclaimed McKenzie, “but this is a sight! This is worth coming a long way to see. It’s wonderful!”

“Aye,” remarked Judson, “it’s a great snarl of canvas, an’ many a wealthy yachtsman would give a thousand dollars to be in that fleet racing for the Islands. This happens every spring in aour fisheries, an’ when they’re all anchored in Pleasant Bay of a night, their ridin’ lights make ’em look like th’ streets of a town.”

Within an hour, they passed the stragglers, and soon they came up with evidences of the blockade in the pieces of floating field ice which littered the sea ahead. As far as the eye could discern, the white pans of ice flecked the green of the water, but it was small and mushy and not particularly dangerous. A good look out was kept and the vessel was steered to avoid the large pieces, and by nightfall, she passed through them into clear water.

The May days slipped into the summer days of June and the West Wind wandered from Bank to Bank, with her crew working hard from daylight to dark. On Sundays they rested, though a good many fishermen work Sundays, yet Nickerson remarked, “We’re workin’ double-tides on this hooker, and a Sunday lay-off gives a feller a chance to rest up. We can work all the harder for it.”

“Do all the fleet work like we do?” enquired Donald.

“No, indeed they don’t,” replied the skipper. “We’re only driving like this because we’re out to win that bet. The other Bankers take it easier, an’ they loaf around a lot. You take it this spring. The fleet lay around Port Hawkesbury for a week doin’ nawthin’, then they’d lay around the Madaleens for another week, maybe. Then they’d run off to the Banks an’ fish their bait, an’ then some of them’ll start cruisin’ around Noof’nland ports for the capelin bait. In the blows, they’ll run in to port an’ lay ontil it’s over, but I don’t believe in that. I’d sooner ride it aout hove-to an’ keep the drift of her an’ hang on to the grounds. By using my knowledge of navigation, I can always make my berth again, but some of these other skippers have to run in to the land to get a new departure from which they’ll steer to the Banks again ... which wastes time. Then again, all these fellers won’t h’ist dories over in thick or hazy weather like we do, and if I hadn’t a good husky, willing gang, we wouldn’t do it either.”

“What counts in successful fishing—luck or work?”

“Luck—some,” replied Judson, “but mostly work. You take all the Gloucester an’ Lunenburg high-liners—they’re all hustlers. They work hard, skippers and men, and it pays them when the share checks are given aout. Some of those smart high-line skippers will make as much as two thousand dollars out of the summer’s fishin’, and if they fish winters as well, they’ll often make five thousand in the year. Haow many liner skippers are gettin’ a thousand pounds a year? I doubt if there’s a one! I claim this work ain’t as hard as when I was in th’ merchant service. What was I gettin’ as mate of that Kelvinhaugh? Nine ruddy pounds a month! Forty-five measly dollars! D’ye wonder at me gittin’ aout? What do you think?”

Donald looked over the summer sea at the dories, which here and there dotted its blue expanse. In every boat two men were pulling the lines up from the ocean floor and toiling like beavers. Not heart-breaking, hopeless toil, but work at which a man can sing, at which he is wresting silver dollars for his effort. Some of them were singing, and their voices carolled across the lazy water. When the heart is glad there is no hardship in toil! From the sea, he gazed on the schooner sluggishly rolling in the swell, with a cheeping of boom jaws and a pattering of reef-points on the great stretches of canvas which reared aloft. It was very quiet and peaceful. For’ard, McGlashan, in white apron, was shifting his galley funnel for a better draught, and he, too, was crooning a lay to—

A delicious whiff of fresh-baked bread floated aft, suggestive of the good fare upon which they lived, and the summer breeze blew soft and warm. In the pens were a number of fine cod-fish awaiting the splitter’s knife, and on the cabin roof was a pillow where he and Judson had been dozing in the sunshine after the dories left the vessel. The memory of his days in the fishing fleet passed through his mind and they were pleasant memories. He thought of what he had seen of the sea in the past; thought of the rollicking, good-natured fellows he was now shipmates with, of Eastville and its people, and taking a deep breath, he replied, “This is the life, Skipper, and the more I see of it, the more I am convinced that you are a wise man!”

They fished steadily throughout the long summer days and worked to the north and east. On St. Pierre Bank they “jigged” a great baiting of squid—an octopus-like creature which may be caught near the surface on calm nights by dangling a small, umbrella-like hook overside. The squid enveloped the jig with its tentacles and would be whisked aboard squirting sepia in protest. With this bait—beloved by cod—they fished on St. Pierre and over on Grand Bank, and the rough grained salt in the bins got lower and lower, and the kenched cod in the fish-room grew daily higher, and the West Wind settled deeper in the water with the weight of it.

Times there were when they fished in plenteous company, and many a dawn would show sails all around the horizon. Oft-times they swung a dory over and “visited”—sitting in a stranger’s cabin with all hands crowded in listening while the skippers talked “fish.” In these visits, Nickerson would pick up all the news and gossip of the great fleet which did business on the huge watery areas from Le Have to the Virgin Rocks, and he would give information and prospects as freely as the other man. On one occasion they boarded a large French topsail schooner out from St. Servan, and Donald essayed a conversation in halting French. The outcome of this visit did not result in much fishery news, but the skipper received a bottle of cognac in return for a few plugs of tobacco, and McKenzie came away wondering how the deuce the Frenchmen got around in the clumsy, straw-stuffed sabots and ponderous cow-hide, wood-soled sea-boots they wore.

In mid-August, they ran down to Western Bank again on the strength of a rumor that cod were extremely plentiful there, but they had only made one set when one of the crew developed a sickness which looked suspiciously like typhoid fever.

“We’ll run to Eastville, Donald,” said Judson. “We’d better land Wesley at his home and we’ll fill up the tanks with water that we’re sure of.” At this announcement, McKenzie felt a strange thrill. “Eastville ... Ruth!” The names were synonymous, and it was quite possible that the skipper had the same incentive, but with a different objective. Under all sail, they crowded her home in a rare sailing breeze, and “with the Eastville girl ahauling on the tow-line,” they stormed in past the Capes on a lovely August morning and tied up to the dock. Wesley, muffled in blankets, was landed and rushed to his home, and the doctor pronounced it as a touch of typhoid, not a bad case, but enough to keep him in bed and ashore for a spell.

“I’ll have to pick up another man for his dory,” said Judson, but Donald broke in, “How about me, Skipper? Don’t you think I’m able enough to go in the dory with Jack Thomas?” The skipper laughed. “If Jack will agree, I will! It’ll leave me without a spare hand, though, but as the summer’s near over, I don’t mind.” Jack Thomas was agreeable, and McKenzie would go in the dory as a full-fledged fisherman when the West Wind made her next set.

After landing the sick man and giving orders for the tanks to be disinfected and re-filled, Judson and Donald went up to the house. Donald, feeling strangely elated, walked with springing steps, wondering if Ruth would be as glad to see him as he to see her. There was no sign of her on the veranda when they approached, and it was Mrs. Nickerson who met them, surprised and pleased. McKenzie nervously awaited Ruth’s appearance.

“Where are the girls?” enquired the skipper, after kissing his mother.

“They’ve both gone to Halifax for a visit,” replied the old lady. “Just went this morning, too. Isn’t that too bad!” Donald said nothing, but felt it was a calamity. Another month now before he would see her again, and a month is an age when one is in love. He felt very blue, but when Judson was called away to the telephone, he perked up and chatted with Mrs. Nickerson as amiably as if he had never been disappointed in his life.

When the skipper came back, he announced, “Tom Haskins wants to buy aour fish. Wants to git some dried an’ shipped afore the fleet comes in, and he offers a good price. We’ll unload right away and git aout to-night so’s we’ll git a day’s fishin’ to-morrow. We’ll come up for supper, mother.”

With Captain Bill Smith, the harbor-master, checking the weights as they discharged the fish, they emptied the West Wind’s hold clean to the floors. “You got a good jag, Judson,” said the Captain. “You must ha’ fished hard to git all them in that time.”

“D’ye s’pose we’ll be high-line, Cap’en?” asked Jud with a twinkle in his eye.

The old harbor-master bit off a chew of tobacco. “Ye might,” he answered non-committally. “Ye never kin tell.”

“Burton, naow—d’ye s’pose he landed as much as we did on his spring trip?” queried Nickerson quizzically.

“He might have,” replied the old man, with an unemotional visage. “Ye never kin tell ... ’til th’ tally’s published.” Judson chuckled and clapped the other on the back.

“Closer’n a clam, you are, Cap’en, but you’re quite right. I’m agoin’ to beat him sure! I’m off to-night for another jag.”

That evening they slipped out of Eastville for the Banks again.