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doin' some high-line thinkin' fer all hands. I'll lay my wage an'
share we'll make berth soon. Dad he knows the cod, an' the fleet
they know dad knows. 'See 'em comin' up one by one, lookin' fer
nothin' in particular, o' course, but scrowgin' on us all the
time? There's the Prince Leboa; she's a Chat-ham boat. She's crep'
up sence last night. An' see that big one with a patch in her
foresail an' a new jib? She's the Carrie Pitman from West Chat-
ham. She won't keep her canvas long on less her luck's changed
since last season. She don't do much 'cep' drift. There ain't an
anchor made'll hold her. . . . When the smoke puffs up in little
rings like that, dad's studyin' the fish. Ef we speak to him now,
he'll git mad. Las' time I did, he jest took an' hove a boot at
me."

Disko Troop stared forward, the pipe between his teeth, with eyes
that saw nothing. As his son said, he was studying the fish -
pitting his knowledge and experience on the Banks against the
roving cod in his own sea. He accepted the presence of the
inquisitive schooners on the horizon as a compliment to his
powers. But now that it was paid, he wished to draw away and make
his berth alone, till it was time to go up to the Virgin and fish
in the streets of that roaring town upon the waters. So Disko
Troop thought of recent weather, and gales, currents, food-
supplies, and other domestic arrangements, from the point of view
of a twenty-pound cod; was, in fact, for an hour a cod himself,
and looked remarkably like one. Then he removed the pipe from his
teeth.

"Dad," said Dan, "we've done our chores. Can't we go overside a
piece? It's good catch-in' weather."

"Not in that cherry-coloured rig ner them ha'afbaked brown shoes.
Give him suthin' fit to wear."

"Dad's pleased - that settles it," said Dan, delightedly, dragging
Harvey into the cabin, while Troop pitched a key down the steps.
"Dad keeps my spare rig where he kin overhaul it, 'cause ma sez
I'm keerless." He rummaged through a locker, and in less than
three minutes Harvey was adorned with fisherman's rubber boots
that came half up his thigh, a heavy blue jersey well darned at
the elbows, a pair of flippers, and a sou'wester.

"Naow ye look somethin' like," said Dan. "Hurry!"

"Keep nigh an' handy," said Troop, "an' don't go visitin' raound
the fleet. Ef any one asks you what I'm cal'latin' to do, speak
the truth - fer
ye don't know."

A little red dory, labelled Hattie S., lay astern of the schooner.
Dan hauled in the painter, and dropped lightly on to the bottom
boards, while Harvey tumbled clumsily after.

"That's no way o' gettin' into a boat," said Dan. "Ef there was
any sea you'd go to the bottom, sure. You got to learn to meet
her."

Dan fitted the thole-pins, took the forward thwart, and watched
Harvey's work. The boy had rowed, in a ladylike fashion, on the
Adirondack ponds; but there is a difference between squeaking pins

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