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Harvey, sulkily. "My fingers are all cut to frazzles."

"Pshaw! This is jest one o' dad's blame experiments. He don't
trawl 'less there's mighty good reason fer it. Dad knows. Thet's
why he's baitin' ez he is. We'll hev her saggin' full when we take
her up er we won't see a fin."

Penn and Uncle Salters cleaned up as Disko had ordained, but the
boys profited little. No sooner were the tubs furnished than Tom
Platt and Long Jack, who had been exploring the inside of a dory
with a lantern, snatched them away, loaded up the tubs and some
small, painted trawl-buoys, and hove the boat overboard into what
Harvey regarded as an exceedingly rough sea. "They'll be drowned.
Why, the dory's loaded like a freight-car," he cried.

"We'll be back," said Long Jack, "an' in case you'll not be
lookin' for us, we'll lay into you both if the trawl's snarled."

The dory surged up on the crest of a wave, and just when it seemed
impossible that she could avoid smashing against the schooner's
side, slid over the ridge, and was swallowed up in the damp dusk.

"Take a-hold here, an' keep ringin' steady," said Dan, passing
Harvey the lanyard of a bell that hung just behind the windlass.

Harvey rang lustily, for he felt two lives depended on him. But
Disko in the cabin, scrawling in the log-book, did not look like a
murderer, and when he went to supper he even smiled drily at the
anxious Harvey.

"This ain't no weather," said Dan. "Why, you an' me could set thet
trawl! They've only gone out jest far 'nough so's not to foul our
cable. They don't need no bell reelly."

"Clang! cling! clang!" Harvey kept it up, varied with occasional
rub-a-dubs, for another half-hour. There was a bellow and a bump
alongside. Manuel and Dan raced to the hooks of the dory-tackle;
Long Jack and Tom Platt arrived on deck together, it seemed, one
half the North Atlantic at their backs, and the dory followed them
in the air, landing with a clatter.

"Nary snarl," said Tom Platt, as he dripped. "Danny, you'll do
yet."

"The pleasure av your comp'ny to the banquit," said Long Jack,
squelching the water from his boots as he capered like an elephant
and stuck an oilskinned arm into Harvey's face. "We do be
condescending to honour the second half wid our presence." And off
they all four rolled to supper, where Harvey stuffed himself to
the brim on fish-chowder and fried pies, and fell fast asleep just
as Manuel produced from a locker a lovely two-foot model of the
Lucy Holmes, his first boat, and was going to show Harvey the
ropes. Harvey never even twiddled his fingers as Penn pushed him
into his bunk.

"It must be a sad thing - a very sad thing," said Penn, watching
the boy's face, "for his mother and his father, who think he is
dead. To lose a child - to lose a man-child!"

"Git out o' this, Penn," said Dan. "Go aft and finish your game
with Uncle Salters. Tell dad I'll stand Harve's watch ef he don't

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