anks,
workin' fer our bread. We don't see the ha'af of a hundred dollars a
month, let alone pocket-money; an' with good luck we'll be ashore again
somewheres abaout the first weeks o' September."

"But--but it's May now, and I can't stay here doin' nothing just
because you want to fish. I can't, I tell you!"

"Right an' jest; jest an' right. No one asks you to do nothin'. There's
a heap as you can do, for Otto he went overboard on Le Have. I mistrust
he lost his grip in a gale we f'und there. Anyways, he never come back
to deny it. You've turned up, plain, plumb providential for all
concerned. I mistrust, though, there's ruther few things you kin do.
Ain't thet so?"

"I can make it lively for you and your crowd when we get ashore," said
Harvey, with a vicious nod, murmuring vague threats about "piracy," at
which Troop almost--not quite--smiled.

"Excep' talk. I'd forgot that. You ain't asked to talk more'n you've a
mind to aboard the _We're Here_. Keep your eyes open, an' help Dan to
do ez he's bid, an' sechlike, an' I'll give you--you ain't wuth it, but
I'll give--ten an' a ha'af a month; say thirty-five at the end o' the
trip. A little work will ease up your head, and you kin tell us all
abaout your dad an' your ma an' your money afterwards."

"She's on the steamer," said Harvey, his eyes filling with tears. "Take
me to New York at once."

"Poor woman--poor woman! When she has you back she'll forgit it all,
though. There's eight of us on the _We're Here_, an' ef we went back
naow--it's more'n a thousand mile--we'd lose the season. The men they
wouldn't hev it, allowin' I was agreeable."

"But my father would make it all right."

"He'd try. I don't doubt he'd try," said Troop; "but a whole season's
catch is eight men's bread; an' you'll be better in your health when
you see him in the fall. Go forward an' help Dan. It's ten an' a ha'af
a month, e I said, an' o' course, all f'und, same e the rest o' us."

"Do you mean I'm to clean pots and pans and things?" said Harvey.

"An' other things. You've no call to shout, young feller."

"I won't! My father will give you enough to buy this dirty little
fish-kettle"--Harvey stamped on the deck--"ten times over, if you take
me to New York safe; and--and--you're in a hundred and thirty by me,
anyhow."

"Haow?" said Troop, the iron face darkening.

"How? You know how, well enough. On top of all that, you want me to do
menial work"--Harvey was very proud of that adje