is catch," Manuel put in. "Lied every day.
Fife, ten, twenty-fife more fish than come he say there was."

"Where was that?" said Dan. "None o' aour folk."

"Frenchman of Anguille."

"Ah! Them West Shore Frenchmen don't caount anyway. Stands to reason
they can't caount. Ef you run acrost any of their soft hooks, Harvey,
you'll know why," said Dan, with an awful contempt.

"Always more and never less,
Every time we come to dress,"

Long Jack roared down the hatch, and the "second ha'af" scrambled up at
once.

The shadow of the masts and rigging, with the never-furled riding-sail,
rolled to and fro on the heaving deck in the moonlight; and the pile of
fish by the stern shone like a dump of fluid silver. In the hold there
were tramplings and rumblings where Disko Troop and Tom Platt moved
among the salt-bins. Dan passed Harvey a pitchfork, and led him to the
inboard end of the rough table, where Uncle Salters was drumming
impatiently with a knife-haft. A tub of salt water lay at his feet.

"You pitch to dad an' Tom Platt down the hatch, an' take keer Uncle
Salters don't cut yer eye out," said Dan, swinging himself into the
hold. "I'll pass salt below."

Penn and Manuel stood knee deep among cod in the pen, flourishing drawn
knives. Long Jack, a basket at his feet and mittens on his hands, faced
Uncle Salters at the table, and Harvey stared at the pitchfork and the
tub.

"Hi!" shouted Manuel, stooping to the fish, and bringing one up with a
finger under its gill and a finger in its eyes. He laid it on the edge
of the pen; the knife-blade glimmered with a sound of tearing, and the
fish, slit from throat to vent, with a nick on either side of the neck,
dropped at Long Jack's feet.

"Hi!" said Long Jack, with a scoop of his mittened hand. The cod's
liver dropped in the basket. Another wrench and scoop sent the head and
offal flying, and the empty fish slid across to Uncle Salters, who
snorted fiercely. There was another sound of tearing, the backbone flew
over the bulwarks, and the fish, headless, gutted, and open, splashed
in the tub, sending the salt water into Harvey's astonished mouth.
After the first yell, the men were silent. The cod moved along as
though they were alive, and long ere Harvey had ceased wondering at the
miraculous dexterity of it all, his tub was full.

"Pitch!" grunted Uncle Salters, without turning his head, and Harvey
pitched the fish by twos and threes down the hatch.

"Hi! Pit