table, boys!"

"Deeper'n the Whale-deep," said Dan, with a wink, as he set the gear
for dressing down. "Look at them boats that hev edged up sence mornin'.
They're all waitin' on Dad. See 'em, Harve?"

"They are all alike to me." And indeed to a landsman, the nodding
schooners around seemed run from the same mold.

"They ain't, though. That yaller, dirty packet with her bowsprit
steeved that way, she's the Hope of Prague. Nick Brady's her skipper,
the meanest man on the Banks. We'll tell him so when we strike the Main
Ledge. 'Way off yonder's the Day's Eye. The two Jeraulds own her. She's
from Harwich; fastish, too, an' hez good luck; but Dad he'd find fish
in a graveyard. Them other three, side along, they're the Margie Smith,
Rose, and Edith S. Walen, all from home. 'Guess we'll see the Abbie M.
Deering to-morrer, Dad, won't we? They're all slippin' over from the
shaol o' 'Oueereau."

"You won't see many boats to-morrow, Danny." When Troop called his son
Danny, it was a sign that the old man was pleased. "Boys, we're too
crowded," he went on, addressing the crew as they clambered inboard.
"We'll leave 'em to bait big an' catch small." He looked at the catch
in the pen, and it was curious to see how little and level the fish
ran. Save for Harvey's halibut, there was nothing over fifteen pounds
on deck.

"I'm waitin' on the weather," he added.

"Ye'll have to make it yourself, Disko, for there's no sign I can see,"
said Long Jack, sweeping the clear horizon.

And yet, half an hour later, as they were dressing down, the Bank fog
dropped on them, "between fish and fish," as they say. It drove
steadily and in wreaths, curling and smoking along the colourless
water. The men stopped dressing-down without a word. Long Jack and
Uncle Salters slipped the windlass brakes into their sockets, and began
to heave up the anchor; the windlass jarring as the wet hempen cable
strained on the barrel. Manuel and Tom Platt gave a hand at the last.
The anchor came up with a sob, and the riding-sail bellied as Troop
steadied her at the wheel. "Up jib and foresail," said he.

"Slip 'em in the smother," shouted Long Jack, making fast the
jib-sheet, while the others raised the clacking, rattling rings of the
foresail; and the foreboom creaked as the _We're Here_ looked up into
the wind and dived off into blank, whirling white.

"There's wind behind this fog," said Troop.

It was wonderful beyond words to Harvey; and the most wonderf