ovely 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 keer. He's
played aout."

"Ver' good boy," said Manuel, slipping out of his boots and
disappearing into the black shadows of the lower bunk. "Expec' he make
good man, Danny. I no see he is any so mad as your parpa he says. Eh,
wha-at?"

Dan chuckled, but the chuckle ended in a snore.

It was thick weather outside, with a rising wind, and the elder men
stretched their watches. The hour struck clear in the cabin; the nosing
bows slapped and scuffed with the seas; the foc'sle stove-pipe hissed
and sputtered as the spray caught it; and the boys slept on, while
Disko, Long Jack, Tom Platt, and Uncle Salters, each in turn, stumped
aft to look at the wheel, forward to see that the anchor held, or to
veer out a little more cable against chafing, with a glance at the dim
anchor-light between each round.

CHAPTER IV

Harvey waked to find the "first half" at breakfast, the foc'sle door
drawn to a crack, and every square inch of the schooner singing its own
tune. The black bulk of the cook balanced behind the tiny galley over
the glare of the stove, and the pots and pans in the pierced wooden
board before it jarred and racketed to each plunge. Up and up the
foc'sle climbed, yearning and surging and quivering, and then, with a
clear, sickle-like swoop, came down into the seas. He could hear the
flaring bows cut and squelch, and there was a pause ere the divided
waters came down on the deck above, like a volley of buckshot. Followed
the woolly sound of the cable in the hawse-hole; and a grunt and squeal
of the windlass; a yaw, a punt, and a kick, and the _We're Here_
gathered herself together to repeat the motions.

"Now, ashore," he heard Long Jack saying, "ye've chores, an' ye must do
thim in any weather. Here we're well clear of the fleet, an' we've no
chores--an' that's a blessin'. Good night, all." He passed like a big
snake from the table to his bunk, and began to smoke. Tom Platt
followed his example; Uncle Salters, with Penn, fought his way up th