ad above the fo'c's'le hatch,
was calling that breakfast was ready, and we said no more of that.

"Go for'ard, Simon," said Captain Glynn, "and have your breakfast. After
breakfast we'll break out her anchor, and out dories and get that gear
aboard afore it's too late. I'll go below and see how Saul's getting
on."

With that he went into the cabin; but soon was back to take his seat at
the breakfast table; but no word of Saul until we had done eating, and
he standing to go up on deck. Then he said: "Saul says he is still too
sick to go in the dory with you, Simon."

And to that I said: "Well, I've hauled a halibut trawl single-handed
before, Captain Glynn, and I can do it again if need be."

He put on his woollen cap, and across the table he looked at me, and I
looked hard at him.

"This will be no morning to go single-handed in a dory, Simon. Saul is
not too sick, he says, to stand to the wheel and handle the vessel in my
place. I will take his place along with you in the dory."

What he was thinking I could not say. His head was thrown back and his
eyes looking out and down at me, as from the top of a far-away hill, and
no more knowing what thoughts lay behind them than what ships lay beyond
the horizon.

IV

It was a blood-red sunrise and a sea that was making when we left the
vessel, but nothing to worry over in that. It might grow into a
dory-killing day later, but so far it was only what all winter trawlers
face more days than they can remember.

We picked up our nearest buoy, with its white-and-black flag floating
high to mark it, and as we did, to wind'ard of us we could see, for five
miles it might be, the twisted lines of the dories stretching. Rising to
the top of a sea we could see them, sometimes one and sometimes
another, lifting and falling, and the vessel lifting and falling to
wind'ard of them all.

Hugh Glynn took the bow to do the hauling and myself the waist for
coiling, and it was a grand sight to see him heave in on that heavy gear
on that December morning. Many men follow the sea, but not many are born
to it. Hugh Glynn was. Through the gurdy he hauled the heavy lines,
swinging forward his shoulders, first one and then the other, swaying
from his waist and all in time to the heave of the sea beneath him, and
singing, as he heaved, the little snatches of songs that I believe he
made up as he went along.

As he warmed to his work he stopped to draw off the heavy sweater that
h