I looked seaward, and my eyes rested on a ragged line of silver edging
the horizon toward Montauk.

"Does look soapy, don't it?" answered the shoveller. "Wonder if Cap'n
Joe sees it."

Cap'n Joe had seen it--fifteen minutes ahead of anybody else,--had been
watching it to the exclusion of any other object. He knew the
sea,--knew every move of the merciless, cunning beast; had watched it
many a time, lying in wait for its chance to tear and strangle. More
than once had he held on to the rigging when, with a lash of its tail,
it had swept a deck clean, or had stuck to the pumps for days while it
sucked through opening seams the life-blood of his helpless craft. The
game here would be to lift its victim on the back of a smooth
under-roller and with mighty effort hurl it like a battering ram
against the shore rocks, shattering its timbers into drift wood.

"Billy," said Captain Joe to the shoveller, "go down to the edge of the
stone pile and holler to the sloop to cast off and make for home.
Hurry, now! And, Jimmy,"--this to his pump tender,--"unhook this
breastplate,--there won't be no divin', today. I've been mistrustin'
the wind would haul ever since I got up this mornin'."

The shoveller sprang from the platform and began clambering over the
slippery, slimy rocks like a crab, his red shirt marked with the white
"X" of his suspenders in relief against the blue water. When he reached
the outermost edge of the stone pile, where the ten-ton blocks lay, he
made a megaphone of his fingers and repeated the captain's orders to
the Susie Ann.

Baxter listened with his hands cupped to his ears.

"Who says so?" came back the reply.

"Cap'n Joe."

"What fur?"

"Goin' to blow,--don't ye see it?"

Baxter stepped gingerly along the sloop's rail. Obeying the order meant
twenty-four hour's delay in making sure of his wages,--perhaps a week,
spring weather being uncertain. He didn't "see no blow." Besides, if
there was one coming, it wasn't his sloop or his stone. When he reached
the foot of the bowsprit Moon-face sent this answer over the water:

"Let her blow and be d--! This sloop's chartered to deliver this stone.
We've got steam up and the stuff's goin' over outside. Get your divers
ready. I ain't shovin' no baby carriage and don't you forgit it. I'm
comin' on! Cast off that buoy line, you,"--this to one of his men.

Captain Joe continued stripping off his leaden breastplate. He had
heard his order repeated and knew t