FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   117   118   119   120   121   122   123   124   125   126   127   128   129   130   131   132   133   134   135   136   137   138   139   140   141  
142   143   144   145   146   147   148   149   150   151   152   153   154   155   156   157   158   159   >>  
matically became the skipper of the schooner, and he selected Jimmie Thomas as his mate. By nightfall they had picked up the fleet, and early the next morning the dories were out. Then for eight days it had been nothing but fish, fish, fish. Never in all his experience had Pete seen such schools of cod. They were evidently herding together in thousands, and had found but scanty food for such great hosts, for they bit almost on the bare hook. Now, as he looked around the still sea, the white or yellow sails of the fishing fleet showed on all sides in a vast circle. Not five miles away was the _Rosan_, and to the southward of her the _Herring Bone_ with mean old Jed Martin aboard. Bijonah Tanner had tried his best to shake Martin, but the hard-fisted old skipper, knowing and recognizing Tanner's "nose" for fish, had clung like a leech and profited by the other's sagacity. Nor was this all the Grande Mignon fleet. There were Gloucestermen among it, the champion fishers of the world, who spent their spare time in drifting past the English boats and hurling salty wit--at which pastime they often came off second best. There were Frenchmen, too, from the Miquelon Islands, who worked in colored caps and wore sheath-knives in belts around their waists. Pete often looked over their dirty decks and wondered if his late enemy were among them. There were also vessels called "toothpicks" that did an exclusive trawling business, never using dories except to underrun the trawls or to set them out. These vessels were built on yacht lines and, because they filled their holds quickly, made quick runs to port with their catches, thus getting in several trips in a season. Also, there were the steam trawlers, the most progressive of the fleet, owned and operated by huge fish firms in Boston or Portland. These were not dependent on the vagaries of the wind and steamed wherever their skippers divined that fish might be. Last of all were the seiners after herring and mackerel, schooners mostly, and out of Gloucester or Nova Scotia ports, who secured their catch by encircling schools of fish that played atop of the water with nets a quarter of a mile long, and pursued them in by drawstrings much as a man closes a tobacco-pouch. This was the cosmopolitan city that lived on the unmarked lanes of the ocean and preyed upon the never-failing supplies of fish that moved beneath. Among the Grande Mignon boats there was intense rival
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   117   118   119   120   121   122   123   124   125   126   127   128   129   130   131   132   133   134   135   136   137   138   139   140   141  
142   143   144   145   146   147   148   149   150   151   152   153   154   155   156   157   158   159   >>  



Top keywords:

looked

 
Grande
 

vessels

 

Mignon

 

Tanner

 

schools

 
Martin
 
skipper
 

dories

 

quickly


catches

 

matically

 

operated

 

Boston

 

Portland

 
progressive
 

trawlers

 
season
 

toothpicks

 

called


schooner

 

selected

 

wondered

 
exclusive
 

trawling

 

trawls

 

business

 

underrun

 
filled
 

tobacco


cosmopolitan

 

closes

 
pursued
 

drawstrings

 

unmarked

 

beneath

 
intense
 
supplies
 

failing

 

preyed


quarter
 

seiners

 

herring

 

divined

 

vagaries

 

steamed

 

skippers

 
mackerel
 

schooners

 
encircling