of fish would not settle enough to allow of
another day's work to be crowded in. But when he saw that space above
the fish was very small he waited no longer.

Four men heaved on the windlass brakes, and the others got sail on her
as fast as they could haul halyards. She started under jib, jumbo,
fore and mains'l, with the wind a little on her port quarter and every
fiber of her yearning to go.

When the sails were apparently flat as boards Schofield made Ellinwood
rig pulleys leading to the middle of the halyards so that the men
could sway on them. She was fit as a racing yacht; her load was
perfectly distributed and she trimmed to a hairbreadth.

An hour later they snored down upon the _Night Hawk_, the last vessel
at the edge of the fleet.

"Better hurry!" megaphoned Stetson, tickled with himself. "Burns
cleared six hours ago for Freekirk Head with a thousand quintal. He's
got Boughton sewed up to buy 'em, too."

"Bring her to!" snarled Code, and the _Lass_, groaning and complaining
at the brutality, whirled up into the wind enough to take her sticks
out. "Burns's going home, you say? And with fish? Where'd he get
'em?"

"From me. I sold him my whole load at a better price than I would have
got if I had waited to fill the _Hawk's_ belly and then gone home.
Gave me cash and threw in a lot of bait, so I'll stay right out here
and get another load. Petty good for a Jonah--what? Ha, ha!" The man
roared exasperatingly.

"Damnation!" rapped out Schofield. "Lively now! Tops'ls on her, and
two of you stay aloft to shift tacks if we should need to come
about."

"Hey, you!" bawled Stetson as the _Lass_ began to heel to the great
sweep of the wind. "There's two ahead of him, Bijonah Tanner an' Jed
Martin! Better hurry if you're going to catch the market!"

"Hurry, is it?" growled Code to himself. "I'll hurry so some people
won't know who it is."

It was the first time that Code had had occasion to drive the _Lass_,
for the Mignon fishermen heretofore had confined their labor to the
shoals near home or, at farthest, on the Nova Scotia coast. The
present occasion was different.

Between where he lay and the friendly sight of Swallowtail Light was
more than eight hundred and fifty miles of wallowing, tumbling ocean.
Treacherous shoals underran it, biting rocks pierced up in saw-toothed
reefs, the bitterest gales of all the seas swept in leaden wastes.

It was a cutthroat business, this mighty pull for the market;