five boat-pullers. There were
only five of the last, for one of our number had been dropped overboard,
with a sack of coal at his feet, between two snow squalls in a driving
gale off Cape Jerimo. There were nineteen of us, and it was to be our
last drink together. With seven months of men's work in the world, blow
high, blow low, behind us, we were looking on each other for the last
time. We knew it, for sailors' ways go wide. And the nineteen of us,
drank the sailing master's treat. Then the mate looked at us with
eloquent eyes and called another round. We liked the mate just as well
as the sailing master, and we liked them both. Could we drink with one,
and not the other?

And Pete Holt, my own hunter (lost next year in the Mary Thomas, with all
hands), called a round. The time passed, the drinks continued to come on
the bar, our voices rose, and the maggots began to crawl. There were six
hunters, and each insisted, in the sacred name of comradeship, that all
hands drink with him just once. There were six boat-steerers and five
boat-pullers and the same logic held with them. There was money in all
our pockets, and our money was as good as any man's, and our hearts were
as free and generous.

Nineteen rounds of drinks. What more would John Barleycorn ask in order
to have his will with men? They were ripe to forget their dearly
cherished plans. They rolled out of the saloon and into the arms of the
sharks and harpies. They didn't last long. From two days to a week saw
the end of their money and saw them being carted by the boarding-house
masters on board outward-bound ships. Victor was a fine body of a man,
and through a lucky friendship managed to get into the life-saving
service. He never saw the dancing-school nor placed his advertisement
for a room in a working-class family. Nor did Long John win to
navigation school. By the end of the week he was a transient lumper on a
river steamboat. Red John and Axel did not send their pay-days home to
the old country. Instead, and along with the rest, they were scattered
on board sailing ships bound for the four quarters of the globe, where
they had been placed by the boarding-house masters, and where they were
working out advance money which they had neither seen nor spent.

What saved me was that I had a home and people to go to. I crossed the
bay to Oakland, and, among other things, took a look at the death-road.
Nelson was gone--shot to death while