Adventure Magazine Cover — page 97: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

Intuition diver, paid for stores—to be delivered on board the Calipso that afternoon—then, when evening came, he crossed the ferry to Oakland and chartered a Whitehall boat which carried him to the schooner. One thing he noticed when climbing aboard after paying the boatman: Blue Peter sat on the forecastle deck, smoking a cord-wrapped pipe, and the gray-thatched eyes of the mariner were fixed in the onshore wind that came through the Golden Gate. “You sent him out,” said ‘Red’? Land- yard, the mate. Micky clicked a strong jaw. “Gol blyme, yes!” “What for? He’s no use!” Gripping the schooner’s polished rail, Micky McMasters leaned until his head was over the water. The boatman and the Whitehall boat were floating back to Oak- land; a silver dusk lay over the hills, broken in the north by the yellow flame of San Francisco. Micky turned his glance upon Blue Peter. “Red,” he said to the Yankee mate, ‘‘you an’ I ’ave sailed an’ steamed since we were lads. We think we know th’ sea—but we only think so. Blue Peter is older than hus an’ far wiser. ’E works by intuition— a good compass to steer by. ’E told me, six, seven years ago, that th’ crew of th’ Orza were on murder bent—an’ they were! It was Blue Peter who saved me from an Arctic grave. So, Blue Peter stays forrard, an’ we'll all turn in—for we’re leavin’ when th’ wind shifts at sun-up. I got my clear- ance papers—everything!”’ Micky McMasters strode across the deck, and entered his cabin by way of a sliding door at the break of the poop. THE Calipso, full-handed, with a bone at her yacht-like prow and Bteed. every sail set to an offshore breeze, cleared the land of California and plunged upon the vasty blue. Red Landyard, the American mate, worked the booze out of the six foremast hands, in- cluding Blue Peter, and inspected the divers’ quarters in the galley—where four men were quartered with the cook—men whom Micky had paid five hundred dollars advance in San Francisco for their service in getting pearls from a reef too deep for native divers to reach. Then the mate went aft, spat to leeward, and climbed the quarter-deck steps at the top of which stood Micky McMasters. 89 “Wall,” said the mate, “everything is shipshape except that Old Man of th’ Sea you sent aboard. He’s goin’ to be about as useful to me as a sick walrus.” Micky McMasters gulped at a memory. ** ’Andle ’im gently—poor soul, this may be ’is last passage.”’ “T’ll make it his last!’ Micky’s tattooed hands closed over the mate’s wrists. ‘Watch Blue Peter—get acquainted with ‘im. ’E ain’t no Shippin’ Board apprentice. "E’s full o’ intuition. See ’im now—a-stand- in’ by th’ fore-sheet. ’Ow did ’e know I was about to sing hout to slacken that sheet?”’ Red Landyard eyed Blue Peter, then squinted to windward. ‘Th’ breeze is shiftin’ to th’ north—guess Blue Peter saw that an’ stood by.” Mickey nodded. “Yes, he suspected I’d give th’ order. That’s where th’ salt is thickest—on men like Blue Peter. ’E don’t need no orders— ’e thinks ahead.” A gust from over the starboard quarter indicated that the wind had veered; Red Landyard gave the order to slacken sheets. He sprang to the deck and assisted a Lascar who shared the watch with Blue Peter— the third sailor on deck being at the wheel. Coming back to Micky’s side, on the quarter-deck, Red said cuttingly: “Your old man may work by intuition— but he don’t do any other kind of work. He couldn’t belav a main-sheet—he’s weak, . skipper, an’ surly.” ‘“"Andle ’im gently,” was all Micky said. Later the cockney captain drew the mate aft by the rocking taffrail. ‘What do you think of my divers?” he questioned. ‘‘Gol blyme, I promised my boy I’d get th’ best in ’F risco! D’ you think I succeeded, Red: Micky’s “boy” was aged twenty-three— he had charge of a pearl-shed, two hundred natives, and much gear, located on the island of Nati. He was McMaster’s son— by a wife who lived at Great Grimbsy, Eng- land—a helpmate who awaited the fortune that was promised from the torrid seas. ‘What do you think of my divers?” re- peated Micky. Red Landyard shifted a chew of tobacco from one cheek to the other. ‘‘What do I think? Why, skipper, they look capable of anything. They were playing poker, drinking from a square-face of gin, an’ they C@ NOOLK S C@ iin