Adventure Magazine Cover — page 166: what you’re looking at

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

156 spilt itself out, the Gleaner looked like sh’d just been raised from the sea bottom. You can see her now in the harbor, a heap of old junk, but handsome to what she was when we come out of that snorter. We patched her up best way we could, but some of the plates had started and she was leakin’ in~ more places than we could count. * *T guess she’ll last,’ says the mate, ‘till we reach Port Gifford,’ he says, ‘and then the sooner she’s broke up the better.’ “So we bumped along, pumping like blazes and it looked like we’d make port while the fair weather lasted. Then last night, b’gee, about sundown it come over as black as thunder and we knowed we were in for another buster. ** ‘Tf we don’t reach port before it breaks,’ says the mate, ‘we’ll have to stand out.’ ‘Well, it got darker and darker and the mate sends down to the skipper to ask if he’d stand out to sea and the skipper says no. *“* ‘She won’t stand another hammering,’ he says, ‘it’s port or perdition for us,’ he says. ‘Let her rip and when you're to windward of the Barrier signal for a pilot.’ “So we kept our course and by the time we were off the Barrier you couldn’t see from the bridge to the foc’s’le head, that dark it was. “We ain’t going to get no pilot tonight,’ says the mate. ‘We'll be drove out to sea if we ain’t washed up on a lee shore, and either way we'll crack up,’ says he. ‘I wish I’d stayed to home when I was a boy in- stead of becoming a sailor.’ ‘“Well, he’d hardly done speaking when, b’gee, the pilot boat come alongside and Bill Hogan climbs aboard. “Plumb crazy, ain’t you, to try and make the channel with that just about to bust?’ says he pointing to the sky. ‘Where’s the skipper?’ “The mate tells him how the skipper’s down with a broken leg, but had given orders we were to make the harbor. ** “Very good,’ says Bill, ‘orders is orders. But if we hit the reef, it won’t be my fault. You remember that,’ says he, ‘if you come through alive, which I doubt.’ “So he takes his stand near me by the wheel, one eye cocked on the compass, the other on-the ship’s bow—or where it ought to be, for it was now that dark you couldn’t see more’n a yard ahead. It was so, b’gee. “So we gets under way, half-speed ahead, Adventure and after a while Bill sings out ‘Starboard!’ “Starboard it is,’ says I, putting the wheel over. ‘ “Port,” says he. ‘Port it is,’ says I. “YT steadied her and then waited - ready to throw the wheel over hard-a-starboard. I’d made that channel dozens of times, as you folks know, and when I’d steadied her after ‘port,’ it was always ‘hard-a-star- board.’ A couple of minutes maybe and then came ‘port,’ which last should swing you clear of the reef. “Well, I waited, b’gee, and I waited, but Bill didn’t say nothing. And I began to feel queer. B’gee, I did that, for I kinder smelt the reef right ahead of us, felt it sort of. Still Bill didn’t say nothing and at last I couldn’t stand for it no longer. “* “Did you give hard-a-starboard?’ says I. ‘“**T did not,’ says he and I never heard a man’s voice sound uglier. ‘When I do, you'll hear it. Keep her as she goes,’ says he, ‘or VU boot you off the bridge.’ “YT began to wonder if Bill knowed just where he was. I was as sure we were head- ing straight for the Barrier as I was that we'd go to pieces like an egg-shell if we hit it. But he was the pilot and I was there to take his orders. ‘“ “Don’t you go monkeying with that wheel now,’ says Bill suspicious-like. ‘* “Aye, aye,’ says I, but my heart was in my throat for, b’gee, I was expecting every second we’d pile up. ‘Then all of a sudden there was a mighty flash of lightning and Bill Hogan staggered back like some one had hit him. But I wasn’t looking at him. No, b’gee, for as long as you might say ‘knife,’ I was looking straight on to the Barrier where it lay right under our bows with the seas breaking over it. I didn’t wait for no orders then. No, siree, I was climbing up that darned wheel like a squirrel, and never in my life did I put a wheel to starboard smarter. A couple more minutes and we’d been on that reef, good and hard. And with heavy seas breaking over to one side and a swift under- tow on the other, we’d have been pounded into mush in less’n no time. Yes, b’gee, there’d have been some widows and orphans this morning but for that flash o’ lightning. “Suddenly I heard Bill’s voice and it sounded sort of strained and unnatural. “You ain’t altered the course, have you?’ he shouts, and before I could answer NOOK (C@