Adventure Magazine Cover, June 20, 1925 — page 147: what you’re looking at

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

Skippers off Georges “But where can I git a new crew?” asked Captain Dan. - “That’s what I’ve come to see ye ’bout,” answered Mel, “You’re short on funds, but one y’ar 0’ good fishin’ would put ye on your feet. An’ you’d have no trouble gittin’ a crew after that. So I’ve decided to tie up the Vzctory f’r one season an’ give ye her crew—includin’ mie. IJ’ll welcome the change; skipperin’ ain’t wholly to my likin’. An’ money never had much at- traction for me.”’ Mel and his crew, true to Mel’s word, shipped in the Pelamon. They soon proved that Captain Dan’s adversities were due to something more than hard luck. Mel’s dead- ly striking of the harpoon and the deftness with which his crew handled ironed sword- fish when they hauled them in dories—all convinced Captain Dan that Mel was right. Mel had been intimate with Captain Ira, — too, when he was ashore. There was a rumor that Ira wanted to buy the Victory. But it was later said that Captain Ira had behaved like a wild man when he was first apprised of Mel’s sailing in the Pelamon. Captain Ira had promptly signed Dan’s second crew in his big beam trawler Comber, a huge steam craft which he owned in ad- dition to the decrepit coaster Eva Thomas. The Comber had been chasing mackerel that summer off Georges. No doubt Captain Ira was even more venomous than before, since Dan bade fair to be high-liner. Captain Dan thought of all this during the silence in the forecastle. “Mel,” he declared, rising and starting toward the ladder to climb on deck and study the weather, ‘without you I never, never would ’a’ paid expenses. I ain’t much more’n done that the last four years.” ‘We'll show Luke Carey what he missed,” chuckled Mel good-humoredly. ‘‘He’ll wish he’d stayed with me ’stead o’ signin’ up with that Captain Ira in the Comber.”’ For Luke Carey was the only one of Mel’s crew who had dissented when he hauled up the Victory and turned his crew over to Cap- tain Dan. II gg “HARD aport! Hard aport!” - Down the jibstay slid Mel Frost into the pulpit at the tip - of the Pelamon’s bowsprit. The mastheader, ‘Shiny’ Morton, had sighted the curved dorsal fin of a swordfish basking 9 129 in the warm sunlight, the huge fish wallow- ing lazily in the oily ground swell. The other four men in the three crosstrees of the tall foremast-head took up the masthead- ers cry, and at the wheel Captain Dan hopped nimbly, getting the schooner down on the unsuspecting quarry. Mel, his long-visored black cap pulled down to shade his eyes in the glaring sun- light, picked up the fifteen-foot harpoon pole from the waist-high iron hand rail, and lowered it slowly over the port side of the bowsprit. On the downward-pointing tip of the pole glinted the metal arrow-shaped lily-iron harpoon, from which ran the warp or harpoon line along the starboard rail. Amidships was coiled the great length of the warp, one hundred fathoms, its other end fast to a black buoy-keg. ‘Steady!’ shouted the men in the mast- head. “Steady!” echoed Captain Dan, twirling the wheel. Just then the swordfish seemed to scent danger. It moved its tail in a graceful spiral and shot along the surface like a torpedo. There is only one deep-sea crea-’ ture that can travel with the speed of a swordfish, and that is a porpoise. In an actual race between the two, the sword- fish would be championed by more than one of the New England skippers who are familiar with its terrific speed. If ever a swordfish traveled it was that three-hundred-pounder for whose life blood the crew of the Pelamon were thirsting. But the agitated monster made one mistake—a mistake that would have been insignificant with anybody but Mel Frost in the pulpit. It shaped its hurried course to starboard of the Pelamon, with a safe margin of approxi- mately thirty feet between it and the swing- ing pulpit, which Captain Dan was just in the act of bearing straight ahead. The lily iron flashed as Mel brought the pole up. With a quick motion his great arms raised the pole like a javelin about to be hurled. Only no javelin thrower ever acted with his uncanny speed, ever took such a hasty aim—at least, with any hope of hitting the mark, however large, at which the javelin was to be thrown. : Out flew the pole, darting like a gunshot at the V-shaped wake of a swordfish travel- ing so fast that the scimitar-shaped fin cut- ting the surface appeared to be a blurry straight line of black. The men in the COMIGDIOOKSEEO