The Argosy, August 1914 — page 56: what you’re looking at

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

46 “Tired?” asked Jack. “ Want us to get you a chair?” The prostrate man, his hands clasped across his stomach and blood issuing from his nasal organ, merely wheezed and sputtered. Jack turned to Herb Mann. “I’m due for a bite to eat and a nap,’ he remarked. “ This salt air makes me hungry.” Herb looked inquiringly at the fallen terror of the Simcox gang. “He'll be all right,” Jack assured him. “ He didn’t mean any harm — just playful. Weren't you, Buck?” “Um-um!” Buck murmured. “Come along, Herb. I’m dead sleepy,” said Jack. Herb Mann’s recital of the en- counter on the beach was received by. Captain Zed’s fishermen with many an expression of astonishment. It was a tradition of the island that Buck Pot- ter was unbeatable. His swaggering, overbearing manner had contributed more to such a reputation than any actual achievement, for fishermen are by nature given to peace and minding their own business. Buck Potter by his size, strength, and pugnacity had achieved a pedestal of his own from which it had been deemed impossible that he should be dislodged single-handed. Herb Mann’s story, told while Jack was taking his well-earned rest, provoked unbelief. “Why, I could lick Jack Garrett myself,” asserted Anse Burdick. “ He ain’t got my heft, nor he ain’t as tall and big across the shoulders. You're jokin’, Herb.” “You ask Buck Potter 1f I’m jokin’,’ Herb retorted. ‘ Better ask him over the beach phone, though. Likely he thinks it’s a rough joke.” “You can't allus tell about these quiet - spoken fellers like Jack,” Jim Tarkis put in. “I mind me th’ time on th’ old Sary Swann, whalin’ out o° Fair Haven, the’ was a green Ver- monter on board ’t had never been to sea before. “ Feller Buck Potter like this ~ha’r. THE ARGOSY. thought ‘twas fun to be allus pickin’ on him till one day th’ Vermonter got his dander up an’ he just took that there cuss acrost his knee an’ spanked him plenty with a belayin’-pin, same as you'd spank a child, an’ holdin’ him all th’ while with his left hand in his ‘T’other feller told what he was goin’ to do t’ him after ’twas all over, but I noticed he never done nothin’ but leave him alone after that.” ‘“Some o’ these barge - hands —”’ Harley Whaley began. The number one man interrupted. “T don’t know ‘bout Jack bein’ a barge-hand,” said he. “I never see a barge-hand could polish off Buck Pot- ter th’ way he done.” Just th’ same, ’twas in Jack’s trick that they stole th’ propeller off’n the work-boat,” put in Peter Gomez, who until now had remained silent. ‘‘ That story "bout his havin’ been shot at an’ tied sounds fishy.”’ At that the conversation languished. Buck Potter was a known quantity, and Herb Mann’s account of his downfall was acceptable and accepted. But Jack Garrett’s story of his night adventure, lacking ocular proof, was less easy to swallow With the coming of July the big hotels at Oldham, three miles away, were filled for their short season. The advent of the ‘‘ summer boarders,” as they were known locally, was without effect on the lives of the fishermen. The latter, indeed, hardly knew of these ‘additions to Barratry Island’s population, except from reports of such as Harley Whaley, who was in the habit of visiting Oldham as often as his work permitted, and from see- ing strangers who walked across the island, seeking the fisherman in his native haunts. Longshore life held its current un- disturbed. ‘The fishing was neither good nor distinctly bad. The scup had wandered northward. ‘The mack- erel also were gone save for an occa- sional stray, but, making amends in COMMICLOOOKS (C@