The Argosy, August 1914 — page 69: what you’re looking at

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

NOBODY LOVES A LOSER. “Get the men.” Captain Zed was alert on the instant. “I'll meet you down by the dories. Look alive now.” The final admonition was unneces- sary, for Jack was on his way already. He repeated his message to Herb Mann and the rest. “ Here, Charlie, you an’ Anse run to th’ fish-house and get th’ big seine on th’ dock!” Herb shouted, without waiting to offer comment on the procla- mation. “ Jim, you’re in on this. Go along with Charlie. Jack, Pete, you come with me. We'll help cap’n get his dories out and th’ work-boat started. No time to waste.” They did allow themselves long enough to snatch oilskins, for they were dressed in their best clothes in honor of the‘holiday; but in easily less than sixty seconds after-Jack’s irrup- tion they were on their way to the va- rious posts. Jack, keeping along with Herb’s long legs, was describing what he had seen. “Mighty queer,’ Herb rejoined. “It’s too late for mackerel to be work- in’ north and too early for ’em to be comin’ back. But I’ve heard of.them bein’ caught in this month.” Captain Zed was waiting for his men at the water’s edge, and already had one dory afloat. The other was shoved off, the work-boat’s engine starting, and they rounded up to the fish-house dock in a long curve to take on the rest” of the men. The big black seine was piled into one of the dories. Buck Potter and his mates, closely watching the maneuvers, opened their eyes wide at this sight. “Now what do you make out o’ that, Buck?” exclaimed one of his mates. “We'll see,” Buck replied. “’T looks like fishin’ on Sundays. If they can go seinin’ I guess we can. Look sharp here, boys.” Straightway the Simcoxes dupli- cated the operations of the Hoopers, even to the length of loading their own seine into a dory. The speed with which they worked may be inferred 59 from the fact that they were not three minutes behind the others in rounding the point for the open sea. CHAPTER XV, THE BIG HAUL, Tut Hooper gang was full of specu- lation and doubt as soon as their first rush was over. “Tl bet it was a school of buckies you saw, Jack,” ventured Anse Bur- dick. ‘“ Fishin’ out o’ Glo’ster, I’ve had many a pull for nothin’ but a school of buckies.”’ “Maybe it was,” Jack replied. “It’s up to the captain whether or not it’s worth while trying to find out.” Buckies are the despised menhaden, utilized only for oil and fertilizer. But Captain Zed was of the opinion that no mistake was being made in investigating. “Tf it’s buckies, all it’s cost us is a little time an’ gasoline,” said he. “And if it’s mackerel, like Jack says, and they don’t sound before we can get th’ old seine under them, it'll help pay us for a poor season.” “ But mackerel ain’t runnin’ now,” Anse persisted. “’Tain’t reasonable these sh’ld be mackerel. Why, they’re fetchin’ sixty cents apiece retail in NW York.” 7 This light on the possibilities of what he had seen rather staggered Jack. He asked how much that might mean wholesale. “Twenty cents on th’ steamboat wharf—not a cent less, prob’ly more,”’ said Herb Mann. ‘“ That’s fresh an’ big ones. Salted down, not so much.” he counting of the loot before the fish were netted was broken in on by the put-put of another motor-boat, which revealed itself to be that of the Simcox crew just rounding into sight. “Now what do you suppose they’re after?’ inquired Captain Zed. saw th’ whole lot of ’em loafin’ around th’ harbor head when I put th’ dory over. They didn’t look then as if they CORICGLOOOLKS (C@)