The Argosy, Christmas 1912 — page 96: what you’re looking at

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

82 “Del is a great trial to me,” admit- ted Bijonah shortly. “If it waren’t that I think he’s got a screw loose some’rs, I’d never ship him with me, he’s that officious. I allow a man that has black-sheeped a family as long as he has ought to be thankful fer a berth on a schooner like the Rosan. But, no, that ain’t enough! MHe’s got to tell me how to run her before all the men at mug-up.” “ You laid him out pretty powerful, pretty powerful,” reaffirmed Tom, shaking his head. “He shouldn’t forget who’s skipper after that.” “But, in all fairness to my con- science, [ must say he come back at me unusual strong, Tom,’ rejoined Bijonah. “ Fer a fact, he leathered me consid’able. One thing I always did envy about Del was the clean way he had of sayin’ things. Now, if he set his mind to callin’ you a dum-swizzled, . yeller-backed gurry-butt,.he’d do it so’s you'd never forgit it. With me, I get all excited: and twisted up; but I flatter myself I gave him to understand his place in the family this mornin’, the young sea-puppy. He’s twenty-eight, an’ the only one of us that never got ahead.” Arrived at the shoals, Bijonah and Tom set their trawl. First the skip- per, standing in the stern of the dory, heaved over the anchor and buoy of the line, and then, as Tom slowly pulled along, skilfully fed the rest of it out of the tub without the tangling of a single hook or the loss of a piece of bait. At the finish, when the sec- ond-end buoy had splashed into the water, the “shot” of line, with its hundred hooks, lay a tempting and menacing row of morsels to unwary cod, haddock, and halibut. Besides the skipper’s dory seven others were out, and each of these carried five tubs, so that the number of hooks at the service of the Rosan was close to four thousand. Still, with all of these taken by a hungry fish, they would not make much of an impression upon the vessel whose THE ARGOSY. hold could securely salt away a hun- dred thousand. As Tom Hodgkin pulled Captain Bijonah over the smoking water that looked like oil beneath the woolly grayness of the fog, the only sounds were the creak of the oars against the thole-pins, the occasional slap of a wave, and the squawk of the patent fog-horn from the schooner a quarter of a mile away. Round about him somewhere were the other dories, but they were invisible in the all-enwrap- ping blanket. At the end of half an hour Bijonah gave the word to return to the Rosan. Tom Hodgkin rested on his oars and waited for the raucous screech from the schooner that Del, the cook, and only man left aboard, was supposed to send across the water every minute. Five times the usual period passed, and no sound came. “Wonder if the music-box is broke?’ ventured Tom, referring to the grinding motion by which the horn was operated. “Wal, if it 1s, he’s got the conch,” snarled Bijonah. ‘“‘ Nothin’s broke, I’ll wager; I'd like to know what dev- iltry Del’s up to now.’ Again they waited, but no blare shivered through the fog. Impatient- ly Bijonah reached into the stern of the dory and brought up a heavy, battered old conch shell. Standing erect, he sent a shriek out into the gray pall that surrounded him. It was answered presently by others from various points of the compass. “That’s the boys, not the schoon- er,” said Hodgkin. “I’d know the Rosan’s old elephant trumpet every time.” Suddenly from out of the northeast there caine a puff of wind that stirred the fog veil and smote the fishermen with its icy breath. Captain Bijonah lifted his head as some old wolf-hound might, and smelled the wind. “Goin’ to breeze up,’ he = an- nounced. “‘ Why in tarnation don’t he answer? ” CoOMmicbook CO