Adventure Magazine Cover — page 152: what you’re looking at

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

142. martial and gave him sixty days in the bull-pen. General principles, I think. I couldn’t begin to tell you what sort he was. If there was a grain of good in his whole body it had never come to light up to the time I’m telling you about. Somebody called him Devil, and that’s the name he died with. Let me tell you he was no coward, with all his badness. “Hullo, Daniel Wetmore,” he sings out to me that morning he came aboard shackled to another man. “Shipmates again, eh?’ I gave him a black look and he grinned at me like a monkey. It hurt to the bones to be . called shipmates by such as him. . “Have it as you want it, Daniel,” he says. “A man’s a right to choose his friends as he will. I remember a beatin’ you give me once, boy, an’ I’m here to thank vou for it. No hard feelin’s, eh?” he says. He grinned again and I saw he was making fun of me. “T have no jail-bird friends,” I says before I could stop. He’ grinnéd again harder than ever and winked at me. “Am I a jail-bird, Daniel?” he says. that’s right. this time, friend of mine.” “Pipe down and go along, you!” chimed in the sergeant of the marine guard, giving him a push that made the irons “Yes; The eight of them were herded forward to - the bull-pens to be locked away for the trip. The brigs, that is, sir. "ea TWO hours later we were passing the capes for the open sea, and a little = later still dropped land over the stern and headed north a bit east. We had a clear sky and a smooth sea, with the promise of a clean trip all the way. Still, you can’t always tell about the sea; it’s tricky. Before ever we came to Portsmouth we had it good. Pleasant weather we had up to the Jersey _ coast; then the barometer took a sudden drop. The wind came out of the nor’east pretty stiff, and before long the sea was making. Our head began to splash, and now and then she’d dip a rail under till she was almost awash. I’d heard the Yankton was a good sea boat. But the farther north we went the worse it got. Worse and worse it grew, the sea running . riot and the wind coming great guns. Man alive, how it did blow! Did I mention it was cold weather? No? It was. The spray would freeze no sooner it struck, covering the deck and rigging with a edat of slick ice that made getting about unhandy for the watch on deck. As you can see for yourself, sir, the old girl isn’t as big as a minute. Seaworthy she is, but a cork on the water when it’s rough. The big, seas picked her up and slammed her about any way, and while she answered her wheel ready f Eight long years they give me . Adventure enough she’d yaw wide now and again and hava to be coaxed back to the course like a contrary | 2 woman. It was so bad by the time we breasted Nan- ee ¢ tucket we had an idea maybe the skipper would — call it a day and run in somewhere and drop a hook till the weather moderated. I tell you it was no joke to be out in a heavy sea in such — season aboard this little boat. But that skipper we had was a driver; fair Z = ‘weather or foul, blow high or low, he was one to hustle to his ultimate port against any odds. And this port we were headed for was a — many miles farther north yet, across some — mighty dirty water, with ugly Cape Cod and its shoals aport, r By Nantucket we went, past Siasconset and Great Point Neck where there was fair. anchor- age, the little girl plunging in and out again like a spaniel in a duck-pond. Sometimes she’d — come up terrible slow and you'd think maybe she wasn’t coming up at all. I swear I saw her | bury the tips of her signal-yard under when we : | 2 a lay on our beams. Come Monomoy Light and we were standing first on our stern and then on the stem, wallow- ing far over abeam and shipping seas till it looked like the whole Atlantic Ocean wasaboard and trying to choke itself down our tiny scuppers. ‘There was no going on deck, which was soon swept bare of everything that wasn’t _ bolted tight down. Then along about sundown before you could ‘snap your fingers almost, the wind veered and came from the east, direct onshore. A westward gale with Cape Cod for a lee shore is something © to consider. We’d been hugging land all the way up like small boats do, and we weren’t any too far out for comfort. A sudden break in the engine or a snap of an anchor-chain meant the end of us. “Ever see the likes of it, Dan?” the carpenter says to me that evening at mess. “Not on a boat this size,” I says. “Maybe the old man’ll take a fool notion to put in some- wheres by and by.” = “We’re taking a long shot on seeing Ports- mouth if he don’t,” the carpenter says. “Lots of shoals along here, ain’t there, Dan?” “Miles of them,” I replied. When we came up to Nausett the skipper guessed it was a little hard on the engine have her screw racing like a whirligig and we'd better stick her into a little hole of a place he _ knew about along there and ride it out at_ anchor. So we ran her into this place he knew about. and dropped our starboard anchor, the best one we had, and let out eighty fathoms of chain to give her plenty of swinging room. But, I couldn’t see that place was much better than outside; it was wide open in front. The only advantage it gave us was we were riding COMMICLMOOOKS