Adventure Magazine Cover, April 1916 — page 90: what you’re looking at

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

88 shows th’ big heart ye have, and a better dory-mate I never sailed with.” Anderson laughed. “I’d do anythin’ for a good scout,’ he said, ‘‘an’ you’re one o’ th’ best, Westley, boy. Watch an’ wheel, baitin’ up an’ haul- in’ trawls, it’s a pleasure for me to work with ye. Lord Harry, old townie! We’ll hold her down together this Winter—the best an’ ablest pair that ever swung a dory over.” He turned his back to Collins and the smile on his face turned into a look of the most malignant hate. Lord! How he de- tested the big simple-minded fool! He’d get him even though he had to play his masquerade the whole Winter season. Aboard a fishing vessel a man has a thou- sand opportunities to rid himself of a rival or an enemy. An accidental shove on a dark night when the two were alone on watch, and Collins would swell the list of fishermen “‘drowned at sea from the vessel.” Yet many times, Westley stood by the lee rail absolutely unsuspicious of the sinis- ter thoughts in the mind of his dory-mate a few feet behind him. In the dory, with Westley standing in the bow, hauling, and Anderson coiling just aft of his hated rival, a smash on the head with the bailer, a sling- ding rock, or the dory-jar would send him headlong into the chilly green depths never to rise again. A man clad in heavy sea-boots, with Winter clothing and oilskins on, goes down like a stone, and dories are easy craft to fall out of. Out on a bowsprit furling a jib in the dark of a Winter’s night with the wind blowing and the sea roaring, a moderately strong push under the chin would topple a man over backwards and his shout would be unheard by his shipmates a few feet away. Oh, ay, there were many ways, but Ander- son waited his chance and smiled and joked and laughed while the man he was out to kill trusted him and felt that never, in all his go- ing a-fishing, had he shipped with a truer and better dory-mate. When dories are alongside the schooner in anything over a flat calm, a dory-painter -must be held in the hands of some person aboard. On no account must it be made fast toa pin oracleat. With a vessel under sail and heading through the water, the dory is rolling alongside and tugging and jerking at the painter in the rise and fall of the sea. The man holding the bow rope eases off when the dory tugs, but were the Adventure painter belayed to an unresisting object, the cranky craft is liable to capsize or swamp. On a rough January day on Brown’s Bank, the Seldovia was running out her string of ten dories. All the little craft were slung over, and Number Ten, Collins’ and Anderson’s, was the last put over the rail. Westley jumped down into the boat and Anderson handed him the four tubs of baited trawl, while the cook held the painter and the skipper busied himself aft. The latter had occasion to go into the cabin for something and slipped the wheel into the becket. Anderson turned suddenly to the cook. ‘Jump down, Jack, an’ hard me up a few doughnuts or something for a mug-up for me ’n’ West. I'll take that painter.” The cook handed the rope over and went down into the forecastle. Anderson saw that his dory-mate was busy stacking the trawl tubs and clearing the buoy-lines in the pitching dory, and with lightning-like swift- ness he belayed the painter to a pin in the rail. Springing over to the forecastle scuttle, he jumped down the ladder and be- gan shouting at the cook: “Look alive, Jack, with that grub. D’ye think we kin wait all day?” A cold sweat broke out on his face as a muffled yell told him something had hap- pened and he leaped on deck to see the skip- per with the long dory-gaff in his hand make a drive at something over the rail. ‘“‘Aft here, some one!”’ roared Tim David- son. “Gimme a hand or I’ll lose him!” And as Anderson raced to the quarter, he felt that his plan had failed. When Collins had been hauled, gasping and red-faced, over the rail, the skipper opened the ball. A ‘“‘What in Hades d’ye mean by belayin’ . that dory-painter?” he bawled. ‘Don’t ye know enough? Ain’t you bin a fishin’ long enough to know that dory-painters sh’d never be made fast when there’s a man in th’ dory? Consarn me! Ef I hadn’t jest heppened to come on deck jest as that dory capsized an’ gaffed yer dory-mate, there would ’a’ bina drownin’ scrape on yer hands. Help me git that dory up on th’ tackles while th’ cook sees to Collins. He’s ’most all in.” A few minutes later, Anderson was down in the forecastle where Collins was changing his sodden clothing. Striding across to him, Tom grasped his hand. CoMmichoooks CO