Adventure Magazine Cover, June 20, 1925 — page 145: what you’re looking at

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

Skippers off Georges with main and foresails up, traveling like a flying Dutchman downwind. A driving rain was now Starting in, and to the turmoil of wind and wave was added darkness, which deepened rapidly into the chaos of night, al- though it was mid-afternoon. Chaos—that described it. It was as if the Pelamon and her crew were whirling through space, through an infinite void of endless water, bottomless, interminable. The neighboring schooner disappeared in the downpour which followed. Not even the flash of chain lightning which pierced the gloom marked her position again to Dan’s anxiously watching eyes. He knew that vessel was in a worse fix than the Pel- amon; lucky she would be if her flapping mainsail did not contribute toward founder- ing her. He had not seen enough of her to know what type of schooner she was. But he was reasonably sure she was not a swordfisherman, for swordfishermen off the Lightship usually use a riding sail instead of a mainsail. But whatever she was, she was in a bad way—a decidedly bad way. Through the hurricane, which increased in violence as night came slowly, the Pelamon wallowed. Wallowed like a seal, her fore- sail giving her just enough steerage way for her skipper to hold her hove-to and avoid the deadly trough of the waves which, had she ever drifted into them broadside, would surely have swamped her. Toward night the wind worked around to the northward. Captain Dan, wearily taking his buffeting at the wheel, noted the change of wind with another fervent prayer—this one a prayer of thanksgiving. For, in spite of the cold which chilled him to the bone, he knew that the worst of the hurricane was over, that the gale which had had its birth on the equator must succumb to the counter current from the arctic, much as a native of tropical climes must sooner or later surrender to the chill of the ice fields if he attempts to combat it in equatorial attire. It was a little after seven by the nickel watch in the binnacle when Dan cut him- self loose from his lashings. The sea still ran high and the wind and rain howled and drummed. But the storm was spent. It was now little more than an ordinary blow. The men who came on deck from the rat- lines made a hasty inspection of the Pelamon, Captain Dan joining them. Ike Crowe held the wheel. They found everything intact— no leak, no sign of sprains from stem to stern 127 in the stanch schooner’s Maine-built hull. Even the sorely tried foresail had held. “Thank the Lord!” piously exclaimed Captain Dan, repairing with the others to the forecastle, where they assiduously ran- sacked the cook’s supply of doughnuts, bis- cuits, and cold corned beef. | “Did ye sight that schooner, Skipper?” asked Mel Frost, the square-faced giant in the blue mackinaw, sitting on the bench which surrounded the interior of the fore- castle, a mug of cold tea in one hand anda partly gnawed doughnut in the other. “She’s in for a hard time of it,” com- mented Captain Dan, stuffing the greater part of a biscuit into his capacious mouth. ‘Did ye git a good look at her, Mel?” “She looked to me like a swordfisherman turned into a coaster,’”’ answered Mel, bolt- ing the remainder of the doughnut. ‘Looked to me a good ’eal like the Eva Thomas.” “The Eva Thomas!” exclaimed the skipper. “What the would she be doin’ out here?”’ “What d’ye s’pose she’d be doin’ any- where?” retorted Mel. ‘With that fool Oliver Thomas skipperin’ her? Why, she’d be biowed out o’ her course. An’ that’s how I account i’r sightin’ her. Cap’n Oliver, I calc’late, started from New York for Boston, an’ was headed for o’ Muskeget Channel in- stead o’ goin’ through the Sound.” » UNDER ordinary circumstances Ya Captain Dan would have been ©. the the first to identify the Eva 3 ‘ Thomas. For, only last year, at the close of an unsuccessful swordfishing season, the Pelamon had collided with the Eva in a fog outside Boston harbor. Al- though the collision was, to all appearances, wholly accidental, Captain Oliver Thomas claimed it was Dan’s fault, and he and his father, Captain Ira Thomas, owner of. the Eva, brought suit against him. To the amazement of seafaring men, Captain Ira won, and collected three thou- sand dollars damages from Dan. Coupled with his unprofitable fishing trips of the past six or seven years, this award almost ruined Dan financially. He knew Captain Oliver Thomas had lied in court, and that Captain Ira’s crafty lawyers had trumped up the charge of Captain Dan’s negligence, which, they claimed, had caused the damage to the two vessels. They didn’t tell how the Eva had been condemned the previous year as unseaworthy. = 4 COMIGDIOOKSEEO