By this time it was late day, with the sun going down below the hills on the other side of Pouvenir Bay. I remember it went down red as the heart of the fire we were sitting by. Through the little thin whiffs of the smoke of the fire it looked like that--all hot color and no flame. Nothing to that, of course, only pictures like that do start your brain to going. The little bay was there at our feet and the wide straits off to our elbow, and the water of that bay was smooth green where it shoaled on the pebbly spit; but the straits, as far as we could see them, were one long roll of tossing ridges and scooping hollows, and they were all black except where the williwaws, cutting across the tide, would whip the ridges to a marble white.
I saw the sun set red through the thin blue smoke of the fire, and almost in line with the sun and the smoke was the stranded bark with her deckload of lumber. A little farther off was my own little _Svend Foyn_. It was coming on dark by then and I could see them making ready the anchor light on the _Svend Foyn_. And it was coming colder, too, for the broad, warm north wind had changed to a thin little icy wind from the south.
And now the fiery-red reflection of the sun was gone from above the hills across the bay, and when that went all warmth went with it. Everybody drew nearer to the fire except the two apprentice boys, who were cleaning up the mess gear in water made hot at a little fire of their own. One of them was singing to himself little jiggly, ragtime songs while he wiped the dishes:
"Oh-h, ahm gwine down to Macon town Ter buy mah 'Liza Jane a gown-- Ah feel so happy 'n' ah don' know why, Mah bai-bie, mah hon-ie!"
Every time he stacked up a few plates he would stop to roll a few more cake-walk steps.
"I wish I was feeling as good as you!" I said to myself while I watched him.
And, watching him, I got to thinking of Hilda in the big front room in what was home for me--and of having to tell her what a failure my cruise had been. It did set me to thinking.
All at once it came to me, and "I've got it!" I said, not knowing I said it out loud until I saw that everybody around the fire was looking at me; and at last Peter said, "What's it you got?"