"So the boats pursued the seals for a long distance, and in the excitement nobody noticed what the weather was doing. Nobody, that is, but Shavings, and he didn't dare to say that it was growing worse, for fear of angering the mate. The hunters harpooned a goodly catch before the gale was upon the little fleet almost without warning.
"Then the storm broke with a screech and a massing of angry water. The boats had been under sail, and in a flash two of them were over-turned. Shavings saw all this with terror in his eyes and a cold clutch at his heart. He knew the men in those boats would never go sealing again.
"Then his eyes fell on the mate, Olaf Olsen. The man appeared to be petrified with fright. He made no move to do anything. Then something in Shavings seemed to wake up.
"Perhaps that yellow hair of his was a survival of some old Viking strain, or perhaps all those months of rough sea life had made him over without his knowing it. But he seized the mate and shook him by the shoulder:
"'Give an order, man!' he shouted. 'Order the sail reefed.'
"But the sight of the death of his shipmates had so unnerved the mate that he could no nothing. Shavings kicked him disgustedly, and went about the job himself. Clouds of spray burst over him. Time and again he was within an inch of being swept overboard, but at last he had the sail reefed down. Then he took the tiller and headed back for the schooner across the immense seas through the screeching gale.
"He handled that boat skillfully, meeting the big seas and riding their summits, only to be buried the next instant in the watery valley between the giant combers. But always he rose. He had the cheering sight of the schooner before him and it grew closer. The boat sailed more on her beam than on her keel, but at last Shavings, more dead than alive, ran her in under the lee of the schooner's hull, and willing hands got the survivors out of the boat.
"The skipper of that craft was a rough man. He drove Olaf Olsen forward with blows and curses and the strong Swede whimpered like a whipped cur. Then he came aft to where the cook was giving Shavings and the rest hot coffee.
"'Shavings,' he said, 'after this you're mate in that coward Olsen's place. You're a man.'