Disko said nothing till after supper, when he sent Dan and Manuel out to buoy the "We're Here's" cable and announced his intention of turning in with the broad-axe. Dan naturally repeated these remarks to a dory from the Carrie, who wanted to know why they were buoying their cable, since they were not on rocky bottom.
"Dad sez he wouldn't trust a ferryboat within five mile o' you," Dan howled cheerfully.
"Why don't he git out, then'? Who's hinderin'?" said the other.
"Cause you've jest the same ez lee-bowed him, an' he don't take that from any boat, not to speak o' sech a driftin' gurry-butt as you be."
"She ain't driftin' any this trip," said the man, angrily, for the Carrie Pitman had an unsavoury reputation for breaking her ground-tackle.
"Then haow d'you make berths?" said Dan. "It's her best p'int o' sailin'. An' ef she's quit driftin', what in thunder are you doin' with a new jib-boom?" That shot went home.
"Hey, you Portugoosy organ-grinder, take your monkey back to Gloucester. Go back to school, Dan Troop," was the answer.
"O-ver-alls! O-ver-alls!" yelled Dan, who knew that one of the Carrie's crew had worked in an overall factory the winter before.
"Shrimp! Gloucester shrimp! Git aout, you Novy!"
To call a Gloucester man a Nova Scotian is not well received. Dan answered in kind.
"Novy yourself, ye Scrabble-towners! ye Chatham wreckers' Git aout with your brick in your stock in'!" And the forces separated, but Chatham had the worst of it.
"I knew haow 'twould be," said Disko. "She's drawed the wind raound already. Some one oughter put a deesist on thet packet. She'll snore till midnight, an' jest when we're gittin' our sleep she'll strike adrift. Good job we ain't crowded with craft hereaways. But I ain't goin' to up anchor fer Chatham. She may hold."
The wind, which had hauled round, rose at sundown and blew steadily. There was not enough sea, though, to disturb even a dory's tackle, but the Carrie Pitman was a law unto herself. At the end of the boys' watch they heard the crack-crack-crack of a huge muzzle-loading revolver aboard her.
"Glory, glory, hallelujah!" sung Dan. "Here she comes, dad; butt-end first, walkin' in her sleep same's she done on 'Queereau."
Had she been any other boat Disko would have taken his chances, but now he cut the cable as the Carrie Pitman, with all the North Atlantic to play in, lurched down directly upon them. The "We're Here", under jib and riding-sail, gave her no more room than was absolutely necessary,--Disko did not wish to spend a week hunting for his cable,--but scuttled up into the wind as the Carrie passed within easy hail, a silent and angry boat, at the mercy of a raking broadside of Bank chaff.