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You barn-yard tramps go hoggin' the road on the high seas with no blame consideration fer your neighbours, an' your eyes in your coffee-cups instid o' in your silly heads." At this the skipper danced on the bridge and said something about Disko's own eyes. "We haven't had an observation for three days. D'you suppose we can run her blind?" he shouted. "Wa-al, I can," Disko retorted.
The wheel twitched almost imperceptibly in Disko's hands. A few seconds later a hissing wave-top slashed diagonally across the boat, smote Uncle Salters between the shoulders, and drenched him from head to foot. He rose sputtering, and went forward only to catch another. "See Dad chase him all around the deck," said Dan. "Uncle Salters he thinks his quarter share's our canvas.
But Disko's board was the Grand Bank a triangle two hundred and fifty miles on each side a waste of wallowing sea, cloaked with dank fog, vexed with gales, harried with drifting ice, scored by the tracks of the reckless liners, and dotted with the sails of the fishing-fleet.
Cheyne had been looking at the faces Disko's ivory-yellow, hairless, iron countenance; Uncle Salters's, with its rim of agricultural hair; Penn's bewildered simplicity; Manuel's quiet smile; Long Jack's grin of delight, and Tom Platt's scar. Rough, by her standards, they certainly were; but she had a mother's wits in her eyes, and she rose with out-stretched hands.
Boylike, Harvey imitated all the men by turns, till he had combined Disko's peculiar stoop at the wheel, Long Jack's swinging overhand when the lines were hauled, Manuel's round-shouldered but effective stroke in a dory, and Tom Platt's generous Ohio stride along the deck. "'Tis beautiful to see how he takes to ut," said Long Jack, when Harvey was looking out by the windlass one thick noon.
"I see," said Cheyne, with the brilliant and perfect comprehension of one born into and bred up to city pride. "We'll stay over for Memorial Day, and get off in the afternoon." "Guess I'll go down to Disko's and make him bring his crowd up before they sail. I'll have to stand with them, of course." "Oh, that's it, is it," said Cheyne. "I'm only a poor summer boarder, and you're "
Naturally, a man of Disko's reputation was closely watched "scrowged upon," Dan called it by his neighbours, but he had a very pretty knack of giving them the slip through the curdling, glidy fog-banks. Disko avoided company for two reasons. He wished to make his own experiments, in the first place; and in the second, he objected to the mixed gatherings of a fleet of all nations.
They came delightedly, just in time to hear Cheyne say: "I'm glad he has a good character, because he's my son." Disko's jaw fell, Long Jack always vowed that he heard the click of it, and he stared alternately at the man and the woman. "I got his telegram in San Diego four days ago, and we came over." "In a private car?" said Dan. "He said ye might." "In a private car, of course."
Then they went to Disko's house together as the dawn was breaking; and until the telegraph office was open and he could wire his folk, Harvey Cheyne was perhaps the loneliest boy in all America. But the curious thing was that Disko and Dan seemed to think none the worse of him for crying.
He, too, was not anxious to spoil the golden days. "Well, as far as I can make out, this business is a sort of song-and-dance act, whacked up for the summer boarders. Disko don't think much of it, he says, because they take up a collection for the widows and orphans. Disko's independent. Haven't you noticed that?" "Well yes. A little. In spots. Is it a town show, then?" "The summer convention is.
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