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Now the manner in which we secured the masts, before ever we came to the rigging of them, was by lashing them to the stumps of the lower-masts, and after we had lashed them, we drove dunnage and wedges between the masts and the lashings, thus making them very secure.
"I think, sir, it would be advisable to part-load the boat; then, right after the next time the whale hits us, lower away on the run, chuck the rest of the dunnage in, and ourselves, and get clear." Captain Doane nodded. "It will be lively work," he said. "Stand ready, all of you. Steward, you jump aboard first and I'll pass the chronometer to you."
All day in the street you could hear men talking of veins, and smelters and dips and deposits and faults, the town hummed with it like a geology class on examination day. And there were men about the hotels with mining outfits and theodolites and dunnage bags, and at Smith's bar they would hand chunks of rock up and down, some of which would run as high as ten drinks to the pound.
Then he left the track and clambered down the steep slope to the pond. I am a good walker, but I was tired long before I reached the slope. The bait pail, which I refilled with fresh water at Beriah's pump, grew heavier as I went on, and I began to think Lute knew what he was talking about when he declared me to be "plumb crazy, hoofin' it four mile loaded down with all that dunnage."
Bines, plaintively. "Here I've been away four days." "All right, ma, I suppose we shall have to take you there, only let's get out of here right away. We can bring sis and you back, Mrs. Drelmer, when those people we don't know get off again. There's Mauburn; I'll tell him." "I'll have my dunnage down directly," said Mauburn. Up the street driving a pony-cart came Avice Milbrey.
I noticed that it was she who first broke away from the clamour of greeting and gave directions as to the transport of their "dunnage." Jaffery followed her with the tail of his eye; then turned to me with a bass chuckle. "We're a sort of Jaff Chayne and Co., according to her, and she thinks she's managing director. Ho! ho! ho!" He put his arm round my shoulder and suddenly grew serious.
For two years he had lived there, and when he finished his story he was sitting on the edge of the cot, quite sane, gentlemen. And for the first time M'sieu, my comrade, spoke. "Let us bring up the dunnage from the canoe, mon pere." He led the way out of the cabin, and I followed. We were fifty steps away when he stopped suddenly. "Ah," he said, "I have forgotten something. I will overtake you."
New chintzes took the place of his old leather cushions; a big photograph of Minnie stood on the lid of the chronometer case, and the broken-backed Admiralty guides, ocean directories and the rest were reinforced by a brigade of smartly bound novels. "Sit down," said Arthur, "and make yourself at home till they get your dunnage in.
One morning, when Newton, who for some time had submitted to the tyranny of Jackson without complaint, was standing at the main hatchway, giving directions to the men below, who were arranging the dunnage at the bottom of the vessel, the first-mate came on deck, and, watching his opportunity, staggered, with a rope in his hand, against Newton, as if by accident, so as to throw him over the coombings.
Another and another, and yet another, he served in like fashion, ferreting in amongst the dunnage, and then coming out again with a fresh victim each time; until, presently, finding their retreat `too warm' for them, the rats sallied out in a crowd, skating over the deck and climbing up the bulkheads to get out of the way of their relentless enemy.
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