Dory-Mates

by FREDERICK WILLIAM WALLACE

T’S a strange fact that two such diametrically opposed feelings as love and hate are often engendered by each other. The blackest and most diabolical crimes have been committed through love—love of a woman oftentimes—and, peculiar as it may seem, between the two passions there is but a slight barrier, and a human being can change from one to the other almost instantaneously. Without moralizing further, here is a tale of two strong men and a woman—a tale in which the two emotions led to strange happenings.

Elsie Conover was the daughter of a small farmer who owned a place on the shores of Anchorville Bay. Elsie was pretty, vivacious and something of a flirt—so much so that by the time she was twenty-one she had played serious havoc with the hearts of most of the young farmers, fishermen and sailors of Anchorville County. An impartial critic, endowed with the faculty of reading Miss Conover’s' mind, would have characterized the pretty, brown-eyed young woman as being shallow and heartless.

Tom Anderson and Westley Collins were young sprigs of Anchorville fishermen—both of them smart trawlers and able men in a dory. Tom was intelligent, quick witted, a bit of a dandy and a good talker. As fishermen would say, “He had a way with the women” which made him attractive in their sight. He had a pleasant manner, the art of concealing his feelings, and was universally known as a good shipmate.

Westley Collins was the opposite. Though smart enough aboard of a vessel, yet he was slow and clumsy when ashore. He dressed anyhow, walked with a shambling slouch, and conversationally was neither brilliant nor edifying. Though slow of speech and apparently surly, he was big-hearted and kind.

Among the young fellows of Anchorville Elsie Conover was known as Tommy Anderson’s girl. Tommy went boat-fishing all one Summer and employed most of his time ashore in laying siege to Elsie’s heart. He appeared to be the “white-haired boy” until big, blundering West Collins came home after a long salt-fishing trip and unintentionally “horned in” on Tommy’s preserves.

Westley had drawn a big share out of a “high line” trip, and in all probability it was the size of his bank-roll which made him attractive in Elsie’s eyes. At any rate, the roll gave the girl the means of a good time until the Fall fishing season came around and Westley began to talk of going to sea again.

“Will ye marry me, Elsie?” he blurted out one night in tones which contained more emotion than the girl had ever thought him capable of.

Having anticipated such a question for some time past, Miss Conover had carefully considered it.

“I—I don’t know, Westley,” she faltered, dropping her eyes. “I—I’d want to think it over.”

“So ye kin, sweetheart,” said Westley slowly, “but maybe ye’ll give me somethin’ to go upon? Kin I hope?”

The girl turned her head away as if thinking. After a pause, she looked up and spoke:

“Ask me again in the Spring, Westley. Save your money and ask me then.”

“Are my chances good?” asked the other almost fearfully.

The girl made no reply, but stared at the toe of her shoe.

“Thar ain’t no one else, is there, girlie?” he questioned anxiously.

“N—no! There’s nobody else.”

“Then I might be safe in thinkin’ you’ll say ‘yes’ in th’ Spring?”

He did not wait for an answer, but slipped his arm around her shoulders and drew her to him.

“Gimme a kiss, girlie!” he murmured, and, unresisting, her face turned to his.

After the embrace, she rose to her feet and held out her hand.

“You must go now, Westley,” she said calmly.

“Until the Spring, sweetheart,” he said. “I’m going across to Gloucester tomorrow to join a vessel for the Winter haddockin’ and I’ll come back ’long towards the end o’ March. Wish me good-luck an’ high-line trips, dearie, and—and another kiss.”

When the big fisherman strode happily away, Elsie Conover drew her hand sharply across her mouth.

“The big fool!” she murmured callously. “Me marry him! Ugh!” She shuddered. “He’ll be telling Jack Hooper about it, and Jack will be sure to tell Tom Anderson. Maybe Tom will get jealous when he hears that West Collins is cutting him out and he’ll keep away from that doll-faced Jennie Hooper and come to me again. Marry West Collins in the Spring? I don’t think!” And with a crafty smile she went upstairs to bed.

IN company with a crowd of other Nova Scotia deep-sea fishermen, West Collins went over to Boston and thence to Gloucester, where he got a “chance” with Captain Tim Davidson in the schooner Seldovia, fitting out for Winter haddocking. It so happened that Tom Anderson arrived in Gloucester two days later and broached the Seldovia’s skipper for a place with his gang.

“I cal’late I kin give ye a sight,” said the fishing skipper. “Thar’s a Novy named Collins what’s lookin’ for a dory-mate. M'aybe you know him? Comes from Anchorville.”

“Collins? West Collins?” grunted Anderson with a savage look in his eyes. “I’ll be ef I’d go dory-mates with that skunk.” To himself he muttered! “Him—of all men.”

Captain Davidson shrugged his shoulders.

“Don’t matter,” he said. “Plenty o’ men lookin’ for chances these days. Collins’ll git a dory-mate ’thout much trouble. I cal’lated, seein’ you two was from th’ same place, ye’d be glad to git together.”

Anderson’s face changed quickly.

“I’ll go with him, Skipper,” he said with an engaging smile. “He’s a good scout, but I was sore on him for a little matter. He’s a good man in a dory an’ I’ll be glad to mate up with him. Where is he now? Aboard th’ vessel, ye say? All right, Cap, I’ll ship.”

Collins was sitting on the Seldovia’s cabin house, overhauling a tub of haddocking trawl when Anderson jumped aboard.

“Hullo, Westley, boy!” cried Tom heartily as he held out his hand. “Jest came acrost an’ h’ard from th’ skipper you was lookin’ for a dory-mate. I cal’late you ’n’ I will make a pretty good pair in a dory. What d’ye say, West?”

The other grasped the proffered hand and assented heartily.

“Sure thing—bully! I’m more’n glad ye kem aboard. I was for goin’ uptown an’ lookin’ around for a dory-mate, but you’re a home-town feller an’ jest th’ man.”

“I’ll go git my clothes-bag an’ tick down an’ see ye later. How many tubs does he rig?”

“Eight to a dory,” replied Westley.

“Humph! American style. Hard fishin’, I reckon,” said Anderson heartily. “Waal, Westley, I cal’late you ’n’ I kin stand the racket aboard these hard-drivin’ market fishermen. I’m a hound for work myself. We’ll git along fine. So long! I’ll be down in a while an’ help ye overhaul some gear.”

Collins continued his work, whistling happily at the thought of having Tom Anderson for a dory-mate. As he had been away from Anchorville all Summer, he was unaware of the relations that had formerly existed between Elsie Conover and Anderson. He knew that the latter was acquainted with Elsie, but then Tommy Anderson was a devil with all the Anchorville girls. So while Westley crooned and whistled to himself, thinking of Elsie Conover away back home in Nova Scotia, Tom Anderson strode cursefully to his boarding-house with black hate in has heart.

“Th’ silly swab!” he muttered through clenched teeth. “Fancy th’ likes o’ him grabbin’ Elsie! Th’ boob! An’ to tell that silly mug, Jack Hooper, all about it, an’ Jack to put th’ hook into me by th’ tellin’ of it. ‘West Collins has cut ye out with Elsie Conover,’ says he, with his smug face laughin’ as he spun th’ yarn afore his sister. Thought maybe that Jen Hooper would stand a better chance with Elsie out of th’ way. An’ when I telephoned Elsie! ‘He’s to ask me again in th’ Spring,’ says she. ‘Towards th’ last o’ March. Westley’ll be back then an’ I’ll know my mind which o’ youse it’ll be.’ Th’ big mug, him! Ay, to with him!”

So vociferous had he become in his denunciatory epithets that he spoke his thoughts aloud, and two or three people looked at him strangely.

His facility in concealing his feelings came uppermost; and while hate consumed him inwardly, yet outwardly he carried an air of heartiness which belied the murderous thoughts fermenting in his brain.

Carrying his bag and mattress to the vessel, a half-formed notion raced through his mind. It was a sinister notion—a black hearted idea—but there was nothing of it in his voice as he hailed his dory-mate.

“Hey ye go, Westley, boy! Catch a-holt o’ my dunnage. I’m all ready t’ give ye a hand now, ol’ dory-mate!”

THE Seldovia put to sea and fished on George’s Bank. As dory-mates, Collins and Anderson got along famously, and the rest of the gang remarked that Collins had picked up a dandy partner. Anderson not only did his share of the work, but seemed eager to help Collins in every way. In the dory, Anderson was for doing all the trawl-hauling—the hardest and heaviest work—and his dory-mate often protested. “You must let me do my share, Tom,” he would say. “You’re doing all your work an’ part o’ mine too. I’m able enough, an’ ye mustn’t do it. Not but what I take it as kindly of ye, Tom. It shows th’ big heart ye have, and a better dory-mate I never sailed with.”

Anderson laughed.

“I’d do anythin’ for a good scout,” he said, “an’ you’re one o’ th’ best, Westley, boy. Watch an’ wheel, baitin’ up an’ haulin’ trawls, it’s a pleasure for me to work with ye. Lord Harry, old townie! We’ll hold her down together this Winter—the best an’ ablest pair that ever swung a dory over.”

He turned his back to Collins and the smile on his face turned into a look of the most malignant hate. Lord! How he detested the big simple-minded fool! He’d get him even though he had to play his masquerade the whole Winter season.

Aboard a fishing vessel a man has a thousand opportunities to rid himself of a rival or an enemy. An accidental shove on a dark night when the two were alone on watch, and Collins would swell the list of fishermen “drowned at sea from the vessel.”

Yet many times, Westley stood by the lee rail absolutely unsuspicious of the sinister thoughts in the mind of his dory-mate a few feet behind him. In the dory, with Westley standing in the bow, hauling, and Anderson coiling just aft of his hated rival, a smash on the head with the bailer, a sling-ding rock, or the dory-jar would send him headlong into the chilly green depths never to rise again.

A man clad in heavy sea-boots, with Winter clothing and oilskins on, goes down like a stone, and dories are easy craft to fall out of. Out on a bowsprit furling a jib in the dark of a Winter’s night with the wind blowing and the sea roaring, a moderately strong push under the chin would topple a man over backwards and his shout would be unheard by his shipmates a few feet away. Oh, ay, there were many ways, but Anderson waited his chance and smiled and joked and laughed while the man he was out to kill trusted him and felt that never, in all his going a-fishing, had he shipped with a truer and better dory-mate.

When dories are alongside the schooner in anything over a flat calm, a dory-painter must be held in the hands of some person aboard. On no account must it be made fast to a pin or a cleat. With a vessel under sail and heading through the water, the dory is rolling alongside and tugging and jerking at the painter in the rise and fall of the sea. The man holding the bow rope eases off when the dory tugs, but were the painter belayed to an unresisting object, the cranky craft is liable to capsize or swamp.

On a rough January day on Brown’s Bank, the Seldovia was running out her string of ten dories. All the little craft were slung over, and Number Ten, Collins’ and Anderson’s, was the last put over the rail.

Westley jumped down into the boat and Anderson handed him the four tubs of baited trawl, while the cook held the painter and the skipper busied himself aft. The latter had occasion to go into the cabin for something and slipped the wheel into the becket. Anderson turned suddenly to the cook.

“Jump down, Jack, an’ hand me up a few doughnuts or something for a mug-up for me ’n’ West. I’ll take that painter.”

The cook handed the rope over and went down into the forecastle. Anderson saw that his dory-mate was busy stacking the trawl tubs and clearing the buoy-lines in the pitching dory, and with lightning-like swiftness he belayed the painter to a pin in the rail. Springing over to the forecastle scuttle, he jumped down the ladder and began shouting at the cook:

“Look alive, Jack, with that grub. D’ye think we kin wait all day?”

A cold sweat broke out on his face as a muffled yell told him something had happened and he leaped on deck to see the skipper with the long dory-gaff in his hand make a drive at something over the rail.

“Aft here, some one!” roared Tim Davidson. “Gimme a hand or I’ll lose him!”

And as Anderson raced to the quarter, he felt that his plan had failed.

When Collins had been hauled, gasping and red-faced, over the rafil, the skipper opened the ball.

“What in Hades d’ye mean by belayin’ that dory-painter?” he bawled. “Don’t ye know enough? Ain’t you bin a fishin’ long enough to know that dory-painters sh’d never be made fast when there’s a man in th’ dory? Consarn me! Ef I hadn’t jest heppened to come on deck jest as that dory capsized an’ gaffed yer dory-mate, there would ’a’ bin a drownin’ scrape on yer hands. Help me git that dory up on th’ tackles while th’ cook sees to Collins. He’s ’most all in.”

A few minutes later, Anderson was down in the forecastle where Collins was changing his sodden clothing. Striding across to him, Tom grasped his hand.

“Say, old man, I’m sorry I was guilty o’ sich a lubber’s trick. I jest went to git some grub from th’ cook for a second an’ I took a turn with th’ painter, thinkin’ she’d be all right for a moment. I sh’d ha’ known better, an’ ’tis bitter sorry I am that I sh’d ha’ risked th’ life o’ my old dory-mate. Ye’ll forgive me, West, for ’twould ha’ bin a sore day for me sh’d I have lost ye.”

“Say nawthin’ about it, Tom,” answered Collins with a laugh. “‘A miss is as good as a mile,’ an’ we all make mistakes sometimes. Too bad we lost th’ gear”

“I’ll pay for that!” said Anderson hastily.

“No, ye don’t, boy. We’ll half up as good dory-mates should. Say no more about it.”

Anderson went to has bunk in the peak and raged inwardly.

“It was a lubber’s trick all right,” he growled to himself. “But, him, I’ll get him yet!”

JANUARY and February passed and the windy March days worried the fishing-fleets and had them lying at anchor in shelter harbors when they should have been fishing for the great Lent en market. The Seldovia had made a good Winter of it, but Tim Davidson was anxious to make a high-line haddocking season and took more risks in setting dories out than would most skippers.

Anderson, with wonderful strength of mind, kept up his heartily friendly relations with Collins and effectually disarmed all suspicion. So well did he play his game that Westley looked upon him as his best chum and even confided in him his prospects for the future. One can imagine the tumult which raged in Anderson’s mind as he listened to Collins’s clumsily worded confidences about Elsie Conover.

“We’ll ha’ made a good stock this Winter, Tom,” confided Westley, “and I cal’late I’ll hev enough to get married on. I’m for buyin’ that small pink o’ John Anson’s and I’ll go hake fishin’ in the bay so’s to be near home an’ her.”

Anderson puffed hard at his pipe and nodded interestedly.

“Sure, Westley, boy, that’s the grand idea. No married man sh’d go off Bank fishin’. It’s risky, an’ ye’re away from home too much.”

He spoke the words easily, but his whole nature longed to beat, kick, tear and even kill the man he addressed.

With hate burning in his heart, Anderson went on watch that night and took the first trick at the wheel. Collins paced the lee quarter, keeping a look-out. It was a black dark night with plenty of wind, and the Seldovia was storming along on her way to the Bank, plunging and pitching through the gloom.

Collins in his pacing had a habit of standing for a minute or so at the after-end of the cabin-house near the wheel. Anderson, with a calculating eye, noticed this—he had noticed it for weeks—and he pondered over a villainous plan as he steered.

“Next time he stands aft with his back to me I’ll give him a shove,” muttered Anderson coolly glancing at the low rail. “It won’t take much to push him over that, and I kin swear he was for’ard when he went over th’ side.”

Collins continued his pacing and Anderson watched him like a cat and muttered to himself:

“He’ll make four turns an’ then stop. That’s one—there’s two—three—four. He’s stoppin’. Now for it!”

He let the wheel spokes go and nerved himself for the push on the broad oilskinned back of the man three feet in front of him. Collins was crooning a little song to himself and standing with his mittened hands behind his back. Anderson tensed his muscles for the shove that would send his rival headlong into the roaring void of sea.

“Wheel thar! How’s she headin’?” It was the skipper’s voice from out the cabin gangway and Anderson grabbed the spokes again in sudden fright, and in the reaction forgot the course.

“Wheel thar! How’s she headin’?” The skipper came half-way up the steps and shouted louder.

“Er—er—ah—west b’south-half-south, sir!” blurted Anderson wildly.

“That ain’t what I gave th’ watch,” growled the skipper coming on deck and glancing in the binnacle, “and you ain’t steerin’ that. You’ve let her run off. She’s headin’ sou’west. Bring her up west half south and watch yer steerin’. Some o’ you fellers don’t seem to know th’ compass yet.” And he went below.

Collins looked hard at his dory-mate.

“Say, old man, you’re lookin’ sick. Gimme that wheel an’ you go down for’ard an’ hev a mug o’ tea. West half south! I got ye, Tom, so go ahead!

Anderson felt sick, but it was more the sickness occasioned by strained nerves and thwarted revenge than anything else. He was furious. Muttering curses to himself, he dropped below into the forecastle and poured himself out a cup of tea. One of the men was sitting on the lockers doctoring a poisoned hand, and being anxious to rid his mind of an unpleasant episode, Anderson spoke to him.

“What stuff is that ye’re puttin’ on there, Jim?”

“That’s arsenic,” answered the man. “It’s great stuff fur burnin’ away th’ proud flesh from them p’izenings by rusty hooks.”

“Ain’t that arsenic a deadly p’izen itself?”

“It sure is—ef ye were to drink it. A teaspoonful ’ud stretch ye stiff inside a minute. It’s one o’ th’ deadliest p’izens known. Thar’s enough in this bottle to p’izen ivery man aboard. Drop it in that tea-kittle an’ th’ Seldovia ’ud hev a gang o’ corpses arter breakfust-time.”

The man finished his doctoring and stowed the bottle away under his bunk mattress. Anderson watched him curiously and as he finished his tea an idea flashed through his mind which caused him to smile.

IT WAS a dark, dirty-looking morning when they made the Bank, and the barometer was hovering on the 29.5 and dropping. Davidson was anxious to make a few sets before the next March gale struck in, and he blinded himself to unpromising forecasts and ordered the dories away.

“Set tub an’ tub, fellers!” he sung out. “An’ watch th’ vessel. I’ll h’ist th’ queer thing for ye to come aboard ef it comes away nasty, but ye can’t always tell—we may git a whole day here afore it breezes up. Away ye go, now, top dory over!”

Collins and Anderson, oilskinned and seabooted, hauled their baited trawl tubs to the rail and overhauled their buoy-lines.

“Cal’late I’ll go below an’ fill th’ dory-jar with fresh water,” said Anderson. “I’ll git a bit grub as well. Ye never know when one o’ them snow squalls is a-comin’ up an’ we’ll take no chances ’case we git astray from th’ vessel. A drink an’ a bite help some ef ye sh’d be a day or two adrift in a dory.”

Grasping the earthenware water-jar, Anderson jumped below into the forecastle. The cook was on deck giving a hand at the dory tackles and there was nobody below. The fisherman gave a hasty glance around and delved with his hand under the mattress in a lower starboard bunk until he found a small bottle.

“Arsenic!” he muttered. “That’s the stuff!”' And drawing the cork, he poured the poison into the dory-jar.

“I’ll fill Jim’s med’cine bottle with water or he’ll maybe git suspicious. Enough to kill ivery man aboard, he said—Um! I cal’late West Collins ’ull take a sudden turn o’ heart trouble in th’ dory today after he has a drink. Our tank-water is bilgey an’ he’ll niver notice any queer taste. Now for some grub.”

On deck, the men were busy swinging the dories over, and Anderson placed the water-jug and the parcel of food on top of the gurry-kid.

“That’s our water an’ grub, West,” he said to his dory-mate who nodded.

“Git that jib on her some o’ yez!” cried the skipper just then. “You Anderson and you Watson—ye might jump out an’ set that jib!” And the treacherous fisherman turned to execute the order with an apparently careless glance at his dory-mate who was carrying the water-jar and the food to their dory.

Some hours later when they were hauling their third tub of gear in the dory, the weather changed with the fickleness of the season. The wind came from the south east in spiteful gusts, and the swell was momentarily getting heavier. Overhead, the leaden clouds spread across the sky in an opaque thickness and the horizon became misty and undefined.

Collins, hauling the trawl in the bow of the dory, paused and looked around.

“Don’t see th’ vessel, Tommy! Cal’late it’s a-goin’ to breeze soon!” Anderson, coiling the gear amidships, was smoking and staring anxiously at the dory-jar lying at his dory-mate’s feet. He was nervous, terribly nervous, and his overwrought imagination was picturing the sight of his hated rival writhing in the death-agonies among the fish and blood-stained water in the dory bottom. So preoccupied was he with his ghastly thoughts that he did not heed the ominous portent of the weather.

“I reckon we’ll jest haul this tub an’ make for th’ vessel,” said Collins. “We’re a-goin’ to git a snifter in a while.”

“Aw, !” growled Anderson irritably. “This ain’t goin’ to be nawthin’ but a little snow squall. Ef we run back aboard every time it gits cloudy we’ll niver git ’ny fish. We’ll set the other tub yet.”

Westley looked at him strangely, looked at sea and sky, and resumed his trawl hauling.

“You may be right, Tom,” he thought, “but th’ weather looks bad—mighty bad. And th’ vessel’s nowheres in sight.”

The other had sense enough to know that it was time to be getting aboard, but he wanted to see Collins drink first. Blast the man! He had been hauling for hours—hot, thirsty work—and hadn’t even broached the jar for a drink. Usually, West Collins would drink half the jar in side of the first two hours. He was an awful man for water and drank more than any man aboard. Anderson had purposely allowed him to do all the trawl hauling that morning, as the exertion would be likely to excite thirst and cause him to drink earlier than usual.

There was a wind rising now and the black-green sea was beginning to crest under its impetus. A breaker burst under them and slapped a few gallons of water into the dory which was jumping and rearing like a fiery, untamed bronco.

“Startin’ to breeze!” shouted Westley, turning a spray-reddened face to his dory-mate.

“Keep a-haulin’—it’s nawthin’!” answered the other, bailing the water out.

The dory gave a wild lurch and the heft coming on the thin trawl-line caused it to part at the roller.

“We’re parted!” yelled Collins. “Git yer oar out an’ head her up, Tom!”

Suddenly the horizon was blotted out in a pall of smoky gray. The wind began to pipe up and tear the crests off the waves and hurl them through the air like rain, and stinging sleet hurtled down from the somber gloom aloft. The dory, tossing like a chip, drove off to leeward, with the two men in her tugging at the oars.

“Where in blazes is th’ vessel, Tommy, boy?” shouted Collins trying hard to peer into the blinding, face-stinging spray and sleet.

“I didn’t notice,” growled the other sullenly.

He was feeling savage at the predicament his folly had got him into. Adrift on Brown’s Bank in a March southeaster! It was no joke. In his blind hate, he felt less chagrined over that than in the fact that Collins had not broached the water-jar yet. However, there was time enough. But he hoped that his rival would drink before the schooner drove out of the smother and picked them up.

For an hour they tossed around in the inferno of gale-whipped, sleet-lashed sea; plying the oars to keep the little craft from swamping and keeping a lookout for the vessel. The perspiration was pouring off Collins’s face and Anderson noted the fact with strange satisfaction.

“By golly, Tom, but I’m thirsty!” grunted Westley, panting. “I ain’t had a drink sence we left th’ schooner. Gimme that dory-jar!”

Suppressing the wild feeling of joy which thrilled him, Anderson passed the water-jug aft. The other threw in his oars, drew the jar plug, and deftly tipped the receptacle into the crook of his elbow preparatory to drinking. Anderson watched him with bated breath and bulging eyes.

Suddenly, Collins lowered his arm and put the cork back in the jar.

“No!” he said slowly. “I cal’late I won’t drink yet awhile. We may need that water badly afore we git out o’ this. If we’re astray it might mean a pull to the land—a good seventy or a hunder miles away. Here ye are, Tommy! Hev a little swig ef ye feel like it. I kin hang out for a spell.”

“No—no—no!” almost shrieked Anderson. “I don’t need any. Keep it for later.”

And when his dory-mate placed the precious jug carefully down on the dory bottom, the potential murderer grasped the oar handles savagely and clenched his teeth to suppress the flood of raging oaths which rose to his lips.

For two hours they pitched and tossed about, saying but little to each other. The sea was blank of any other craft, and both knew that they were astray. The wind was increasing in violence. It was snowing heavily, and the sea was running over the fifty fathom water of the Bank in gigantic undulations capped with roaring crests.

“We’ll hev to make th’ land somewheres!” yelled Collins. “We’ll pitch out th’ fish an’ git her shipshape fur a long pull. Due north by th’ dory compass oughter fetch us up somewheres on th’ Cape Sable shore. What d’ye say, Tommy, boy, shall we run for it?”

“Ay! Go ahead!” growled the other.

Westley noticed the change in his demeanor, but put it down to the fact that he was frightened.

“Cal’late he don’t like the idea o’ bein’ adrift,” thought Westley. “Waal, I don’t blame him. Thar’s plenty good men scared when they know they’re astray. I ’member wunst pickin’ up a dory on Green Bank, iced up an’ with two men in it frozen as stiff as herrin’s. Th’ thought o’ gittin’ like them scares me too, but never say die!” And he set to work pitching out the fish.

Swinging the dory off before wind and sea, they shipped their oars and pulled for the land some sixty or seventy miles away.

THE wind commenced to veer to the northwest by sundown and it blew hard and bitterly cold. The change in wind and the set of the tides kicked up a terrible sea, and both men realized that they could not run the dory much longer.

“We’ll lash that trawl anchor inside o’ that trawl tub an’ pay it out to wind’ard with th’ buoy-line to it. It sh’d make a drogue that’ll keep us headin’ to it ontil things ease up.” It was Collins who made the suggestion.

Anderson nodded sullenly and made no attempt to assist his dory-mate. He was parched with thirst and eyed the dory-jar with a decidedly uneasy mind.

Westley whistled calmly as he prepared the drogue. Not being gifted with much imagination, he did not worry about the future. Properly handled, the dory would live out the sea; there was enough water for a week in the dory-jar if used sparingly; they had some bread and doughnuts. The cold would be the worst peril.

With the wind northwest, it would freeze the spray which drenched the frail dory, and they would have to pound the gun wales and the dory interior clear of weighty, encumbering ice—ice which would swamp them if allowed to make. Well, pounding ice would keep them warm, so there was always a bright side to things. Westley whistled cheerfully, while his dory-mate regarded him with a baleful light in his eyes, and strange suspicions crept into his disordered mind.

“Thar’ we go!” cried Collins happily, after heaving his improvised drag over. “She’ll ride like a duck now, an’ we’ll lay to the oars in the mornin’. Sure to be lots o’ vessels around. We’ll see them to-morrow, for this wind’ll clear things up.” Looking at Anderson, he said with some concern, “You ain’t lookin’ bright, Tommy, boy. Better hev a little drink an’ a bite.”

Anderson was about to refuse, when an idea entered his head. Yes! he’d make a bluff at drinking from the water-jar. If he were to decline, the chances were that Westley would decline also.

“Pass me the jug,” he said hoarsely.

He tilted it up, placed the jar to his lips and allowed the water to wet them. Not a drop entered his mouth, though the temptation was terrible. What a queer smell the water had!

“Here ye are, Westley,” he grunted thickly. “You hev a slug now. I’ve had mine.”

Collins took the jar, and looked hard at him.

“I don’t believe you took a drink at all,” he said. “You made a bluff at it!”

“Aw, ye’re crazy!” growled Anderson, restraining his desire to smash the smiling Collins across the face for his suspicions. “What sh’d I make a bluff for? D’ye think I’m a blasted camuel?”

The other took a long, almost affectionate look at his dory-mate, and raised the jar to his lips. “Waal, here’s happy days, Tommy, boy!” And he took two great gulps while Anderson watched him almost fascinated.

“Lord, Harry! But that water tastes good,” said Westley. “Better’n all th’ rum ever brewed.” He made a wry face. “Ain’t it bilgy an’ bitter-like, though?”

It was getting dark now, and Anderson could hardly discern his shipmate’s face. He watched him intently. Something would happen soon.

“I cal’late this wind’ll blow hard from th’ nor’west all night,” remarked Collins calmly. “She’s beginnin’ to ice up already.”

He took the bailer and knocked the film of ice off the dory gunwales beside him. Anderson cowered aft in the stern of the dory and waited developments.

“God!” he thought. “He sh’d feel that p’izen now! I wonder how he’ll die? Will he git suspicious, an’ make for me afore he goes? Or will he crumple up quickly?”

For fully ten minutes he waited, every nerve on edge, for the hoarse cry or the sliding thump of Collins’ body into the slush and water on the dory bottom. Heavens! The man was a long time feeling the effects of the poison. It was strong enough to kill a man in a few minutes, he knew, and the water in the dory-jar was highly charged with the stuff.

The sea was running wild and the foaming crests gleamed phosphorescent in the dark of the night. Anderson lolled in the dory’s stem and watched Collins like a hawk for half an hour, and when he heard Westley singing to himself, he felt that something was wrong.

“He couldn’t ha’ drunk that water,” he murmured to himself. “He’s wise, an’ made a bluff. I wonder ef he knows how I hate him”

“Oh, thar, Tommy!” came Collins’s cheery voice. “How ye makin’ out?”

“All right!” growled the other.

“Ain’t feelin’ th’ cold?”

“Naw!”

Westley resumed his singing, and Anderson cursed him under his breath.

“How kin that swab sing,” he muttered, “when I kin hardly speak with th’ dryness o’ my tongue an’ mouth, him!”

THROUGHOUT the long night the dory pitched to the drogue, and ice formed on the gunnels and thwarts. Collins sat on the for’ard thwart and kept an eye on the buoy-line holding the drogue, and occasionally busied himself clearing the ice away.

Anderson, burning with thirst, lay huddled up aft, his mind a whirl of conflicting thoughts and strange schemes. In a daze he watched his dory-mate, and his hate for the unsuspecting Collins grew until it almost consumed him.

“He bluffed me, by Judas!” thought he. “He never drank that water, or he’d have been a dead one by now. God! How thirsty I am!”

He broke a piece of ice from the gunnel and began to suck at it. It was salty, so he threw it away with a curse. He pulled out his pipe and attempted to smoke, but it only seemed to increase his thirst, so he stowed it away again.

The tardy daylight came at length, and Collins rose to his feet and stretched himself with a yawn.

“How ye feelin’, dory-mate?” he said cheerfully.

“All right,” grunted Anderson.

“Cal’late we’d better hev a small drink an’ a bite, an’ make a move. What d’ye say?”

The other nodded, and rising to his feet stamped his rubber boots and swung his arms. Though heavily clothed, both felt the cold.

Collins carefully opened the little paper parcel and handed Anderson a doughnut.

“Pass me th’ jar!” said the latter.

He turned his back to Collins and placed it to his lips. Fear of the poison which it contained restrained him from allowing a single drop of the precious fluid to moisten his parched tongue, though the temptation was frightfully hard to resist. With a great show of wiping his lips, he passed the jug over to Westley.

“Aha! that feels better,” he remarked hoarsely.

The other was chewing at a doughnut, and washed it down with a swig of water from the fateful jar while the other watched him swallow. It was only a small gulp, but after finishing the doughnut Collins took another one, and without replacing the cork, handed the receptacle to Anderson.

“Hev another little swig, Tom!”

“Naw, I’ve had enough.”

He was vainly trying to swallow the doughnut, but the food tasted like sawdust in his mouth, and with a muttered oath he blew it out again when Collins was hauling in the drogue.

“He’ll croak this time,” thought he. “He didn’t bluff in that drink. I c’d see it goin’ down his throat”

“All aboard!” cried the other. “Lay to yer oars, Tom, old son. We’ll head to th’ no’th’ard.”

Both men shipped their oars and commenced to row. It was twenty-four hours since Anderson had a drink or anything to eat. He was feeling the pangs of hunger and thirst—thirst especially—but he pulled stolidly and awaited the tragedy which he knew must happen soon. Collins may have made a bluff at drinking yesterday, but he surely drank that morning.

Several times he glanced over his shoulder to make sure that his dory-mate was still alive. He did not need to do that, as he could see the blades of Collins’ oars at the end of his stroke, but he wanted to see his face. The sight was not encouraging. Westley was smiling and smoking and very much alive.

“! There’s something wrong,” muttered Anderson savagely. “Th’ p’izen don’t seem to hurt him.”

The wind was going down and the sea ran in long swells, over which they pulled monotonously. They sighted a vessel, but she was far off and making a passage. Anderson was feeling the lack of a drink, and suffered acutely. He was beginning to think that the poison was neutralized to some extent by the amount of water it was mixed with. Later on he would take a small drink himself. If West Collins was strong enough to be proof against the poison, so was he, and a small drink would relieve his agonies.

They pulled, with but a short spell now and again for a rest, until late in the afternoon. Not a vessel was to be seen, and around them rolled the blank expanse of tumbling blue-green sea.

“Better hev another little drink,” said Anderson throatily. “Go ahead, an’ pass me th’ jug.”

Collins hove in his oars, reached for the dory-jar and took a good mouthful. “Thar’s plenty water left,” he said, giving the jar a shake before handing it to the other.

Anderson turned around in his seat and grasped the jug with his mittened hand. His fingers were almost frozen inside his mittens, and he failed to hold the handle tight enough, and it slipped from his hands. Striking the dory gunwale as the little craft gave a lurch, the precious water-jar plopped into the sea and vanished with but a few bubbles marking where it disappeared.

“God!” almost screamed Anderson. “It’s gone!”

“It sure is!” grunted Collins dolefully.

Thirty-six hours without water made Anderson endure the torments of. The hard work of pulling the dory made him sweat all the moisture out of his body. He was suffering, and Collins noticed it.

“Feelin’ bad, Tommy, boy?” he asked kindly.

“Yes, blast you, yes!” snarled the other, and Westley looked at him curiously.

“H’m,” he murmured sadly. “Poor Tommy’s breakin’ up quick. I sh’d ha’ thought, he’d have hung out better’n this. He’s had th’ same as me, and I ain’t feelin’ anyways weak yit. Hope we sight a vessel soon, fur I can’t tell when we’ll make th’ land with them queer tides swingin’ us all ways.” Aloud he said: “Throw in yer oars, Tom. I’ll pull her along, an’ you take a rest”

“I don’t want a rest!” snapped the other. “We’ve got to git out o’ this. Gimme that compass aft here”

He was going to say more, but his articulation failed him.

When night shut down they were still rowing, and the wind was beginning to breeze again from the northeast. Collins noticed it, and shook his head.

“A bad quarter. We’re goin’ to git another blow,” he said.

DAYLIGHT revealed a dory lifting and tumbling over a wind-whipped sea flecked with roaring crests of foam. The drogue was out again, and Westley Collins sat on the bow thwart and watched the line.

In the stern crouched Tom Anderson, red-eyed and panting like a dog, his tongue was swollen and clove to the roof of his mouth. Every now and again, in spite of his dory-mate’s objections, he sucked at a handful of sleet.

“Tommy, old man, don’t suck that stuff,” pleaded Collins. “It’s salty, an’ ’twill make ye feel worse.”

Anderson answered with a hoarse, throaty growl. He was suffering intense agony, and his brain whirled with the idea that he owed his tortures to his companion. The mad hate which imbued him was increased a thousandfold now, and he longed to kill the man who was his successful rival in love and who seemed to be invulnerable against the various attempts he had made on his life. Strange it was that a man’s love for a flighty girl should conjure murderous thoughts and actions and result in such implacable hatred. Anderson was going mad.

Throughout the long day the dory rode to the drogue while the wind blew a bitter gale from the northeast and a heavy sea tossed the frail craft like a chip. Sleet and snow fell at intervals, and Collins collected some in his sou’wester and forced the frozen moisture between Anderson’s swollen lips. Even while he was engaged in this act of kindness, Anderson had the dory-knife hidden underneath his body and seriously contemplated an effort to stab the man who was trying to alleviate his sufferings.

He lacked the energy, however, to make the effort then, and decided to wait until dark. The little water that Collins had collected for him in the short squalls of snow and sleet refreshed him a little and made him feel better, but his head throbbed and his tongue was so swollen that he was unable to talk. Collins himself was beginning to feel the lack of water, but while his dory-mate lay in the stern, he busied himself bailing out the boat and tending the drogue line. Smoking made him feel thirstier, so he threw his pipe and tobacco overboard.

When the night shut down again, the gale showed signs of breaking up. The wind quieted down to a moderate breeze, but the sea still ran very heavy.

“We’ll git under way at daylight,” muttered Collins. “I hope we’ll git picked up tomorrer. It’s a long pull to the land from here, and I reckon we’ve been blowed off shore agin. Another day, an’ poor Tommy ’ll croak.”

It was bitterly cold—savage weather to be lying in a dory-bottom—and West went aft and tied lashings of marline around the wrists and the legs of Anderson’s oilskins to keep the bitter wind and spray out.

“You’ll be warmer now, Tommy, boy,” he said cheerfully. “We’ll git picked up tomorrer sure, an’ we won’t do a thing in muggin’ up aboard th’ vessel that takes us aboard. We’ll eat our way through th’ shack locker an’ drink her tanks dry. Ain’t gittin’ friz, are ye, Tom?”

The other gave an inarticulate groan and glared at Collins with a strange light in his eyes.

“I don’t like his looks,” muttered Westley. “He’s goin’ batty, sure. Another day, an’ he’ll go crazy an’ jump overboard. He’s bin drinkin’ salt water an’ chewin’ at his mitts all day. God help us! I wonder ef He sees us in this here dory bargin’ around th’ Western Ocean. I cal’late I’ll say a little prayer.”

And the brave fellow knelt over the for’ard thwart and prayed—a sailor’s prayer, simple, original and pregnant with a childlike faith:

“Dear God, our Father in Heaven. I ain’t always singin’ out to You to bear a hand like church folks an’ Salvation Army gangs, but listen to me now, an’ send a vessel this ways before noon tomorrer, or my dory-mate’ll croak. I thank You, God, for listenin’ to me, an’ I promise not to bother You again. Amen!”

IT WAS black dark—the hour before the dawn—and Westley Collins lay dozing in the bow of the dory. Anderson, awake, and with his mad hate spurring him to extraordinary efforts, felt for the handle of the dory-knife concealed behind him. Grasping it, he sat up and peered at his sleeping dory-mate. God—how he hated him!

The girl was forgotten now, and Anderson scarcely knew what he hated Collins for, but the idea possessed his mind to the exclusion of everything else, and he longed to kill the man who regarded him as his dearest friend. Strange? Even Anderson had to smile at the thought.

His feet were too numb to stand upon. Encased in rubber boots, they were chilled to the bone. So he crawled laboriously for’ard with the knife in his hand. Crawling over the midship thwart he made a noise, and Collins awoke from his lethargic doze and sat up.

“What’s up?” he cried as Anderson made a savage lunge at him with the knife.

The blade drove into Westley’s oilskin coat and ripped it from the shoulder to the waist, but the heavy sweater-coat which he wore under the oil-jacket prevented the knife from cutting to the skin.

“Eh, eh!” growled Collins closing with the maddened Anderson. “Crazy already!”

Imbued with extraordinary strength, Anderson rose to his feet and made several vicious stabs at the other who held him around the waist and by the right wrist. Both struggled desperately—the one to kill, and the other for possession of the knife—and the dory careened dangerously with their efforts. For a few seconds they wrestled, panting and growling, and then the dory capsized and threw both men into the water.

Both were separated by the sudden immersion, and as quick as a flash Collins struck out and grasped the drogue-line and the bow of the upturned dory. Turning to look for Anderson, he saw the gleam of yellow oilskins floundering and splashing a fathom away and caught sight of his dory-mate’s face.

Without a moment’s hesitation he reached for the trailing dory-painter, and twisting it around his arm, swam for the drowning man. Grasping him by the collar, he hauled himself and Anderson back to the dory and hung to it for a minute while he regained his breath.

Tom Anderson was unconscious, but, though heavily clothed, was no great weight in the water owing to the lashings around his wrists and the bottoms of his oil-pants keeping in enough air to buoy his weight. Collins knew that, as his own were keeping him up, but he also knew that the air would gradually escape and the dead weight of Winter clothing and top boots would soon send him under.

On all dories there is a rope-loop rove through the dory-plug. This loop is outside on the dory-bottom and is made for the purpose of a hand-hold should the dory be capsized, and many a fisherman owes his life to a dory-plug becket.

Collins crawled up on the dory-bottom and grasped the plug-strap with one hand and dragged the inanimate body of Andersen alongside with the other. Thrusting his dory-mate’s arm through the loop, he got the dory-painter and tied a bowline under Anderson’s shoulders and made it fast to the plug becket. This served to secure him and kept his head and shoulders out of water.

With his dory-mate safe for the moment, Collins caught the two trawl buoys which floated near the upturned boat, and hauling himself to the bow by the bight of the dory-painter, pulled himself up on the dory-bottom. By doing so, he steadied the capsized craft and brought the unconscious Anderson farther out of the water at the other end of the dory.

The water was bitterly cold and the air colder. Though thirsty and half-famished, chilled with the cold and played out with his strenuous exertions, Westley set to work, and, overhauling the buoy-lines, he lashed the kegs on either side of the dory.

“That’ll steady her,” he panted. “We may have to hang here for a good many hours. Now for Tom. I’ll git him on th’ dory-bottom, an’ lashed.”

And dropping into the water again, he worked his way aft and, hoisting his dory-mate’s prone body on to the dory-bottom, he passed several turns of buoy-line around him and the boat.

The sea was smoothing out and ran in long, oily swells. A light breeze was blowing from the west, and when the first flush of the dawn illuminated the eastern sky, Westley hailed the prostrate Anderson:

“Oh, thar, Tommy, boy! How’re ye makin’ out?”

The other evidently heard him and waved a feeble hand. The immersion in salt water relieved him considerably from the tortures of thirst, and he felt better. Lying on the dory-bottom, Anderson, though in a comatose condition, was able to sense his position and knew how much he owed to Collins. In a dull yet comprehending way he felt that his feelings had changed.

In spite of the dreadful experiences he had undergone, Collins had an instinctive feeling that rescue was near. Since he prayed, his heart had lightened considerably, and he hung to life with a hopeful persistence which gave renewed strength to his abnormally rugged constitution.

“Ef Howard Blackburn c’d stick out nine days adrift in a dory, I cal’late I kin hang out part o’ that time on a dory-bot tom ef it don’t git colder or breeze”

He turned his head, and there burst upon his sea-weary eyes the joyful sight of a vessel heading towards them.

It was a fisherman under four lowers, and from his position Collins could see her sails shivering as she rounded up to wind ward. A voice rolled down the wind.

“Weather up yer jumbo! Git a starboard dory over! Away ye go!”

“We’re saved!” hoarsely shrieked Westley. “Tommy, boy, wake up! We’re saved! Vessel ahoy! Dear God, I thank ye! We’re all right now, dory-mate. Plenty to eat an drink ’board o’ that packet.” And he talked and shouted until the rescuers in a dory cut him adrift and hauled him and Anderson aboard

“THREE days an’ three nights adrift in a dory in that last breeze!” exclaimed the skipper of the Annie L. Westhaver. “An’ no food an’ water! Sufferin’ Judas! You’re a tough guy, Collins. Your dory-mate ain’t made very good weather of it, though I think he’ll come around. We’ll run ye into Shelburne an’ git ye fixed up— A tough guy, by Jupiter!”

In a forecastle bunk, Anderson, with toes and fingers badly frost-bitten, lay and raved in delirium. He talked strangely of a dory-jar and arsenic, and in his ravings the name of Elsie Conover was mentioned. Westley Collins, little the worse for his experiences, sat on a lee locker and yarned with the gang while the schooner stormed on her way to Shelburne.

“He’s th’ best dory-mate a man ever had,” he was saying. “He got himself into that state because o’ me. Boys, he purposely avoided drinkin’ from our dory-jar so’s I’d git th’ water sh’d we be adrift long. He knew I was promised to a gal back home, an’ he wanted to see me live. Ain’t he a man for ye?

“And do ye know, boys, it might ha’ bin worse, ’cause I was nearly goin’ off in th’ dory without a jug that day. We was in a hurry settin’ out th’ string that mornin’ an’ when I hove our dory-jug down inter th’ dory it struck one o’ th’ trawl anchors an’ broke. I wasn’t agoin’ to bother gittin’ another one, but th’ skipper sees it an’ says to me: ‘Here! Take this spare jug with ye, an’ git away. Winter fishin’s no time to neglect carryin’ a full dory-jar, and I never let a dory leave th’ vessel without water aboard.’

“Lucky for me he was so particular, but it done poor Tom no good. He hung out without drinkin’ a drop so’s I’d git it all. An’ when he couldn’t hold out no longer he lost th’ jar overboard jest as he was for havin’ a drink. Poor old Tom! Boys, oh boys, but he’s a man with a big heart!”

MISS ELSIE CONOVER knocked apprehensively on the door of the Anderson cottage. An elderly lady answered the summons.

“Oh, Miss!” she exclaimed anxiously, “I’m glad ye’ve come. Tom’s bin askin’ to see ye all afternoon. He’s had a terrible time down on th’ fishin’-grounds, an’ ’most died but for West Collins. Come right up.”

With a strange fluttering at her heart, Elsie entered the plain bedroom and hesitated half-frightened when she caught sight of the haggard features of the man she loved.

“Oh, Tom!” she cried with a catch in her voice.

The sick man turned and beckoned to her.

“Come over here, Elsie,” he said quietly. “Mother, please leave us for a spell.”

The girl approached the bed and sat down in a chair.

“Tom, Tom,” she said. “What happened out there?”

He ignored the question and stared at her with eyes which were cold and penetrating.

“I’m a-goin’ to talk to you, girl!” he said after a pause. “What kind of a game are you playin’ with West Collins?”

She flushed and dropped her eyes in confusion at the question. “I—I’m not playing any game with him, Tom.”

“Do you intend to marry him?”

She made no answer, but fingered her dress feverishly.

“Do you intend to marry him?” came Anderson’s insistent voice.

“No!” blurted the girl.

“What did ye mean by tellin’ him ye’d give him yer answer in th’ Spring?”

“I—I—oh, don’t ask me, Tom. I—oh, don’t be so cruel!”

“All right, I won’t. Ye told me th’ same thing. What was your idea? Who did you intend to have? Him or me?”

The girl grasped his bandaged hand nervously.

“Why, you, Tom. I always intended to marry you, but you were chasing around with ‘Jen’ Hooper. I—I only told him that so’s you’d be jealous and come to me again.”

Anderson withdrew his hand and nodded slowly.

“Huh! So that was the idea. Waal, you started a fine pot a-boilin’. Now, I’ll talk to ye. West Collins and I hev bin dory-mates all this Winter. He’s th’ best dory-mate I ever had, and a man’s man. He told me about his deal with you. Me, of all men! Me, that was crazy over you an’ whom you made th’ same promise to. He talked to me of his prospects an’ his future with you as his wife. He’s madly in love with you, and talked to me about you in our watches and in th’ dory. To me, mind ye—me that really wanted you worse than he did!”

He paused for a moment and stared at her pallid face.

“I made a vow that he’d never see you again. I was out to kill him. Actin’ as his dory-mate, mind ye, I meant to put him out o’ th’ way at th’ first chance. I tried it several times—” she shuddered—“but failed every time, thank God! He never suspected, an’ treated me as his best friend. Then we got adrift in th’ dory. ’Twas my fault, that. I tried to kill him then by p’izenin’ th’ water in our dory-jar. Th’ jar was changed, but I didn’t know it, an’ fur three days an’ three nights adrift I darsen’t have a drink.

“I went through hell then, woman, an’ went crazy. I tried to knife Westley, an’ th’ dory capsized. He saved me an’ hauled me up on th’ dory an’ lashed me there. I won’t tell ye any more. I’ve told ye enough, an’ ye’ll please not breathe a word o’ what I’ve told ye.”

The look in his eyes frightened her.

“Now,” he continued steadily, “when West Collins goes to see you, you’ll accept him. I won’t have ye, for I don’t care about ye any more. He’s in love with you, an’ believes in you. He thinks you love him. You do—you’ll have to! You ain’t a-goin’ to make a bluff like I did. You’ve played your bluff—so did I. I pretended to be his friend. I hated him, but I love him now. He’s a man’s man. You’ll love him too.”

He paused and continued in a kinder tone:

“Elsie—my love for you is dead. I’ve changed it for West Collins. He’s a man what’s true blue. He ain’t none o’ yer fancy kind, but he’s all there, and he’ll make ye a better husband than ye deserve. You marry him, an’ ye’ll be happy.”

“But, Tom, I don’t love him,” almost wailed Elsie. “It’s you I”

“Forget it!” snapped the other. “I have no use for ye. I’m for hookin’ up with Jennie Hooper whom I used to go with for years.”

Miss Conover felt a strange pang, and Anderson knew that the shot had gone home. Jennie would have him, he knew, and Jennie was a nice girl. He saw her in the hospital at Yarmouth before he came home, and was sure of his ground.

“Yes,” he said, “you can count me out. West Collins is your man, and he’s one o’ th’ best. You’ll marry him, Elsie, an’ keep yer promise. Goodby!”

The following announcement in the Anchorville Daily Echo pertains to the story:

Human nature is a queer thing. Love begets jealousy; jealousy begets deceit and hate; and hate begets murder. Yet in the case of Westley Collins and Tom Anderson, these passions led to mutual respect and abiding love between them. If Collins had known? It is perhaps better he did not.