Page:Beyond the Horizon (1920).djvu/115

Rh

—Yes—in the China sea. Had to run before it under bare poles for two days. I thought we were bound down for Davy Jones, sure. Never dreamed waves could get so big or the wind blow so hard. If it hadn’t been for Uncle Dick being such a good skipper we’d have gone to the sharks, all of us. As it was we came out minus a main top-mast and had to beat back to Hong-Kong for repairs. But I must have written you all this.

—You never mentioned it.

—Well, there was so much dirty work getting things ship-shape again I must have forgotten about it.

—[Looking at —marvelling.] Forget a typhoon? [With a trace of scorn.] You’re a strange combination, Andy. And is what you’ve told me all you remember about it?

—Oh, I could give you your bellyful of details if I wanted to turn loose on you; but they’re not the kind of things to fit in with your pretty notions of life on the ocean wave, I’ll give you that straight.

—[Earnestly.] Tell me. I’d like to hear them—honestly!

—What’s the use? They’d make a man want to live in the middle of America without even a river in a hundred miles of him so he’d feel safe. It was rotten, that’s what it was! Talk about work! I was wishin’ the ship’d sink and give me a rest, I was so dog tired toward the finish. We didn’t get a warm