Page:Harry Castlemon - The Steel Horse.djvu/391

 sparkling waters of a lake or brook, and serve it up on a piece of clean bark. If I had been in love with the sea when I came here, I would be all over it now."

"It's rough, isn't it?" said Roy, as he and his companions went down the gangplank to the wharf; and he trembled all over when he thought how near he had come to being carried to distant countries against his will. "The little I saw of a sailor's life while I was on the White Squall convinced me that the officers are more to be dreaded than the forecastle. They can be as brutal as they please when they are out of sight of land, and there's no law to touch them."

"There's law enough," answered Joe, "but the trouble is, a sailor man can't use it. Suppose he has the officers of his vessel arrested for cruelty while he has the rest of the crew at hand to prove it against them. They are put under bonds, but the case is postponed on one pretext or another, and while that is being done, how is Jack going to live? Of course the minute he gets ashore he makes haste to spend his wages, and when his last dollar is