A TALE FROM THE FROZEN LANDS.
Although Noddy had recovered remarkably quick, thanks to his rugged constitution, from the effects of his immersion, Captain Simms ordered him on the sick-list and he was, much against his will, sent to bed.
"He'd better stay there all night," said the captain. "We don't want to run any risks of pneumonia. I don't suppose your uncle will worry about you?"
"He's got over that long ago," laughed Jack; "besides, there's a professor stopping at the hotel who is on the lookout for funny plants and herbs. That's Uncle Toby's long suit, you know."
"So I have heard," smiled the captain. "Well, you boys may as well make yourselves at home."
"Thank you, we will," said Billy. Whereat there was a general laugh.
There was a phonograph and a good selection of records in the cottage, so they managed to while away a pleasant afternoon. Jack cooked supper, "just by way of paying for our board," he said. After the meal they sat up for a time listening to Captain Simms' tales of seal poachers in the Arctic and the trouble they give the patrol assigned to see that they do not violate the international boundary, and other laws. Before he had taken command of the Thespis, of the Ice-berg Patrol, Captain Simms had been detailed to command of the Bear revenue cutter, and had chased and captured many a sealer who was plying his trade illicitly.
The boys listened attentively as he told them of the rough hardships of such a life, and how, sometimes, a whole fleet of sealers, if frozen in by an early formation of ice, must face hunger and sometimes death till the spring came to release them from their imprisonment.
"It must take a lot of nerve and courage to be a sealer," said Jack.
"It certainly does," agreed the captain. "Yet I heard from one sealing captain the story of a young fellow whom it turned from a weak coward into a brave man. This lad, who was regarded as a weakling, saved himself and two companions from a terrible death simply by an act of almost sublime courage. Would you like to hear the story?"
"If you don't mind spinning the yarn," said Jack.
"Well, then," began the captain, "to start with, the name of my hero is Shavings. Of course he had another name, but that's the one he was always known by, and I've forgotten the right one. He was a long-legged, lanky Vermont farmer, with dank strings of yellow hair hanging about his mild face. This hair gave him his nickname aboard the sealing schooner, Janet Barry, on which he signed as a boat man. How Shavings came to St. Johns, from which port the Janet Barry sailed, or why he picked out such a job, nobody ever knew. He had, as sailors say, 'hayseed in his hair' and knew nothing about a ship.
"But what he didn't know he soon learned under the rough method of tuition they employed on the Barry. A mate with a rope's end sent him aloft for the first time and kept sending him there till Shavings learned how to clamber up the ratlines with the best of them. He learned boat-work in much the same way, although he passed through a lot of experiences while chasing seals, that scared him badly. He told the captain long afterward that, although he was afraid of storms and gales, still he sometimes welcomed them, because he knew the boats would not have to go out.
"One day, far to the north, they ran into an exceptionally fine school of seals. All the boats were sent away, and among them the one to which Shavings belonged. In command of this boat was Olaf Olsen, the mate who had taught Shavings the rudiments of his profession by means of hard knocks. Dark clouds were scurrying across the sky, and the sea looked angry, but that made no difference to the sealers. Lives or no lives, women in the States had to have their sealskin coats.
"So the boats pursued the seals for a long distance, and in the excitement nobody noticed what the weather was doing. Nobody, that is, but Shavings, and he didn't dare to say that it was growing worse, for fear of angering the mate. The hunters harpooned a goodly catch before the gale was upon the little fleet almost without warning.
"Then the storm broke with a screech and a massing of angry water. The boats had been under sail, and in a flash two of them were over-turned. Shavings saw all this with terror in his eyes and a cold clutch at his heart. He knew the men in those boats would never go sealing again.
"Then his eyes fell on the mate, Olaf Olsen. The man appeared to be petrified with fright. He made no move to do anything. Then something in Shavings seemed to wake up.
"Perhaps that yellow hair of his was a survival of some old Viking strain, or perhaps all those months of rough sea life had made him over without his knowing it. But he seized the mate and shook him by the shoulder:
"'Give an order, man!' he shouted. 'Order the sail reefed.'
"But the sight of the death of his shipmates had so unnerved the mate that he could no nothing. Shavings kicked him disgustedly, and went about the job himself. Clouds of spray burst over him. Time and again he was within an inch of being swept overboard, but at last he had the sail reefed down. Then he took the tiller and headed back for the schooner across the immense seas through the screeching gale.
"He handled that boat skillfully, meeting the big seas and riding their summits, only to be buried the next instant in the watery valley between the giant combers. But always he rose. He had the cheering sight of the schooner before him and it grew closer. The boat sailed more on her beam than on her keel, but at last Shavings, more dead than alive, ran her in under the lee of the schooner's hull, and willing hands got the survivors out of the boat.
"The skipper of that craft was a rough man. He drove Olaf Olsen forward with blows and curses and the strong Swede whimpered like a whipped cur. Then he came aft to where the cook was giving Shavings and the rest hot coffee.
"'Shavings,' he said, 'after this you're mate in that coward Olsen's place. You're a man.'
"'No, sirree,' rejoined Shavings, 'I'm a farmer. No mate's job for me. When we gets back ter home I'm goin' ter take my share uv ther catch and buy a farm.'
"But he was finally persuaded to take the job of mate when his canny New England mind grasped the fact that the mate's share of the profits is much bigger than a foremast hand's. He was as good as his word, however, and, when the Janet Barry, with her flag at half mast but her hold full of fine skins, docked at St. Johns after the season was over, Shavings drew his money and vanished. I suppose he is farming it somewhere in Vermont now, but I agree with his captain, who told me the story, that there was a fine sailor lost in Shavings."