“D’ye s’pose we’ll be high-line, Cap’en?” asked Jud with a twinkle in his eye.
The old harbor-master bit off a chew of tobacco. “Ye might,” he answered non-committally. “Ye never kin tell.”
“Burton, naow—d’ye s’pose he landed as much as we did on his spring trip?” queried Nickerson quizzically.
“He might have,” replied the old man, with an unemotional visage. “Ye never kin tell ... ’til th’ tally’s published.” Judson chuckled and clapped the other on the back.
“Closer’n a clam, you are, Cap’en, but you’re quite right. I’m agoin’ to beat him sure! I’m off to-night for another jag.”
That evening they slipped out of Eastville for the Banks again.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
After making a few sets on Western Bank, they ran up on to Grand again and anchored on the south-western edge of the ground. Donald went in the dory with Jack Thomas, and the two of them got along very well together, but Donald found the dory work considerably different from the deck labor of a fishing vessel. Rowing the heavy boat to windward or against the tide for a mile or two was genuine hard work, and hauling a trawl against the same wind and tide for the best part of a day was a job well-calculated to try the muscles of the arms and back. However, with time, he soon “caught on,” and after a couple of weeks over the side, he could do his share of hauling trawl in the dory-bow and at baiting up the gear.