A big schooner under sail loomed out of the mist and a voice shouted, “Here they are, an’ they’ve got a couple o’ them!” Within a minute they rounded up alongside and the skipper was handed over the rail and taken down into the cabin. He was in a dazed state from exhaustion and the effects of the blow on the head. Donald, little the worse for his experience, went down into the forecastle, where he was surrounded by the West Wind’s gang and questioned as to how it all happened. After he had related the affair as he knew it, they shook their heads dolefully. “Poor cook! Poor Thomas!” they murmured. John McGlashan and James Thomas could be listed with the yearly toll of the Banks.
“Drowned on Banquereau when the fishing schr. West Wind of Eastville, N.S., Nickerson, Master, was run down while at anchor and sunk by the Greek steamer Livadia of Piraeus.”
That would be their epitaph! After drinking a cup of hot coffee and a bowl of warm soup, Donald turned into a bunk, and thinking over the loss of his chum and his dory-mate, cried—not like a baby—but like a man.
He lay quiet for an hour, then he got up. His clothes were being dried at the cook’s stove, so he wore a pair of pants and a sweater lent him by one of the Frank and Mary’s crew. “How’re ye feelin’?” asked the men lounging around on the lockers and bunks.
“Not so dusty,” answered McKenzie.
“Yer skipper says ye saved his life,” observed the cook from the stove. “He was jest alettin’ go when you came up an’ hauled him to that spar. It’s a great thing to be able to swim.”
“How is he?” enquired the youth eagerly.
“He’ll be alright,” replied the other. “I fixed up his head an’ gave him a slug of old Jamaikey to wash the salt water outa his stomach. He’s asleep now, but he’ll be fit when he wakes.”
One of the West Wind’s crowd spoke. “We’ve cruised all around the wreckage, Donald, but thar’ ain’t no sign of the cook or Thomas. Cal’late they must ha’ gone under when th’ steamer crashed into yez. Lucky thing for us we was out in the dories, or there’d ha’ bin a bigger drowndin’ scrape.”