But, with Mr. Meersam’s leave, I will take the story from his mouth and tell it in my own way, with additions gathered from the chief protagonists and from other sources.
When the three adventurers, dismissed with a caution by Gunderman, got sail on the Heart of Ireland, they steered a sou’westerly course, till San Juan was a speck to northward and the San Lucas Islands were riding high on the sea on the port quarter.
Then Blood hove the schooner to for a council of war, and Ginnell, though reduced again to deck hand, was called into it.
“Well,” said Blood, “that’s over and done with, and there’s no use calling names. Question is what we’re to do now. We’ve missed twenty thousand dollars through fooling and delaying, and we’ve got to make good somehow, even on something small. If I had ten cents in my pocket, Pat Ginnell, I’d leave you and your old shark boat for the nearest point of land and hoof it back to Frisco; but I haven’t—worse luck.”
“There’s no use in carryin’ on like that,” said Harman. “Frisco’s no use to you or me, and your boots would be pretty well wore out before you got there. What I say is this: We’ve got a schooner that’s rigged out for shark fishin’. Well, let’s go on that lay; we’ll give Ginnell a third share, and he’ll share with us in payin’ the coolies. Shark oil’s fetchin’ big prices now in Frisco. It’s not twenty thousand dollars, but it’s somethin’.”
Ginnell, leaning against the after rail and cutting himself a fill of tobacco, laughed in a mirthless way. Then he spoke: “Shark fishin’, begob; well, there’s a word to be said be me on that. You two thought yourselves mighty clever, collarin’ me boat and makin’ yourselves masthers of it. I don’t say you didn’t thrump me ace, I don’t say you didn’t work it so that I can’t have the law on you, but I’ll say this, Misther Harman, if you want to go shark fishin’, you can work the business yourself, and a nice hand you’ll make of it. Why, you don’t know the grounds, let alone the work. A third share, and me the rightful owner of this tub! I’ll see you ham-strung before I put a hand to it.”
“Then get forrard,” said Harman. “Don’t know the grounds? Maybe I don’t know the grounds you used to work farther north, but I know every foot of the grounds here-a-way, right from the big kelp beds to the coast. Why, I been on the fish-commission ship and worked with ’em all through this part, takin’ soundin’s and specimens—rock, weed, an’ fish. Know the bottom here as well as I know the pa’m of me hand.”
“Well, if you know it so well, you’ve no need of me. Lay her on the grounds yourself,” said Ginnell.
He went forward.
“Black sullen,” said Harman, looking after him. “He ain’t no use to lead or drive. Well, let’s get her before the wind an’ crowd down closer to Santa Catalina. I’m not sayin’ this is a good shark ground, the sea’s too much of a blame’ fish circus just here—but it’s better than nothin’.”