"What's the crazy notion, Mr. Chapin?"
The mate flung up his hands and shrugged his shoulders.
"A haunt—a jinx—something. The Lord knows!"
"I wonder if it is a Portygee notion or something else," said Tunis Latham, his eyes fixed on the back of Orion, busy, for once, at the other rail.
"Whatever it is, Captain Latham," said Mason Chapin with gravity, "I suggest you fill your berths at Boston."
"Guess I'll have to. But the offscourings of the city docks! They will be worse than these Portygees."
It was not a prospect he welcomed. He well knew the sort of dock rats he must put up with if he wished to make up his crew with city hands for a short trip. The sea tramps who are within reach of coasting skippers are the same kind of worthless material that shiftless farmers must depend upon in harvest time.
Even the lack of one man forward, to say nothing of the cook's boy, made a considerable difference in the working of the schooner. 'Rion Latham loudly proclaimed that he was being imposed upon when he was forced to work with the captain's watch. He had shipped as supercargo and clerk, he had! This treatment was an imposition.
"You know what you can do about it, 'Rion, if you like," the skipper said to him calmly, but aside. "I wouldn't want to feel that I was holding you to a job that you did not like. You can leave the Seamew any time you want."
"Huh! The rats will be doing that soon enough," growled 'Rion.