A few minutes later the skipper went below, and Clancy, seeing me, said, “Hold on, Joey. Did you hear what the skipper said?”
“About Miss Foster owning a share of the vessel?”
“Well, not that so much, but about the loss of the seine?”
“Yes––why?”
“Why? Joe, but sometimes a man would think you were about ten year old. I tell you, Joe, I’m not too sure it’s going to be Withrow. And if you don’t see some driving on this one when next we get among the fish, then––” But he didn’t finish it, only clucked his tongue and went below.
Clancy was right again. During the night the weather moderated, and in the morning the first of the fleet to go out past the Breakwater was the Johnnie Duncan. It looked to us as if the skipper thought the mackerel would be all gone out of the sea before we got back to the spot where we had struck them two days before.