CHAPTER XIII
In Which Billy Topsail Sets Sail for the Labrador, the Rescue Strikes an Iceberg, and Billy is Commanded to Pump for His Life
IT was early in the spring—a time of changeable weather when, in the northern seas, the peril of drift-ice, bergs, snow, wind and the dark must sometimes be met with short warning. The schooner Rescue, seventy tons, Job Small, master, had supplied the half-starved Labrador fishermen with flour and pork, and was bound back to Ruddy Cove, in ballast, to load provisions and shop goods for the straits trade.
Billy Topsail was aboard. "I 'low, dad," he had said to his father, when the skipper of the Rescue received the Government commission to proceed North with supplies, "that I'd like t' see the Labrador."
"You'll see it many a time, lad," his father had replied, "afore you're done with it."
"An' Skipper Job," Billy had persisted, "says he'll take me."
The end of it was that Billy was shipped.
The Rescue had rounded the cape at dawn, with all sails set, even to her topmast-staysail, which the Newfoundlanders call the "Tommy Dancer"; but now, with the night coming down, she was laboriously beating into a head wind under jib and reefed mainsail.