“No, tell me really, please,” returned the boy, eying the skipper incredulously.
“And so I am. If you could see some of the storms we have, with waves twenty or thirty feet high pouring over the deck, you’d realize a man takes his life in his hands when he tries to walk the length of the boat.”
“Well, I hope we don’t have any such weather,” declared Phil, as they mounted the bridge and entered the pilot house, where they watched the wheelsman hold the big carrier on its course and later saw the first mate enter the incident of the boiler room in the log-book.
“By the way, Mr. Adams, has the log been set?” asked Captain Perkins, as he entered the pilot house.
“Jove, I forgot it, sir, in the excitement.”
“Then tell the watchman to set it.”
As the officer started off in obedience, the boys followed him.
Entering the lamp room, which was located in one of the after-deck houses, the watchman took down a coil of cod line to one end of which was attached a small brass swivel, while to the other end was fastened a hook. Then he took down a brass-encased instrument which looked like a small edition of an iceman’s scales. Going to one of the stanchions near the stem of the boat, on the starboard side, the watchman made the indicator fast with a piece of rope, then placed the hook of the log line in its hole, and lowered the log into the water.
“The only trick about this is to be careful not to lower so fast that the hook jumps out of its hole. If it does, the log is lost,” explained the watchman. “You have to look out, too, to drop the log far enough out so that it doesn’t get foul of the ship’s propeller.”
“But how does it work?” asked Phil.