“Why, yes—sure. He ain't showed up yet, though.”
“You ain't goin' to try to make it, are you, Cap'n?” asked a riverman.
“Going to try? We are going to make it, if that's what you mean.”
One of the men rose. “I'm going up the wharf, Cap'n. If you like, I 'll speak to Peters.”
“All right. I wish you would. And say, Pete, you take Pink and see that everything is down solid. I don't care to distribute those two-by-fours all down the east coast.”
Roche went out, and the others got up one by one and took shelter in the lee of a lumber pile on the wharf. A little later, when he saw the tug steaming up the river, Roche shook the rain from his eyes and looked long at the black cloud billows that were rolling up from the northwest, then he slipped below and took a strong pull at his flask. The tug came alongside, and then Roche sought Dick.
“Cap'n, what's the use?” he said in an agitated voice. “Don't you see we're runnin' our nose right into it? Why, if we was a three-hundred-footer, we'd have our hands full out there. I don't like to say nothin', but—”
Smiley, his hat jammed on the back of his head, his shirt, now dripping wet, clinging to his trunk and outlining bunches of muscle on his shoulders and back, his light hair stringing down over his forehead, merely looked at him curiously.
“You see how it is, Cap'n, I—”
“What are you talking about? All right, Pink, make fast there! Who's running this schooner, you or me?”