That meant Pete and Sam, and they were ready to say "Thank you, sir"; but they were a great deal more ready to keep still while the two old sailors talked about the storm which had stranded the Goshawk, and about other storms they had known. It must have been quite a hurricane; but even before it was fully described, Captain Pickering had his valise open, and was slowly looking over some of its contents. Log-books, log-books, log-books. Sam knew what they were now, and he would have given something to know what was in them.
"That's one of the Narragansett's," said its owner, laying it down. "I sailed her for six years. One trip was 'round the world. Last ship I'll ever have. She was an old one. They're not buildin' many more of those prime clippers we used to have. It's all steam nowadays. I can't do anything with steam, Kroom. Can you?"
"I don't want any," replied the Captain. "It's taking the place of horses, too, on land. That and 'lectricity and these 'ere two-wheeled things they call cycles. I wouldn't any more ride one of 'em—"
"Did you ever ride a horse?" asked Pickering. "I did once; but I didn't know how to steer him, and we made a losin' voyage of it."
"Well," said the Captain, "I can drive. Kind o' drive. But I'd rather have some other feller navigate, as a rule. I'm most at home in a boat. Watch now. We'll be in the breakers in less'n five minutes."
"Good boat," remarked Captain Pickering. "But we're too many in her." Nevertheless, he talked right along about ships, as cool as a cucumber, even when the Elephant was making her dangerous way through the blind channel. "Glad you know where it is," he said to Kroom. "I'd ha' swamped her tryin' to find it. We're nigh half full o' water anyhow."
That was what had troubled Sam, for again and again the tossing waves of the channel had washed over in, and he and Pete had been baling their best. Not that Pete appeared to be troubled, and he had remarked to their passenger: "Captain Kroom knows every channel around this bay. He'll get through."
So he did, and they were now inside of the breakers, between them and the bar. Right ahead of them, moreover, was another cat-boat, twice as large as the Elephant, with four men in it.
"There they are!" exclaimed Pickering. "The very chaps that came aboard the Goshawk this morning. Reckon they'd been there before, too. Tell you what, Kroom, they're hunting for that spar-buoy, to get the things they hung to it."
"They won't get 'em," growled Kroom. "But every man of 'em belongs on the other side o' the bay. They are oyster and clam dredgers. Some of our fishermen are born wreckers, sure's you live. Anything they can take off a stranded ship is fair game to them."