"It's a-blowin' putty fresh," said old Dan Ferns. "It sort o' 'minds me o' the night the Dora A. Baker came ashore. That was twenty-five year ago, an' her ribs is stickin' out down there now. They get covered up in these here big gales, but the pond runs out an' scoops the channel right through 'em sometimes. I remember the wrack o' the Dora A. Baker jess as if 'twas yistiddy. She was loaded with corn an'—"
"Say, Dan," said Sammy Wardell, the youngest member of the crew, "I remember hearin' Wall Green say ten year ago that you'd been a-tellin' that yarn fur twelve year."
"Anyhow," said Dan, "her skipper had real pluck, he did, an' when the corn—"
"Oh, stow it, Dan! Stow it!" came a general chorus. Then Henry Slocum, the only member of the crew who had been a deep-water sailor, and who was noted for his reserve, suddenly spoke.
"I don't know what you fellows call pluck exactly," he said, with fine unconsciousness of the fact that he was talking to some of the bravest men alive; "but I'll bet I saw a case once that none of you can trump."
"Let's have it, old shell-back," exclaimed the Captain.
The other men knew that Slocum's experience at sea had been extensive and varied, so they settled themselves in their chairs to hear a yarn.
"This is a true story," began Slocum, "that I'm going to tell you—"
"O' course," interjected Dan Ferns; "all sea-yarns is true."
"And it all happened," continued Slocum, ignoring the interruption, "a good thirty years ago. It ain't so very much of a story, either, but it's a case of real pluck, and so it's worth telling about. I suppose some of you fellows may know that New Bedford, Massachusetts, used to be a whaling-port. Well, thirty years ago the business wasn't as near dead as it is now, and once in a while a man that had a notion for throwing an iron might get a chance to ship for high latitudes. I don't remember exactly how it was that I came to be knocking about up there without anything to do—"