I gave each of the Patagonians a dollar and Pedro two, shook hands with them all, slung my rifle over my shoulder, hooked one arm through my dunnage-bag (which was fortunately waterproof) and stood ready to seize the rope which was flung me. The Patagonians brought the canoe right up to the looming side of the old bark, and as she dipped deep in the sea, I sprang up and “walked up” her side, clinging to the rope with both hands. So they got me inboard with merely a dash of saltwater to season my venture.
The canoe wore off sharply and I turned to wave good-bye to Pedro and the paddlers. Then a bunch of the old Scarboro’s fo’castle hands were about me. Tom Anderly pushed through the group and grabbed my hand.
“Here ye be, ye blamed young scamp!” he roared. “Leavin’ Mr. Gibson an’ me in the lurch in Buenos Ayres.”
“And ye missed some of the greatest whalin’ ye ever see,” burst in the stroke oar of our old boat. “We got smashed up complete once and lost boat and every bit of gear. Nobody bad hurt, however.”
Within the next few moments I heard a deal of news. How many whales the Scarboro had butchered since I had left for Buenos Ayres (and despite Mr. Bobbin’s croaking the old bark already had half a cargo in her tanks); how long it had taken Bill Rudd and his crew to patch up the hole the bull whale had smashed in the bark’s side; about the gale they had run into which had carried away some of the top gear and much canvas; and what the crew had done during the week or more they had been in port at Buenos Ayres.
Then Ben Gibson came off duty and called me aft. “Awful glad to see you, Webb,” he declared. “I’m fit as a fiddle now. Want you in my boat again. We took on a lout at Buenos Ayres, who’s had your berth; but he isn’t worth a hang in the boat. You’re going to finish out the cruise, aren’t you?”
“I don’t expect to, sir,” I returned. “I would have been home long ago if I had been wise. What I came down here for panned out nothing at all.”
“Well, Captain Hi will be glad to have you finish out the cruise, I don’t doubt. You better go below and see him,” said the second mate.
Mr. Robbins shook hands with me before I went below and welcomed me aboard. “We’re going to make money in the old Scarboro this v’y’ge, Webb,” he said. “You’d better stick to the bark. Captain Hi is going to discharge ile here at Punta Arenas and go into the Pacific with clean tanks.”
And so the skipper told me when I descended to the tiny chart room. There would be a tramp freightship with a half cargo at Punta Arenas, he said, and it had empty tanks aboard. All that was needed was to pump the oil from the bark into the tramp’s tanks.