salts are more picturesque and companionable spinning yarns about the
stove in a shoemaker's shop than they are when one is obliged to live,
eat and sleep with them for four months in the crowded forecastle of a
fishing schooner. An ocean storm is a sublime spectacle, witnessed from
a position of safety on the land; but a storm on the ocean, experienced
in its very vortex from the deck of a tiny fishing boat, is thrilling
beyond description. "Ships that pass in the night" make interesting
reading; but if they pass near you, in a foggy night, on the Banks, they
are better than the muezzin of the Moslem in reminding a man that it is
time to pray. I recall with vividness the scene on such a night, and
still feel the compelling power of the panic in the voice of the
mild-mannered old sea dog on anchor watch, as he yelled down the
companionway, "All hands on deck." In six seconds we were all there; and
there was the great hulk of a two-thousand-ton ship looming up out of
the night. She had evidently sighted our little craft just in time to
change her course, and was passing us with not more than a hundred and
fifty feet to spare. I can see them tonight, as they vanished into the
fog--three men and a big Newfoundland dog, looking over the rail and
down on us who, a moment before, were about to die.

Storm, fog, icebergs, cold, exposure, the alert and strenuous life, with
his own life the forfeit of failure, are a part of the normal experience
of a deep sea fisherman. Two members of our crew were father and son,
Uncle Ike Patch and his son, Frank. The old man had been a fisherman in
his youth, but had been on shore for thirty years. When we were making
up our crew, Frank caught the fishing fever and wanted to go, and his
father decided to go along with him. They were out in their dory, one
foggy day, and when the boats came back to the vessel from hauling their
trawls, Uncle Ike and Frank were missing. We rang the bell, fired our
small cannon, shouted and sent boats out after them. As night came on,