the water hissing from the dory's bows. "My Gawd!" he said, under
his breath. He spat over the bows and sucked the nicotine from
his mustache, thoughtfully.

"I ree-marked," he observed, "as how you had brains, my son."

A few minutes later the Captain, who was standing in the dory's
bow and alternately conning the ocean's surface and looking back
to the Chinaman standing on the schooner's masthead, uttered an
exclamation:

"Steady, ship your oars, quiet now, quiet, you damn fools! We're
right on 'em--four, by Gawd, an' big as dinin' tables!"

The oars were shipped. The dory's speed dwindled. "Out your
paddles, sit on the gun'l, and paddle ee-asy." The hands obeyed.
The Captain's voice dropped to a whisper. His back was toward
them and he gestured with one free hand. Looking out over the
water from his seat on the gun'l, Wilbur could make out a round,
greenish mass like a patch of floating seaweed, just under the
surface, some sixty yards ahead.

"Easy sta'board," whispered the Captain under his elbow. "Go
ahead, port; e-e-easy all, steady, steady."

The affair began to assume the intensity of a little drama--a
little drama of midocean. In spite of himself, Wilbur was
excited. He even found occasion to observe that the life was not
so bad, after all. This was as good fun as stalking deer. The
dory moved forward by inches. Kitchell's whisper was as faint as