“Question is, haow he’d take it. There was a man frum down the coast told me once he was in a schooner where they darsen’t ever blow a horn to the dories, becaze the skipper—not the man he was with, but a captain that had run her five years before—he’d drowned a boy alongside in a drunk fit; an’ ever after, that boy he’d row alongside too and shout, ‘Dory! dory!’ with the rest.”
“Dory! dory!” a muffled voice cried through the fog. They cowered again, and the horn dropped from Dan’s hand.
“Hold on!” cried Harvey; “it’s the cook.”
“Dunno what made me think o’ thet fool tale, either,” said Dan. “It’s the doctor, sure enough.”
“Dan! Danny! Oooh, Dan! Harve! Harvey! Oooh, Haarveee!”
“We’re Here,” sung both boys together. They heard oars, but could see nothing till the cook, shining and dripping, rowed into them.
“What iss happened?” said he. “You will be beaten at home.”
“Thet’s what we want. Thet’s what we’re sufferin’ for,” said Dan.
“Anything homey’s good enough fer us. We’ve had kinder depressin’ company.”
As the cook passed them a line, Dan told him the tale.
“Yess! He come for hiss knife,” was all he said at the end.
Never had the little rocking We’re Here looked so deliciously homelike as when the cook, born and bred in fogs, rowed them back to her. There was a warm glow of light from the cabin and a satisfying smell of food forward, and it was heavenly to hear Disko and the others, all quite alive and solid, leaning over the rail and promising them a first-class pounding.