“Sixty,” sung out Tom Platt, hauling in great wet coils.
The schooner gathered way once more. “Heave!” said Disko, after a quarter of an hour.
“What d’you make it?” Dan whispered, and he looked at Harvey proudly. But Harvey was too proud of his own performances to be impressed just then.
“Fifty,” said the father. “I mistrust we’re right over the nick o’ Green Bank on old Sixty-Fifty.”
“Fifty!” roared Tom Platt. They could scarcely see him through the fog. “She’s bust within a yard—like the shells at Fort Macon.”
“Bait up, Harve,” said Dan, diving for a line on the reel.
The schooner seemed to be straying promiscuously through the smother, her headsail banging wildly. The men waited and looked at the boys who began fishing.
“Heugh!” Dan’s lines twitched on the scored and scarred rail. “Now haow in thunder did Dad know? Help us here, Harve. It’s a big un. Poke-hooked, too.” They hauled together, and landed a goggle-eyed twenty-pound cod. He had taken the bait right into his stomach.
“Why, he’s all covered with little crabs,” cried Harvey, turning him over.
“By the great hook-block, they’re lousy already,” said Long Jack. “Disko, ye kape your spare eyes under the keel.”
Splash went the anchor, and they all heaved over the lines, each man taking his own place at the bulwarks.
“Are they good to eat?” Harvey panted, as he lugged in another crab-covered cod.