"Guess it's best to be on the safe side," he murmured at last. "I'd
give a month's pay if this fog 'u'd lift. Things go abaout in a fog
that ye don't see in clear weather--yo-hoes an' hollerers and such
like. I'm sorter relieved he come the way he did instid o' walkin'. He
might ha' walked."

"Don't, Dan! We're right on top of him now. 'Wish I was safe aboard,
hem' pounded by Uncle Salters."

"They'll be lookin' fer us in a little. Gimme the tooter." Dan took the
tin dinner-horn, but paused before he blew.

"Go on," said Harvey. "I don't want to stay here all night"

"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 along-side
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
home-like 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. But the cook was a black; master of
strategy. He did not get the dories aboard till he had given the more
striking points of the tale, explaining as he backed and bumped round
the counter how Harvey was the mascot to destroy any possible bad luck.
So the boys came override as rather uncanny heroes, and every one asked
them questions instead of pounding th