."

Weeks swung round on Duncan and stared at him. Then he stared out to
sea. Then he stared again at Duncan.

"You?"

"When I shipped as a hand on the _Willing Mind_, I took all a hand's
risks."

"And brought the willing mind," said Weeks with a smile, "Go, then!
Some one must go. Get the boat tackle ready, forward. Here, Willie,
put your life-belt on. You, too, Duncan, though God knows life-belts
won't be of no manner of use; but they'll save your insurance. Steady
with the punt there! If it slips inboard off the rail there will be a
broken back! And, Willie, don't get under the cutter's counter. She'll
come atop of you and smash you like an egg. I'll drop you as close as
I can to windward, and pick you up as close as I can to leeward."

The boat was dropped into the water and loaded up with fish-boxes.
Duncan and Willie Weeks took their places, and the boat slid away into
a furrow. Duncan sat in the boat and rowed. Willie Weeks stood in the
stern, facing him, and rowed and steered.

"Water!" said Willie every now and then, and a wave curled over the
bows and hit Duncan a stunning blow on the back.

"Row," said Willie, and Duncan rowed and rowed. His hands were ice, he
sat in water ice-cold, and his body perspired beneath his oil-skins,
but he rowed. Once, on the crest of a wave, Duncan looked out and saw
below them the deck of a smack, and the crew looking upwards at them
as though they were a horserace. "Row!" said Willie Weeks. Once, too,
at the bottom of a slope down which they had bumped dizzily, Duncan
again looked out, and saw the spar of a mainmast tossing just over the
edge of a grey roller. "Row," said Weeks, and a moment later, "Ship
your oar!" and a rope caught him across the chest.

They were alongside the cutter.

Duncan made fast the rope.

"Push her off!" suddenly cried Willie, and grasped an oar. But he was
too late. The cutter's bulwarks swung down towards him, disappeared
under water, caught the punt fairly beneath the keel and scooped it
clean on to the deck, cargo and crew.

"And this is only the first trip!" said Willie.

The two following trips, however, were made without accident.

"Fifty-two boxes at two-pound-ten," said Weeks, as the boat was swung
inboard. "That's a hundred and four, and ten two's are twenty, and
carry two, and ten fives are fifty, and two carried, and twenties into
that makes twenty-six. One hundred and thirty pounds--this smack's
mine, every rope on her. I