Oomak, the
Koriak, the man with the tattooed and scarified face whom Martin had
seen at the wheel the first day at sea, the two Kanakas, and the Aleut.
They talked to each other, he found, in a strange pidgin--a speech
composed mainly of verbs and profanity, a language that would have
shocked a purist to a premature grave. But Martin found his watchmates
to be a brave, capable, though rather silent group.

Martin's initiation into the joys of sea life was a strenuous one. The
gale that had sent the _Cohasset_ flying from San Francisco, died out,
as Ruth had predicted. Followed a couple of days of calm.

Then came another heavy wind, in the boatswain's words, "a snortin'
norther," and for three days Martin's watches on deck were cold, wet
and hazardous. He blindly followed his watchmates over lurching,
slippery decks, in obedience to unintelligible orders. He was rolled
about by shipped seas, and his new oilskins received a stern baptism.
His clerk's hands became raw and swollen from hauling on wet ropes, his
unaccustomed muscles ached cruelly, the sea water smarted the
half-healed wound on his head, now covered with a strip of plaster.
But he stood the gaff, and worked on. And he was warmly conscious of
the unspoken approval of both forecastle and cabin.

During that time of stress he learned something of the sailor's game of
carrying on of sail. The wind was fair, and by the blind captain's
orders, they held on to every bit of canvas the spars would stand. The
little vessel rushed madly through the black, howling nights, and the
leaden, fierce days, with every timber protesting the strain, and every
piece of cordage adding its shrill, thrummed note to the storm's mighty
symphony.

During that time Martin first proved his mettle. He fought down his
coward fears, and for the first time ventured aloft, feeling his way
through the pitch-black night to the reeling yard-arm, to battle, with
his watch, the heavy, threshing sail that required reefing. After the
test, when he came below to the warm cabin, he thrilled to the core at
his officer's curt praise.

"You'll do!" she muttered in his ear.

But it was not all storm and battle. Quite the reverse. The calm
succeeded the storm. Martin came on deck one morning to view a bright
sky and a sea of undulating glass. Astern, above the horizon, were
fleecy clouds--they afterwards rode high, and became his friends, those
mares' tails--and out of that horizon, fr