ng roll. Scales flew. We
found some next morning glued to the mast-head. I never can get some
people to believe that it is so--mackerel scales to the mast-head.

"He-yew!" called the skipper, "Oy-hoo!" hollered the halyards gang,
"Hi-o!" sung out Clancy and Parsons cheerily at the rail. "Fine fat
fish," commented the men in the seine-boat, the only men who had time
to draw an extra breath.

Blazing torches were all around us. Arms worked up and down, big boots
stamped, while inboard and out swung the dip-net, and onto the deck
flopped the mackerel. "Drive her!" called the skipper, and "He-yew!"
"Oy-hoo!" and "Hi-o!" it went. Drenched oilskins steamed, wet faces
glowed, glad eyes shone through the smoke flare, and the pitching
vessel, left to herself, plunged up and down to the lift and fall of
every sea.

XVII

A DRIVE FOR MARKET

Her deck was pretty well filled with mackerel when "All dry," said
Long Steve, and drew the last of the seine into the boat.

"Then hurry aboard and drop that seine-boat astern. And--whose watch?
Take the wheel--wait till I give you the course--there. But don't
drive her awhile yet. Some of those fish might be washed over. But it
won't be for long."

"Ready with the ice?" he asked next.

"All ready," and the men who had been chopping ice and making ready
the pens in the hold stood by to take the mackerel as we passed them
down.

As soon as we had enough of them off the vessel's deck to make it safe
to drive her, the skipper gave her a little more sheet and let her go
for New York. We hustled the seine-boat aboard too. Some other vessels
must have got fish, too, and there was no time to waste.

It was a good-sized school and when we had them all iced and
below--more than thirty thousand count--it was time for all hands to
turn in--all but the two men on watch of course. I didn't turn in
myself, but after a mug-up and pipeful below came on deck again. It
was a pretty good sort of a night for a dark night, with a moderate
breeze that sang in your ears when you leaned against the halyards and
a sea that lapped bucketfuls of spray over her rail forward and that
tumbled away in a wide flat hump as our quarter slipped on and left it
behind.

I found the skipper leaning against the weather rigging and watching a
red light coming up on us. Noticing me he said, "There's that porgy
steamer that we beat out for that school the other day overhauling us
now. There's the beauty of ste