, go ahead," her commander sang
out from the bridge.

Yet trouble came of it. The Colleen's gang were making a set when
along came the Lynx, the same cutter that had ordered our own skipper
not to set two or three days back in the fog, and we had set in spite
of him. I think I said that he had a bad reputation among our fleet.
In this case some said afterwards that he had been watching the Duncan
since that time, and having seen a dory put out from her and go aboard
Tom O'Donnell, that he then had a special watch for O'Donnell. Anyway,
we know that as the Colleen Bawn's crew were pursing in the seine he
came along and ordered them to cast loose the fish. "You're inside the
limit," said this fellow now.

"I may be, but I don't think so," said O'Donnell to that.

"You're inside and you know it."

"You're a liar if you say I know it."

O'Donnell had had trouble with the Lynx before, and had small patience
with her captain. More words came out of it, and while they were
talking back and forth another of the fleet a mile to the east'ard put
out a boat.

The cutter went after him, her captain singing out as he went, "You
wait here till I come back." "Wait like hell!" said O'Donnell, "and
this breeze making," and continued to purse up. Pursed up, the fish
aboard--there were forty or fifty barrels--he started off. One of
those sudden breezes were springing up and it promised to be wind
enough to suit anybody. We made out the Johnnie Duncan bearing down,
intending no doubt to take off Clancy and me. But the cutter was
coming toward us then, and O'Donnell said we had better stay aboard
or we would be picked up on the way by the cutter's people and maybe
get the Duncan and our skipper into trouble. That last--the thought
that our skipper or the vessel might get mixed up in it--kept us
aboard the Colleen Bawn.

The Lynx could steam as fast as any cutter they had on the Cape shore
at that time, but the Colleen was a witch and O'Donnell a wonder at
sailing her. So we stayed with O'Donnell and watched him and the
cutter have it out. They had it, the cutter letting drive a shot every
once in a while. The first shot, I remember, went whistling by the ear
of one of O'Donnell's crew who was standing back-to in the waist, and
so astonished him, he not expecting it, that he fell into the
forehold. He raised a great racket among a lot of empty barrels. The
fall never hurt him, but the things he said when he came on deck
again! O'Do