. . .Bruce and Billy were waiting. He and Bruce had not been talkative of late.

“Get everything tight, Bruce,” he said, jumping down upon the deck. “We’re going out in half an hour.”

“How about it, Hunch? Can we make it, think?”

Hunch did not trouble to reply, and Bruce, as he worked along the deck, watched him nervously.

Before the tug appeared, Hunch went ashore and crossed the wharf to a saloon at the corner. He returned with a jug, which he put in his bunk where the bedding would protect it when the schooner got to pitching. He sometimes drank whisky to steady his nerves when fighting a heavy sea. In a few minutes the tug came alongside.

“Everything fast, Bruce?”

Brace grunted, and Billy lifted the lines off the snubbin’ po. . . Read More