Part 39

“I don't care what you say--I know what you are!” she rejoined. “You are a brave man, Captain Mayo. I thank you!”

“Not yet! Not until--”

“Yes, now! You have set me a good example. When folks are scared they should not sit down and whimper!”

He reached and found a plump little fist which she had doubled into a real knob of decision.

“Good work, little girl! Your kind of grit is helping me.” He released her hand and crawled forward.

“This ain't helping us any,” complained Captain Candage. “I know what's going to happen to us. As soon as it gets daylight a cussed coast-guard cutter will come snorting along and blow us up without bothering to find out what is under this turkle-shell.”

“Say, look here, Candage,” called Captain Mayo, angrily, “that's enough of that talk! There's a-plenty happening to us as it is, without your infernal driveling about what may happen.”

“Isn't it about time for a real man to help Captain Mayo instead of hindering him?” asked the girl. Evidently her new composure startled her father.

“Ain't you scared any more, Polly? You ain't losing your mind, are you?”

“No, I have it back again, I hope.”

“Your daughter is setting you a good example, Captain Candage. Now let's get down to business, sir! What's your sheathing on the ribs?”

“Inch and a half spruce, if I remember right.”

“I take it she is ribbed about every twelve inches.”

“Near's I remember.”

“All right! Swarm forward here, the three of you, and have those tools handy as I need 'em.”

He had brought the hammer and chisel in his reefer pockets, and set at work on the sheathing over his head, having picked by touch and sense of locality a section which he considered to be nearly amidship. It was blind effort, but he managed to knock away a few square feet of the spruce boarding after a time.

“Hand me that saw, whoever has it.”

A hand came fumbling to his in the dark and gave him the tool. He began on one of the oak ribs, uncovered when the boarding had been removed. It was difficult and tedious work, for he could use only the tip of the saw, because the ribs were so close together. But he toiled on steadily, and at last the sound of his diligence appeared to animate the others. When he rested for a moment Captain Candage offered to help with the sawing.

“I think I'll be obliged to do it alone, sir. You can't tell in the dark where I have left off. However, I'm glad to see that you're coming back to your senses,” he added, a bit caustically.

The master of the Polly received that rebuke with a meekness that indicated a decided change of heart. “I reckon me and Otie and Dolph have been acting out what you might call pretty pussylaminous, as I heard a schoolmarm say once,” confessed the skipper, struggling with the big word. “But we three ain't as young as we was once, and I'll leave it to you, sir, if this wasn't something that nobody had ever reckoned on.”

“There's considerable novelty in it,” said Mayo, in dry tones, running his fingers over the rib to find the saw-scarf. The ache had gone out of his arms, and he was ready to begin again.

“I'm sorry we yanked you into all this trouble,” Can-dage went on. “And on the other hand, I ain't so sorry! Because if you hadn't been along with us we'd never have got out of this scrape.”

“We haven't got out of it yet, Captain Candage.”

“Well, we are making an almighty good start, and I want to say here in the hearing of all interested friends that you're the smartest cuss I ever saw afloat.”

“I hope you will forgive father,” pleaded Polly of the Polly. He felt her breath on his cheek. She was so near that her voice nearly jumped him. “I don't mean to get in your way, Captain Mayo, but somehow I feel safer if I'm close to you.”

“And I guess all of us do,” admitted Captain Candage.

Mayo stopped sawing for a moment. “What say, men? Let's be Yankee sailors from this time on! We'll be the right sort, eh? We'll put this brave little girl where she belongs--on God's solid ground!”

“Amen!” boomed Mr. Speed. “I have woke up. I must have been out of my mind. I showed you my nature when I first met you, Captain Mayo, and I reckon you found it was helpful and enterprising. I'll be the same from now on, even if you order me to play goat and try to butt the bottom out of her with my head.” “Me, too!” said Smut-nosed Dolph.