OCR Text |
Show 19 "There's an island portside," I told Captain Hillis one day when the fog was heavy. We were somewhere in the Inside Passage, surrounded by tall pine trees and low clouds. For a H I knew, we could have been navigating a mountain stream in Wyoming. "Tarnation! Didn't see it," he exclaimed. He blew the ship's whistle as if to tell it to move over. I later learned that he blew the whistle to judge by its echo where he was. But wherever I was on that ship, Mr, Con was never far away. "You say you* re meeting your partner in Skagway, son?" "Yep." "You intending to buy your supplies when you get there?" "Nope." "Partner already has them?" "Yep." One day there was a little excitement which broke the regular routine. I was on the foredeck talking to the horses, when a gang of red-faced men roared up to the pilothouse threatening to kill the captain. "Our berths," they snarled, "are right below here." They pointed to the horse stalls. "Just below the horses to be exact." "So?" Captain Hillis sneered. "So there are cracks in the deck," a spokesman yelled. "Wide cracks. And what the horses do, drips through on us." |