Blow the Man Down - A Romance of the Coast

"She's there, Captain Candage!" he shouted. "The teeth of old Razee are

still biting."

They were back to her again before the early night descended. She was

iced to the main truck, and the spray had deposited hillocks of ice on

her deck, weighting her down upon the ledges which had pinioned her. But

in spite of the battering she had received her position had not changed.

They circled her--the midget of a schooner seeming pitifully inadequate

to cope with this monster craft.

"Well," sighed Captain Candage, "thank the Lord she's still here. Our

work is cut out for us now--whatever it is we can do with her. They say

a mouse set a lion loose once by gnawing his ropes. It looks to me as if

we're going to have some blasted slow gnawing here."

They lay by her that night in a quieting sea, and spent wakeful hours in

the cabin, struggling rather helplessly with schemes.

"Of course, it's comforting to find her here and to know that the

Atlantic Ocean will have to get more muscle to move her," said Candage.

"And then again, it ain't so darnation comforting. Looks to me as if

she's stuck there so solid that you couldn't joggle her off if you

hove the moon at her. I reckon my hope has been what yours has been,

Mayo--salvage her whole instead of junking her."

"I'm a sailor, not a junkman. I'd almost rather let my money go, Captain

Candage, than be a party to smashing up that new steamer into old iron.

She has fooled the guessers by sticking where she is. It has been my

hope from the first that she can be floated. She is not a rusted old

iron rattletrap. Of course, she's got a hole in her, and we can see now

that she's planted mighty solid. But she is sound and tight, I'll wager,

in all her parts except where that wound is. I suppose most men who came

along here now would guess that she can't be got off whole. I'm going

into this thing and try to fool those guessers, too."

"That's the only real gamble," agreed the skipper. "We'd only make days'

wages by carving her into a junk-pile. A scrap-heap ain't worth much

except as old iron at half a cent a pound; but a new steamer like that

is worth two hundred thousand dollars, by gorry! if she's afloat."

"Well, we've got to do something besides lay to here and look at

her lines. In the first place, I want to know what's the matter with

her--about how much of a hole she has got. Our eyes ought to tell us a

little something."