Chapter 6

CHAPTER VI

The thing that struck him most was the exceedingly casual way in
which some craft loafed about the broad Atlantic. Fishing-boats,
as Dan said, were naturally dependent on the courtesy and wisdom
of their neighbours; but one expected better things of steamers.
That was after another interesting interview, when they had been
chased for three miles by a big lumbering old cattle-boat, all
boarded over on the upper deck, that smelt like a thousand cattle-
pens. A very excited officer yelled at them through a speaking-
trumpet, and she lay and lollopped helplessly on the water while
Disko ran the "We're Here" under her lee and gave the skipper a
piece of his mind. "Where might ye be - eh? Ye don't deserve to be
anywheres. You barn-yard tramps go hoggin' the road on the high
seas with no blame consideration fer your neighbours, an' your
eyes in your coffee-cups instid o' in your silly heads."

At this the skipper danced on the bridge and said something about
Disko's own eyes. "We haven't had an observation for three days.
D'you suppose we can run her blind?" he shouted.

"Wa-al, I can," Disko retorted. "What's come to your lead'? Et
it'? Can't ye smell bottom, or are them cattle too rank?"

"What d'ye feed 'em?" said Uncle Salters with intense seriousness,
for the smell of the pens woke all the farmer in him. "They say
they fall off dretful on a v'yage. Dunno as it's any o' my
business, but I've a kind o' notion that oil-cake broke small an'
sprinkled -"

"Thunder!" said a cattle-man in a red jersey as he looked over the
side. "What asylum did they let His Whiskers out of?"

"Young feller," Salters began, standing up in the fore-rigging,
"let me tell yeou 'fore we go any further that I've -"

The officer on the bridge took off his cap with immense
politeness. "Excuse me," he said, "but I've asked for my
reckoning. If the agricultural person with the hair will kindly
shut his head, the sea-green barnacle with the wall-eye may
perhaps condescend to enlighten us."

"Naow you've made a show o' me, Salters," said Disko, angrily. He
could not stand up to that particular sort of talk, and snapped
out the latitude and longitude without more lectures.

"'Well, tbat's a boat-load of lunatics, sure," said the skipper,
as he rang up the engine-room and tossed a bundle of newspapers
into the schooner.

"Of all the blamed fools, next to you, Salters, him an' his crowd
are abaout the likeliest I've ever seen," said Disko as the "We're
Here" slid away. "I was jest givin' him my jedgment on lulisikin'
round these waters like a lost child, an' you must cut in with
your fool farmin'. Can't ye never keep things sep'rate?"

Harvey, Dan, and the others