The Wind-Jammers. T. Jenkins Hains
and puff the smoke at the dog’s face.
This provoked the animal to such an extent that he growled, snarled, and grew quite savage, much to Mr. Ropesend’s delight.
The dog finally grew frantic, and had just risen from the floor to find more congenial quarters, when the door opened suddenly and Captain Green stepped into the room with a hoarse roar of “Good-morning, Mr. Ropesend; I’ve come for that patent log.”
This sudden entrance of the loud-voiced skipper was too much for Gaff’s nerves, and he no sooner found himself attacked in the rear than he made a sudden turn, and grabbed the first thing that came within his reach.
This happened to be the calf of Captain Green’s left leg, which he held on to in a manner that showed he had a healthy appetite.
“Let go, you son of a sea cook!” bawled the skipper. “Let go, or I’ll stamp the burgoo out o’ you.”
“Let go, Gaff; that’s a good doggie,” said Mr. Ropesend in his mildest tone. “Let go, Gaff; you’ll hurt your teeth, doggie.”
“Let go, you son of a pirate!” roared the skipper. “Let go, or I’ll smash you!”
“Good heavens, Captain Green, you forget yourself. What, strike a poor dumb brute!” cried Mr. Ropesend. And he arose from his chair as if to ward oft a threatened blow.
Gaff at this juncture looked up, and apparently realized the energy stored within the skipper’s raised boot. He let go and waddled under his master’s desk, his long belly touching the ground amidships, as his legs were too short to raise it clear. From this safe retreat he sent forth peculiar sounds which were evidently intended by nature to terrify the enemy.
“Wouldn’t strike him, hey!” roared the skipper, rubbing his leg. “Well, maybe I wouldn’t, I don’t think. By Gorry, Mr. Ropesend, that’s a long-geared critter. I didn’t know but what he was a sort o’ walking snake or sea-sarpint. I felt as if a shark had me. It’s a good thing I had on these sea-boots.”
“Calm yourself. Calm yourself, captain,” said the senior. “Did he hurt you?”
“No, confound him, not to speak of. It’s a fine watch-dog he is when he bites his friends like this.—I came for that log you spoke of the other day.”
“Oh, yes,” said Mr. Ropesend; “I’ve just given it to Mr. Tackle to give to you. He will explain it to you—how it works and all that. Right in the front office—yes, that door. Good-morning.” And the skipper went out cursing softly.
In the front office he met the boy with the box containing the log and a note from Mr. Tackle delivering the same to him, in which he excused himself from explaining the management of the instrument by the fact that he was called out suddenly. The note concluded, however, with the remark that “the instrument was quite easy to regulate by means of the timber noggins, and that he anticipated no difficulty with it.”
The captain took the box and carried it on board his ship, and locked it in the cabin. He was going to sea the next morning, and, as he had a good deal to attend to, he couldn’t stop to investigate further.
When the ship had crossed the bar, the next afternoon, and backed her main-yards in order to put the pilot off, the mate brought out the box containing the log, and proposed to put the instrument over the taffrail. The third mate happened to be standing near and noticed him.
The third mate’s name was Joseph, but being a very young man, and very bright, having a fine grammar-school education, he was familiarly called Joe by his superiors for fear that the handle of “Mister” to his name might trim him too much by the head. Joe despised his superiors with all the scornful feeling that a highly educated sailor has for the more ignorant officers above him, and it required more than ordinary tact on his part to keep from getting into trouble.
“Why, the skipper don’t know enough to be mate of a liner,” said he to the steward one day in a burst of confidence. “As for Gantline, he don’t know nothing. You just wait and see if I don’t get a shove up before we make another voyage around the Cape.”
He had waited, but Joseph was still in his old berth this voyage.
It was natural he should be a little more scornful than ever now, and as he watched the mate clumsily handling the patent log a strong desire to revenge himself for slighted genius came upon him.
When the ship’s yards were squared again the skipper took up the log and examined it.
“I suppose you know how to regulate the machine, Mr. Gantline,” said he, addressing the mate.
“Can’t say as I do. I never seen one like this before.”
“Why, blast you, all you’ve got to do is to twist them timber noggins till it goes right, and that does the whole business. Then you let her go.”
“Where’s any timber noggins hereabouts?” asked the mate.
“Why, on the tail of the log; see?” and the skipper took up the trailing-screw.
“Ah, yes, I see; but how about this clock machine that goes on the rail. Don’t seem to open exactly.”
The skipper took up this part and examined it carefully.
“That’s all right. It don’t open; you just keep on letting her twist, and add on to where you start from or subtract from where you are.”
“I see,” said the mate, and without further ado he dropped the trailing-screw overboard.
The third mate saw all this, and he determined to investigate the instrument during his watch that night.
When he went forward he stopped at the carpenter’s room.
“Chips,” said he, addressing his chum, “we’ve got a new log on board and the skipper and mate don’t know how to use it. Now, I’ll bet you they will have to get me to show them, and if I do, I’ll make them shove me up the next voyage. Why, I tell you, putting a good instrument like that in the hands of such men is like casting pearls before—before—Captain Green and Gantline. You just wait and see.”
That night there was very little wind, but the third mate wound the log up for about fifty miles more than the ship travelled.
“We don’t need any more sights for a while,” said the skipper the next morning. “Mr. Snatchblock said that the log was dead accurate, so we’ll let her run. Must have blown pretty stiff during the mid-watch, Mr. Gantline, eh?” he continued, as he looked at what the log registered.
“No, I can’t say as it did,” said the mate, scratching his head thoughtfully as he looked at the night’s run.
“’Pears to me as if we made an all-fired long run of it.”
“Well, I guess you were a little off your first night out. You’ll be sober in a day or so,” said the skipper, with a grin.
The next day it was dead calm and foggy, but in spite of this the log registered a good fifty-mile run, and, as the ship was to put into Norfolk to complete her cargo, she was headed more to the southward.
“I haven’t any faith in that log, captain,” said Mr. Gantline; “it don’t seem as if we were off shore enough to head the way we do.”
“Well, haul it in and let’s look at it,” said the skipper.
The third mate was standing close by and helped haul in the line. “Captain,” said he, as the screw came over the rail, “this log is not set right; and if we’ve been running by it, we are too close in to the beach.”
“Eh! what’s that? Too close in are we? How do you know the log ain’t all right?”
“Why, it’s just a matter of calculation of angles,” replied the third mate. “These fins that Mr. Tackle calls timber noggins are set at the wrong angle. You see the sine of the angle,