Old Man and Mr. Thompson, and perhaps the second mate, Mr. MacFarlane, in his rare moments of optimism, was convinced she would never see Frisco. The crew was a bad one. Dagoes are not reckoned much as seamen, the Dutchmen were sullen and stupid, none of the Yankees and English was really quite white. The seas were like mountains; often during the day and night all available hands had to be literally fighting them for their lives. 

 All through this time Henry Harper found only one thing to do, and that was to keep on keeping on. But the wonder was he was able even to do that. Often he felt so weak and miserable that he could hardly drag himself along the deck. He had had more than one miraculous escape from being washed overboard. His time must come soon enough, but he could take no step to bring it nearer, because he felt that never again would he be able to arrange the matter for himself. Something must have snapped that night he had waited on the wrong rail for the engine. Bowery Joe, the toughest member of the crew, a regular down-east Yankee, who liked to threaten him with a knife because of the look on his face, had told him that he ought to have been born a muddy dago, and that he was "short of sand." 

 There seemed to be something missing that others of his kind possessed. But he had many things to worry about just then. He just kept on keeping on—out of the way of the Old Man as well as he could—out of the way of the fist of the second mate—out of the way of the boots and the knives of all and sundry—out of the way of the raging, murderous sea that, after all, was his only friend. The time came when sheer physical misery forced him to be always hiding from the other members of the crew. 

 One morning the Old Man caught him skulking below after all hands had been piped on deck to get the canvas off her. The Old Man said not a word, but carried him up the companion by the nape of the neck as if he had been a kitten, brought him on the main deck, and fetched him up in the midst of his mates at the foot of the mast. He then ordered him aloft with the rest of them. 

 In absolute desperation Sailor began to climb. He knew that if he disobeyed he would be flung into the sea. Clinging, feet and claws, like a cat, for the sake of the life he hadn't the courage to lose, he fought his way up somehow through the icy wind and the icier spray that was ever leaping up and hitting him, no matter how high he went. He fought his way as far as the lower yardarm. Here he clung helpless, dazed with terror, faint with exhaustion. Commands were screamed 

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