A Man's Job

"Ain't it getting pretty stuffy in here?" asked the master, putting
words to Mayo's thoughts.

"I have been feeling like a bug under a thimble for some little time,"
stated Otie, whacking his chisel sturdily.

"Her bottom can't be awash with all this lumber in her. If we can only
get a little speck of a hole through the outside planking right now,
we'd better do it," suggested Candage.

"That's just what I have been doing," declared Mr. Speed. "I'm right
after the job, gents, when I get started on a thing. Helpful and
enterprising, that's my motto!"

The next moment, before Mayo, his thoughts busy with his new danger of
suffocation, could voice warning or had grasped the full import of the
dialogue, the chisel's edge plugged through the planking. Instantly
there was a hiss like escaping steam. Mayo yelled an oath and set his
hands against the mate, pushing him violently away. The industrious Mr.
Speed had been devoting his attention to the planking instead of to the
sawed beam.

Wan light filtered through the crevice made by the chisel and Mayo
planted his palm against the crack. The pressure held his hand as if it
were clamped against the planks, and the hissing ceased.

The schooner, as she lay, upside down in the sea, was practically a
diving-bell; with that hole in her shell their safety was in jeopardy.
The girl seemed to understand the situation before the duller minds of
her father and his mates had begun to work. She frenziedly sought for
Mayo's disengaged hand and thrust some kind of fabric into it.