The Tempest Turns its Card

Hope almost failed to reassure him as he gazed first at the departing
lighters and then at the ice-panoplied hulk on Razee.

Surely no pauper ever had a more unwieldy elephant on his hands, without
a wisp of hay in sight for food.. He had seen wrecking operations:
money, men, and gigantic equipment often failed to win. Technical skill
and expert knowledge were required. He did not know what an examination
of her hull would reveal. He had bought as boys swap jack-knives--sight
denied! He confessed to himself that even the pittance they had
gambled on this hazard had been spent with the recklessness of folly,
considering that they had spent their all. They had nothing left to
operate with. It was like a man tying his hands behind him before he
jumped overboard.

Oh, that was a lonely sea! It was gray and surly and ominous.

Black smoke from the distant tugs waved dismal farewell. A chill wind
had begun to harp through the cordage of the little schooner; the
moan--far flung, mystic, a voice from nowhere--that presages the tempest
crooned in his ears.

"I can smell something in this weather that's worse than scorched-on
hasty pudding," stated Captain Can-dage. "I don't know just how you
feel, sir, but if a feller should ride up here in a hearse about now
and want my option on her for what I paid, I believe I'd dicker with him
before we come to blows."