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W

OLD GOONEY

By John H. Walsh

ILLUSTRATION BY ANTON OTTO FISCHER

E were lying in Dutch Harbor on the night that the Northerner brought the crew of the Pitcairn into port. Our wardroom, over its coffee, was still talking of the wreck, vague word of which had come to us two hours before.

"Old Gooney, too, Old Gooney gone!" said some one, and I think there was a shade of annoyance in the voice that spoke. It was an annoyance which we all felt a little, yet which no one of us could have accounted for. That Gooney was gone, even to death, should not have been expected to annoy people, for Gooney had as perfect a reputation as a "sun-downer"which is to say for meanness-as has any man who in a ship has ever gone down to the sea. I think it quite possible that we were ashamed of this unmanly feeling of annoyance. Certainly we were surprised at it, for we hated "Old Gooney"-at least we all said we did, and believed we were telling the truth. I suppose he had at one time or another had a fling at each of us. Me he put under hatches-for no matter what trivial thing—and I had hated him in my time very fervently, and had actually fancied that I should like to have my fingers on his flabby old throat.

"Old Gooney!" said I in a wondering, contemptuous tone, and I think I was going to tell of my experiences under him, when the steamer that brought old Doctor Stacy aboard came alongside. I was glad afterward that I omitted telling that experience. I never tell it now, for I feel differently about it.

We heard the reversing propeller churn the water at the gangway, and then Stacy came down into our midst. Good old Stacy! A man of all ages; a man who knew every one and whom no one knew in return; a lonesome, high-principled, Quixotic old bachelor. His face was red with the wind as he came into the wardroom, but the ashy pallor of weariness showed through

VOL. L.-19

the red, and there was something tragic in his appearance. He was just in, you see, from a wreck, followed by three days in a boat in a Bering Sea gale. He was tired through and through, one could easily see that, but he wanted to talk-almost had to talk, before he could rest-so we waited, for we all wanted to hear. Some one encouraged him by a random question, I remember, and that seemed to start him. He had sunk into a chair at the head of the table, and had lighted a little black pipe, one with a long stem. The ship was rolling rhythmically on a long swell that backed into the harbor from the sea. Stacy's face was in the shadow-he had turned out the lights near to him—and it was a detached voice that we heard, when he began to speak, a commonplace, matter-of-fact, business-like voice, loaded up a good deal with weariness and emotion.

"It all happened very simply," he said. "The fog cleared away, or, rather, opened up in a rift, for the wind was blowing pretty hard at the time. You know how the fog and rain swirl down and open up. Well, we were right on the reef, even when the fog moved aside. It was an uncharted reef, I believe; though how it has so long remained uncharted I don't see. Must every reef be discovered by the wrecking of ships? We couldn't do anything, of course. It was too late. Old Gooney was on the bridge himself, and he did everything possible, but it was no use. We went on pretty hard and we could hear plates tearing and rivets pulling their heads offominous sounds. The wind and the sea were pretty strong, as I've said, and they twisted us around through ninety degrees, and that made the hole larger. I thought it was like pushing a knife into a man's belly and twisting it up amongst his insides, and I fancy now that it was about as salubrious a thing as that would be. Old Gooney never winced, and yet you know how it must have hurt: it must have felt as though it were his own flesh and blood.

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