The Man Behind the Angler 



and I saw that the spouts were bending to the east; 

 then they began to move and the wind came rippling 

 along the surface and caught the sails, but hardly 

 enough to move the old hulk, and one of the spouts 

 crossed our bow so near that I could have thrown a 

 stone into it and the top seemed to be hovering 

 directly over our heads down from which poured a 

 sheet of rain. This spout passed quickly on with a 

 roar like that of a locomotive, and with a fresh 

 breeze the old sloop bore away. I have been tell- 

 ing the story to friends ever since, but I never could 

 learn that Long John considered it even worthy of 

 retailing to his comrades around the cheerful pain 

 killer that night in the quarters. 



Bob Rand, with whom I took my first lessons in 

 taking the big barracuda with the grains, and who 

 taught me the trick of pegging green turtles, was a 

 man of equal indifference to danger, which must be 

 sheer bravery. No sea was too heavy to keep him 

 from a wreck, no chance so great that he would not 

 take it to help a vessel into port in a hurricane. Once, 

 while fishing for kingfish on the outer reef, trolling up 

 and down a run of three or four miles, he and I 

 were caught in as ugly a gale as I have ever encoun- 

 tered. The storms or squalls came up here with 

 remarkable rapidity, and in twenty minutes a clear 

 sky had become inky black and ominous and we 

 barely had time to let fly the sheet and jerk out the 

 sprit when it was upon us. For a moment I thought 



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