“So, ’twas ‘all hands to stations!’ sometimes three and four times in a watch.  Owners ain’t overlib’ral in matter of crew nowadays.  Think because there’s a donkey-engine on deck and a riggin’ to hoist your big sails, ye don’t re’lly need men for’ard at all.

“That v’y’ge out in pertic’lar I remember that there was two weeks on a stretch that not a soul aboard had more’n an hour’s undisturbed sleep.  And that dog!  Poor brute, I guess he thought Bill was goin’ to heaven and leavin’ him behind ev’ry time the nigger started for the masthead.

“I most always,” continued Cap’n Amazon, “seen to it myself that the dog was chained when Bill was likely to go aloft.  I liked that dog.  He was a gentleman, if he was black.  And Bill was a good seaman, and with a short tongue.  The dog was about the only critter aboard he seemed to cotton to.  Nothin’ was too good for the dog, and the only way I got Bill to sign on was by agreeing to take the Newfoundland along.

“Well, we got around the Horn much as us’al.  Windjammers all have their troubles there.  And then, not far from the western end o’ the Straits we got into a belt of light airs—­short, gusty winds that blew every which way.  It kept the men in the tops most of the time.  Some of ’em vowed they was goin’ to swing their hammocks up there.

“Come one o’ those days, with the old Sally just loafin’ along,” pursued Cap’n Amazon, sucking hard on his pipe, “when I spied a flicker o’ wind comin’, and the mate he sent the men gallopin’ up the shrouds.  I’d forgot the dog.  So had Nigger Bill, I reckon.

“Bill was one o’ the best topmen aboard.  He was up there at work before the dog woke up and started ki-yi-ing.  He bayed Bill like a beagle hound at the foot of a coon tree.  Then, jumping, he caught the lower shrouds with his forepaws.

“The new slant of the wind struck us at the same moment.  The old Sally S. heeled to larboard and that Newfoundland was jerked over the rail.”

“The poor thing!” Louise cried.

“You’d ha’ thought so.  I wouldn’t have felt no worse if one of the men had gone over.  Owner’s business, or not, I sung out to the second to get his boat out and I kicked off my shoes, grabbed a life-ring, and jumped myself.”

“You!  Uncle Amazon?” gasped his niece.

“Yep.  The mate had the deck and I was the only man free.  There wasn’t much of a sea runnin’, anyway.  No pertic’lar danger.  That is, not commonly.

“But the minute I come up to the surface and rose breast-high, dashin’ the water out o’ my eyes so’s to look around for the dog, I seen I’d been a leetle mite too previous, as the feller said.  I hadn’t taken into consideration one pertic’lar chance—­like the feller’t married one o’ twins an’ then couldn’t tell which from t’other.

“I see Snowball the dog, all right; but headin’ for him like a streak o’ greased lightin’ was the triandicular fin of a shark.  I’d forgot all about those fellers; and we hadn’t see one for weeks, anyway.  In warmer waters than them the Sally S. Stern was then in, the sharks will come right up and stand with their noses out o’ the sea begging like a dog for scraps.  They’d bark, if they knew how, by gravy!