“Oh, very well. So long as we've got it I don't care where you stole it,” returned Candage, with great serenity. “I simply know that you didn't get it from skinflint Rowley, and that's comfort enough for me. Let me tell you that we haven't been loafing on board here. We rigged that taakul you see aloft, and jettisoned all the cargo we could get at. It was all spoiled by the water. There's pretty free space for operations 'midships. I've got out all her spare cable, and it's ready.” “And you've done a good job there, sir. We've got to make this lighter fast alongside in such a way that a blow won't wreck her against us. Spring cables--plenty of them--and we are sailors enough to know how to moor. But when I think of what amateurs we are in the rest of this job, cold shivers run over me.” “That Limeport water-front crowd got at you, too, hey?” “Captain Candage, I have watched men more or less in this life. It's sometimes a mighty big handicap for a man to be too wise. While the awfully wise man sits back and shakes his head and figures prospects and says it can't be done, the fool rushes in, because he doesn't know any better, and blunders the job through and wins out. Let's keep on being fools, good and plenty, but keep busy just the same.” And on that basis the rank amateurs of Razee proceeded with all the grit that was in them. The men of Hue and Cry had plenty of muscle and little wit. They asked no questions, they did not look forward gioomily to doubtful prospects. The same philosophy, or lack of it, that had always made life full of merry hope when their stomachs were filled, taking no thought of the morrow, animated them now. Fate had given Mayo and his associate an ideal crew for that parlous job. It was not a question of union hours and stated wages; they worked all night just as cheerily as they worked all day. An epic of the sea was lived there on Razee Reef during the weeks that followed. The task which was wrought out would make a story in itself, far beyond the confines of such a narrative as this must be. Bitter toil of many days often proved to be a sad mistake, for the men who wrought there had more courage in endeavor than good understanding of methods. Then, after disappointment, hope revived, for further effort avoided the mistakes that had been so costly. The brunt of the toil, the duty of being pioneer, fell on Mayo. He donned a diving-suit and descended into the riven bowels of the wreck and cleared the way for the others. On deck they built sections of bulkhead, and he went down and groped in the murky water, and spiked the braces and set those sections and calked the spaces between bulkhead and hull. There were storms that menaced their lighter and drove the little schooner to sea in a welter of tempest. There were calms that cheered them with promise of spring.