[Illustration: “SEEMS TO ME I WOULDN’T FEEL SO BAD ABOUT IT IF I WAS YOU.”] To bear ill-will for such a cause certainly showed a small and mean mind, and Captain Coffin said he was very glad the other had refused to let him have any fish, for he should hate to be under obligations to such a man. The _Curlew_ had not gone more than a mile from the _Roxy B._ when the fish of which she was in search began to rise to the surface on all sides of her. The seine-boat was quickly sent out, while Breeze, in his dory, followed it as before. This time a school was successfully surrounded, and the net was pursed without a mishap. A flag hoisted on an oar in the boat was the signal to the schooner that they had made a large haul and needed her assistance. She was soon brought alongside of the pursed seine with its burden of glittering fish, and from it a long-handled scoop-net, worked with a tackle, was dipping them, a half-barrelful at a time, and transferring them to her deck. The catch was about one hundred and fifty barrels of mackerel that were of a prime quality as to size, but so thin that they would have been unfit to split and salt. The afternoon was drawing to a close before they were all got on board and the seine was properly stowed in its boat; but there was no rest for the tired crew yet a while. Sail was made on the schooner, and she was headed for Sandy Hook, nearly three hundred miles away. Then all hands, except the cook and the man at the wheel, turned to and began “gibbing” and packing the fish. Mackerel are so delicate that they die almost as soon as they touch a deck, and will quickly spoil if not cared for at once. So there was no time to lose, and the whole catch must be “gibbed,” or cleaned, and packed in ice before sleep could be thought of. In “gibbing” a mackerel the gills are plucked out, and with them come the entrails. This operation was performed with marvellous rapidity by the skilled workers of the crew, the refuse matter was tossed into square wooden boxes known as “gib-tubs,” and the cleaned fish were thrown into bushel baskets. Down in the hold the blocks of ice were removed from a pen, and reduced to small bits by heavy sharp-pointed “slicers.” A layer of this broken ice was shovelled over the bottom of the empty pen, and above it was spread a basket of fish. Then came another layer of ice, then more fish, and so on until the pen was full, when another was emptied and filled in the same manner. It was long after midnight before the crew of the _Curlew_ knocked off work, with the last of their fish safely packed away; but, tired as they were, they were also highly elated by their success, and by the prospect of being the first mackereller of the season into New York.