But there were no fish to be seen. The storm had scattered them. The skipper wanted to know what somebody else thought of the storm. He ran down to speak to Bill Jackson. Bill was sitting on the wheel-box whittling a piece of red cedar when we drew alongside. Bill's half-bared chest seemed to be trying to burst through his undershirt, and above the shirt his seamed neck rose ruggedly. Neck, arms, and chest were burned red. His beard, red in the shadows and gold in the sun, was ten days old at least. Fifteen centuries ago it must have been men of Bill Jackson's style that left the marshes of the Elbe and, sailing westward across the North Sea, looted the shores of wherever they happened to beach their keels. "How'd you make out yesterday, Bill?" asked Tom. "Rolled our sheer-poles under," said Bill, "not once in a while, but reg'lar. An' not a stitch o' canvas on her to the time, nuther. An' washed over everything that warn't bolted. When I see it warn't lettin' up, I ran her under bare poles. Logged eight and a half knots under bare poles. Goin' some? I call it so. Glad not to be lost, we were." "Same here. I'm worried about some o' the fleet, Bill." "Some of 'em's gone, all right. I don't want to see another day like yesterday in a hurry, Tom." "Nor me, Bill. A good breeze o' wind I call it, Bill." "A _damn_ good breeze o' wind I call it," said Bill. "I guess by this time there's no argument 'bout it bein' a pretty good little blow," said Shorty. We left Bill Jackson. The middle of the morning it was, a fine day, and, still hoping for fish, the Esther's lookouts were aloft. One called out something--not Fish-O!--and pointed. We looked. It was part of a drifting mast, the lower part, broken off raggedly from a foot or two above the saddle. It drifted on by. "A white-painted saddle," said Tom Haile, looking at Shorty and me. "The _Henriette's_ saddles was painted white," said Shorty. "But she ain't the only vessel with white-painted saddles." "That's right," said the _Esther's_ crew, "she ain't." A few minutes later a floating gasolene barrel drifted by, and soon another. Tom Haile reached out with a boat-hook and gaffed in that second barrel. There was a hole in the head of it--made by an axe. That didn't mean anything--it could have washed off the _Henriette's_ deck, off anybody's deck. The surprise would be in a barrel staying on her deck in the shoal water she was in when we left her. Yes, that could be, agreed the _Esther's_ crew. From the masthead then they saw a dory--bottom up. "A yellow dory?" Shorty and I asked. The lookout scanned the water. "A yellow dory, yes." The skipper put off for the yellow dory, and when he towed it back, there was the name: HENRIETTE on her bow planks. "That's her other dory, all right," said Shorty. "But they still have the vessel under them." Nobody said anything to that.