And Sam Leary did finish his cruise in her. Three days later, such weary, weary men-- But let that pass. Three days later--and in broad daylight it happened, so that their friends at home might share in the full glory of their achievement--they sailed, the bark leading and the little fisherman by way of a rudder astern, into the harbor of Gloucester, where they fancy they know a seaman when they see one. VII Of the sequence of events that threw that valuable prize into their hands the crew of the _Buccaneer_ were not told at that time; but, later, young Gillis, having journeyed to Boston--there in emulation of more noted fishermen the more splendidly to disburse his prize-money--had come back minus his roll, but fat with information. “And there I was, Skipper, spending my money like a--like a----” “--a drunken fisherman.” “No, that’s not how I was goin’ to put it, Skipper. But, anyway, there I was dispensin’ refreshment like a gentleman to a few friends I’d met, when along comes the skipper of the tugboat that wanted us to take his line and we wouldn’t, you mind. And he looks at me hard, and at last asks me was I _really_ one of that gang o’ fishermen that brought the mahogany bark back to port. And I says, ‘Why ain’t I, _really_?’ ‘Well,’ he says, ‘you look so diff’rent dressed up.’ And I said that naturally a man that’d been bangin’ around on the Banks for five or six weeks would look handsome in oilskins and a gale of wind. That kind o’ struck him amidships, I guess, for he said he didn’t mean anything by that, and goes on to tell me how he figured it cost him twelve hundred dollars chasin’ up that bark--in tows he missed that week; and his friend here--he introduced the other steamboat man--’d got a thousand dollars just for doin’ nothin’ but layin’ under the lee of the Cape for three days while it blew, and then for joggin’ around two days off the cape after it moderated. ‘Yes, and the man that paid me is down the wharf now,’ goes on the second steamboat man, ‘and I think he’d like to meet some of your crowd.’ And down the dock we went, and there he was. I forget what he looked like in the face, but he had the swellest fur coat, big enough to ’most make a mains’l for the _Buccaneer_ and fur nigh long enough for reef-points on that same mains’l, and he shakes hands with me and says he didn’t know whether to be sore or not. And just then Sam come bowlin’ along, and he says, ‘This must be one of your crowd, too?’ ‘_One!_’ I says--‘one! Why, he had charge!’ and just then the first steamboat man he grabs Sam and says, ‘Well, I’ll be damned--why, you’re the fellow made the main-boom leap!’ ‘What!’ says fur coat, and has a good look at Sam. ‘Sure enough,’ he goes on, ‘you’re the kind of men I ought to have hired to salve the bark.’ ‘Hired? what d’y’ mean?’ says Sam. ‘Oh, nothing,’ says fur coat to that; ‘but I’m done with the salvage business. Let’s have a drink,’ and then they came so fast, reg’lar ring-a-ring-a-rounder fashion, that----”