The _Relentless_ was an old fishing-schooner. She had been stripped of her canvas, and portions of her rigging had been removed. There were the masts, though, still to suggest those trips to distant fishing-grounds, when the winds had filled the canvas and sent the _Relentless_ like an arrow shot from one curving billow to another. There was the galley, empty now of its stove, and showing to any investigator only a rusty pan in one corner; but the wind humming round its bit of rusty funnel told a story of many a savoury dish cooked for a hardy, hungry crew. And the little cabin, so still now, save when a hungry rat softly scampered across its floor, had been a good corner of retreat to many when heavy seas wet the deck on stormy nights and sent the spray flying up into the rigging.
The boys transferred their cargo of bedding and eatables to the deck, and then scattered to ramble through the cabin or descend into the dark, musty hold. They came together again, and lugged their baggage into the cabin, save the dishes and eatables, which were stowed away on shelves.
"This is just splendid, Dick!" declared Dave, leaning over the vessel’s rail. "It is going to sea without having the fuss of it."
"That’s so, Dave. You don’t have any sea-sickness, any blistering your hands with handling ropes, any taking in sail--"
"Oh, it’s huge, Dick. Now you want to divide up the work."
"Not going to have any; all going to have a good time."
"But who’s going to cook, and bring water, and--"
A division of work was finally pronounced sensible. Dave became "cook," Jimmy Davis was elected "water-boy," Dick took charge of the sleeping arrangements, and the brothers Richards were constituted table-waiters and dish-washers--"without pay," Dave prudently added. All that day, up to twilight, life in the old fishing-schooner was smooth and happy as the music of a marriage-bell. Dave’s cooking was adjudged "splendid," and between meals there were spells of story-telling, of games like hide-and-seek about the ancient hull, and of fishing from the deck, though there sometimes seemed to be more fishermen than fish.
At twilight most of the boys were seated in the stern of the vessel, looking out to sea and watching the light fade out of the heavens and the warm sunset glow steal away from the waters.