'
'Fire's better than water, specially when it's as cold as the Straits,'
said Roy with a shiver.
'Well, maybe that's so,' replied the other. 'Get you gone below, the both
o' you. You'll find a fire in the galley and the cook'll give ye some hot
cocoa.'
'Thanks awfully,' said Ken and Roy in one breath, and hurried off at once.
The cook, a lean, solemn-faced man named Lemuel Gill, showed no surprise
whatever at the sudden apparition of two half-drowned strangers. But if he
asked no questions he was not stingy with the cocoa, and Roy and Ken put
away a quart of it between them, and openly declared they had never tasted
anything so good in all their lives.
Their praise seemed to please Gill, for he proceeded to cut some gigantic
sandwiches out of stale bread and excellent cold boiled pork, and to these
also the hungry youngsters did justice.
'What ship is this?' asked Ken, when the first pangs of hunger had been
satisfied.
'"Maid o' Sker." Mine--sweeper. Skipper, Seth Grimball,' was the brief
answer.
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