"Cap'n Fairwinds," for he, too, had been aptly nicknamed by the salty gossips of the place, was square-set but not too square—very fit, in fact, with a beard still brown; above it, a complexion all red and leather. The full lips could tauten on the bridge in a nor'-easter, but off-watch they frequently puckered in a whistle, which for Sally always echoed the wind singing through the rigging, quite as the eyes reflected the colour of the waters they had gazed on so long. That they were well aware of all that was going on, even when she was not their target, she could testify. Around their corners were those little marks, like the tracks of game-birds at a spring, sure trails of shrewdness and humour—like Sally's, too, but hers were mere wraiths of wrinkles, his, leathery creases, deeply indented.
She was on the top steps now and, hard at her heels, the gnarled parent trunk of which she seemed so strange a shoot.
"Well, you old barnacled tramp!" merely the Bluster way of saying that he was very glad to see an old friend, but Sally's greeting quite made up for it.
After reminiscing for a half-hour or so, by way of strategy, on the ports and events of the voyage, all of which a retired and gouty sea-captain devoured greedily, Captain Fairwinds proffered some excellent tobacco, a custom they had, "of swapping," like Jerry Reb and Johnny Yank between hostilities.
Puff, puff, puff, he watched the other s signal-fires. All seemed quiet along the Potomac, so he broached the dangerous subject:
"What's this I hear about young Boltwood?"
