“The density of the atmosphere in the office was chiefly due to ‘Al’ Johnson, the diver, who, when he was not talking, diving, eating, or sleeping, was sure to be puffing at his pipe. We had talked little, but now I resolved to turn off the smoke flowing from Johnson’s pipe by getting him to tell us a story. He could never tell a story and keep his pipe lit at the same time.
“Johnson was a college-bred man, whom a love of adventure had lured into deep-sea diving. He and his partner were at this time engaged in recovering the cargo of the steamer Oelrich, sunk near the entrance to Halifax harbor.
“I asked Johnson, ‘Do you remember promising me a yarn about an adventure you had in the pearl-fisheries?’
“‘Which adventure? and what pearl-fisheries?’ Johnson asked. ‘I’ve fished at Tinnevelli, and in the Sulu waters off the Borneo coast, and also in the Torres Strait; and wheresoever it was, there seemed to be pretty nearly always some excitement going.’
“‘Oh,’ said I, ‘whichever you like to give us. I think what you spoke of was an adventure in the Torres Strait.’
“‘No,’ said Johnson, ‘I think I’ll give you a little yarn about a tussle I had with a turtle in the Sulu waters. I fancy there isn’t much that grows but you’ll find it somewhere in Borneo; and the water there is just as full of life as the land.’
“‘Sharks?’ I queried.
“‘Oh, worse than sharks!’ replied Johnson. ‘There’s a big squid that will squirt the water black as ink; and just then, perhaps, something comes along and grabs you when you can’t defend yourself. And there’s the devil-fish, own cousin to the squid, and the meanest enemy you’d want to run across anywhere. And there’s a tremendous giant of a shell-fish, – a kind of scalloped clam, that lies with its huge shells wide open, but half hidden in the long weeds and sea-mosses. If you put your foot into that trap —snap! it closes on you, and you’re fast! That clam is a good deal stronger than you are; and if you have not a hatchet or something to smash the shell with, you are likely to stay there. Of course your partner in the boat up aloft would soon know something was wrong, finding that he couldn’t haul you up. Then he would go down after you, and chop you loose perhaps. But meanwhile it would be far from nice, especially if a shark came along – if another clam does not nab him, for one of these big clams has been known to catch even a shark. Many natives thereabouts do a lot of diving on their own account, and, of course, don’t indulge in diving-suits. I can tell you, they are very careful not to fall afoul of those clam-shells; for when they do they’re drowned before they can get clear.’
“‘You can hardly blame the clam, or whatever it is,’ said I. ‘It must be rather a shock to its nerves when it feels a big foot thrust down right upon its stomach!’
“‘No,’ assented Johnson; ‘you can’t blame the clam. But besides the clam, there is a big turtle that is a most officious creature, with a beak that will almost cut railroad iron. It is forever poking that beak into whatever it thinks it doesn’t know all about; and you cannot scare it as you can a shark. You have simply got to kill it before it will acknowledge itself beaten. These same turtles, however, at the top of the water or on dry land would, in most cases, prove as timid as rabbits. And then, as you say, there are the sharks, – all kinds, big and little, forever hungry, but not half so courageous as they get the credit of being.’
“‘I suppose,’ I interrupted, ‘you always carried a weapon of some sort!’
“‘Well, rather!’ said Johnson. ‘For my own part, I took a great fancy to the ironwood stakes that the natives always use. But they didn’t seem to me quite the thing for smashing those big shells with, supposing a fellow should happen to put his foot into one. So I made myself a stake with a steel top, which answered every purpose. More than one big shark have I settled with that handspike of mine; and once I found, to my great advantage, that it was just the thing to break up a shell with.’
“‘Ha, ha!’ laughed Best, who had been listening rather inattentively hitherto. ‘So you put your foot in it, did you?”
“‘Yes, I did,’ said Johnson. ‘And that is just what I’m going to tell you about. I was working that season with a good partner, a likely young fellow hailing from Auckland. He tended the line and the pump to my complete satisfaction. I’ve never had a better tender. Also, I was teaching him to dive, and he took to it like a loon. His name was “Larry” Scott; and if he had lived, he would have made a record. He was killed about a year after the time I’m telling you of, in a row down in New Orleans. But we won’t stop to talk about that now.
“‘As I was saying, Larry and I pulled together pretty well from the start, and we were so lucky with our fishing that the fellows in the other boats began to get jealous and unpleasant. You must know that all kinds go to the pearl-fisheries; and the worst kinds have rather the best of it, in point of numbers. We were ready enough to fight, but we liked best to go our own way peaceably. So, when some of the other lads got quarrelsome, we just smiled, hoisted our sail, and looked up a new ground for ourselves some little distance from the rest of the fleet. Luck being on our side just then, we chanced upon one of the finest beds in the whole neighborhood.
“‘One morning, as I was poking about among the seaweed and stuff, I came across a fine-looking bunch of pearl-shells. I made a grab at them, but they were firmly rooted and refused to come away. I laid down my handspike, took hold of the cluster with both hands, and shifted my foothold so as to get a good chance to pull.
“‘Up came the bunch of shells at the first wrench, much more readily than I had expected. To recover myself I took a step backward; down went my foot into a crevice, “slumped” into something soft, and snap! my leg was fast in a grip that almost made me yell there in the little prison of my helmet.
“‘Well, as you may imagine, just as soon as I recovered from the start this gave me, I reached out for my handspike to knock that clam-shell into flinders. But a cold shiver went over me as I found I could not reach the weapon! As I laid it down, it had slipped a little off to one side; and there it rested about a foot out of my reach, reclining on one of those twisted conch-shells such as the farmers use for dinner-horns.
“‘How I jerked on my leg trying to pull it out of the trap! That, however, only hurt the leg. All the satisfaction I could get was in the thought that my foot, with its big, twenty-pound, rubber-and-lead boot, must be making the clam’s internal affairs rather uncomfortable. After I had pretty well tired myself out, stretching and tugging on my leg, and struggling to reach the handspike, I paused to recover my wind, and consider the situation.
“‘It was not very deep water I was working in, and there was any amount of light. You have no sort of idea, until you have been there yourself, what a queer world it is down where the pearl-oyster grows. The seaweeds were all sorts of colors – or rather, I should say, they were all sorts of reds and yellows and greens. The rest of the colors of the rainbow you might find in the shells which lay around under foot, or went crawling among the weeds; and away overhead darted and flashed the queerest looking fish, like birds in a yellow sky. There were lots of big anemones too, waving, stretching, and curling their many-colored tentacles.
“‘I saw everything with extraordinary vividness about that time, as I know by the clear way I recollect it now; but you may be sure I wasn’t thinking much just then about the beauties of nature. I was trying to think of some way of getting assistance from Larry. At length I concluded I had better give him the signal to haul me up. Finding that I was stuck, he would, I reasoned, hoist the anchor, and then pull the boat along to the place of my captivity. Then he could easily send me down a hatchet wherewith to chop my way to freedom.
“‘Just as I had come to this resolve, a black shadow passed over my head, and I looked up quickly. It was a big turtle. I didn’t like this, I can tell you; but I kept perfectly still, hoping the new-comer would not notice me.
“‘He paddled along very slowly, with his queer little head stuck far out, and presently he noticed my air-tube. It seemed to strike him as decidedly queer. My blood fairly turned to ice in my veins as I saw him paddle up and take hold of it in a gingerly fashion with his beak. Luckily, he didn’t seem to think it would be good to eat; but I knew that if he should bite it I would be a dead man in about a minute, drowned inside my helmet like a rat in a hole. It is in an emergency like this that a man learns to know what real terror is.
“‘In my desperation I stooped down and tore with both hands at the shells and weeds for something I might hurl at the turtle, thinking thus perhaps to distract his attention from my air-tube. But what do you suppose happened? Why, I succeeded in pulling up a great lump of shells and stones all bedded together. The mass was fully two feet long. My heart gave a leap of exultation, for I knew at once just what to do with the instrument thus providentially placed in my hands. Instead of trying to hurl it at the turtle, I reached out with it, and managed to scrape that precious handspike within grasp. As I gathered it once more into my grip, I straightened up and was a man again.
“‘Just at this juncture the turtle decided to take a hand in. I had given the signal to be hauled up at the very moment when I got hold of that lump of stones, and now I could feel Larry tugging energetically on the rope. The turtle left off fooling with the tube, and, paddling down to see what was making such a commotion in the water, he tackled me at once.
“‘As it happened, however, he took hold of the big copper nut on the top of the head-piece; and that was too tough a morsel even for his beak, so that all he could do was to shake me a bit. With him at my head, and the clam on my leg, and Larry jerking on my waistband, you may imagine I could hardly call my soul my own. However, I began jabbing my handspike for all I was worth into the unprotected parts of the turtle’s body, feeling around for some vital spot, – which is a thing mighty hard to find in a turtle! In a moment the water was red with blood; but that made no great difference to me, and for a while it didn’t seem to make much difference to the turtle either. All I could do was to keep on jabbing as close to the neck as I could, and between the front flippers. And the turtle kept on chewing at the copper joint.
“‘I believe it was the clam that helped me most effectually in that struggle. You see, that grip on my leg kept me as steady as a rock. If it hadn’t been for that, the turtle would have had me off my feet and end over end in no time, and would probably have soon got the best of me. As it was, after a few moments of this desperate stabbing with the handspike, I managed to kill my assailant; but even in death that iron beak of his maintained its hold on the copper nut of my helmet. Having no means of cutting the brute’s head off, I turned my attention to the big clam, and with the steel point of my handspike I soon released my foot.
“‘Then Larry hauled me up. He told me afterward he never in all his life got such a start as when that great turtle came to the surface hanging on to the top of my helmet. The creature was so heavy he could not haul it and me together into the boat; so he slashed the head off with a hatchet, and then lifted me aboard. Beyond a black-and-blue leg, I was not much the worse for that adventure; but I was so used up with the excitement of it all that I wouldn’t go down for any more pearls that day. We took a day off, – Larry and I, and indulged in a little run ashore.’
“‘You had earned it,’ said I.”
“Now, Queerman,” said Sam, “as your turn comes round again, give us something less lugubrious than your last. Be light; be cheerful!”
“It seems to me that I remember,” replied Queerman, “a merry little adventure that befell me some years ago. If it is not hilarious enough to suit you, Sam, you can stop me in the middle of it. While you fellows were fishing this afternoon, I was reading Mr. Gummere’s Handbook of Poetics. Without by any means indorsing all that he says, I was struck by many imaginative passages. In one place he says, ‘Something dimly personal stood behind the flash of lightning, the roaring of the wind.’ That is suggestive. I’ll tell you a case in point from my own experience in Newfoundland. Let us call the story —
‘THE DOGS OF THE DRIFT.’
“The very home of visions, and strange traditions, and mysteries, is Newfoundland, that great half-explored island in the wild North Atlantic.
“Here the iron coast, harborless for league upon league, opposes a black perpendicular front to the vast green seas, which slowly and unceasingly beneath their veil of fogs roll in, and fall in thunder amidst its pinnacles and caverns.
“At wide intervals the cliffs give way a little, forming narrow coves and havens, so limited that scarce a score of fishing-boats can find safe harborage therein. In almost every such cove may be found a tiny settlement, remote from the world, utterly shut in upon itself save during the brief months of summer, with no ideas but what spring from its people’s daily toil and from the stupendous aspects of surrounding nature.
“Is it strange that to such simple and lonely souls the wild elements become instinct with strange life, and seem to dominate their thoughts and their existence?
“For them the driving mists are filled with apparitions. The gnarled and wind-beaten firs take on strange features in the dusk. Through the ravings of the gale against those towering cliffs comes to their ears a hubbub of articulate voices, mingled with the cries of the baffled sea-birds.
“Men dwelling under such influences are imaginative. If left in ignorance, they grow, of necessity, superstitious. The mouths of these islanders overflow with unearthly tales, nearly all of which may be traced to the workings of some natural force.
“But their faith in these fancies is as unquestioning as our acceptance of the word that the world is round.
“What were variously known to the islanders as ‘The Dogs of the Drift,’ ‘The White Dogs,’ and ‘The Gray Dogs,’ I heard of all over the island.
“As went the tale generally, and ever with bated breath, these beings were a team of gigantic dogs, lean and pale in color, driven furiously by a gaunt woman in flowing garments of white.
“They were said to appear to travellers caught journeying in a storm, and to dash past with shrill howls when the storm was at its highest.
“Never closer did they come than within a stone’s throw; but their coming meant death ere sunset to one or another of those met by the apparition.
“In the winter of 1888 a fire took place in the out-harbor where I was then living, and a large part of the winter’s stores was destroyed. To our secluded settlement this was an overwhelming calamity; and there was nothing for it, if we would escape actual starvation, but to send some one for supplies to Harbor Briton.
“The journey was one of great difficulty and hardship, – some hundred and odd miles to be traversed through an unbroken wilderness, and the only means of conveyance a dog-team and a sledge. Being young and venturesome, and ever on the search for a new experience, I volunteered for the service, taking with me my man, Mike Conley, a keen hunter, and one well skilled in driving dogs.
“Our team was a powerful one, led by a great black-and-white fellow, whom the other dogs devotedly obeyed. With provision for ourselves and team, with blankets and the other necessaries of such a trip, our long sledge was well loaded down; and we took with us money to buy supplies, as well as pay the transportation of them back to the famishing settlement.
“We marched on snow-shoes for the most part, save over those open stretches of plain where the crust had hardened like ice, and where the dogs were able, at a brisk gallop, to draw both ourselves and their load.
“At such times, exhilarated by the swift motion in that keen air and sparkling sunshine, the hardships of our journey were forgotten, and we thrilled under the beauty of the glittering world of white. But far otherwise was it when our course lay, as it generally did, through “juniper” swamps and tangled accumulation of forest-growths.
“Then a whole day’s severest toil advanced us but a few miles on our way. The dogs, floundering in the drifts and gullies, would get their traces into an almost hopeless snarl; and many a beating the poor brutes brought upon themselves by the dangerous temper they displayed under such annoyances. They were a fierce and wolfish pack, and a strong hand we were compelled to keep over them.
“Our nights, when it was fine and calm, were pleasant enough, as we lay, wrapt in many blankets, around our fire. Our custom was to dig a deep hollow in the snow, and floor it with soft boughs, leaving a space at one side for the fire.
“Such a camp, nestled in a thick grove of “var” or spruce, was snug in all ordinary weather. But sometimes the rage of the gale would make a fire impossible. The wind-gusts would fairly shatter it to bits, and, bursting in upon us from every quarter, drive the brands and coals all over the camp. There was then nothing left for us but to smother the remnants with snow, and huddled altogether in a heap – men, dogs, and blankets – to await wretchedly the coming of the stormy dawn.
“Always on such occasions would Mike, who was superstitious to the finger-tips, be looking out in fascinated expectation for the dreadful ‘Gray Dogs.’
“At each yelling blast he strained his eyes through the dark, till from laughing at him I grew angry, and he was constrained to hide his fears. I represented to him that, as long as he kept his eyes beneath his blanket, these dogs of the drift need have no terrors for him, even should they come the whole night long and career about the camp; for the portent only applied to those beholding it.
“This view of the case, however, was but little relief to him, as his fears were no less on my account than on his own.
“Notwithstanding one or two such grim experiences, all went well with us till our journey was two-thirds done, and the hardest of the way lay behind us.
“Then, as we floundered one afternoon through a deadwood swamp, Mike slipped between two fallen trunks, and broke his left arm near the shoulder. This was a most unlooked-for blow, but the poor fellow bore it like a hero.
“With rude splints I set the arm and bandaged it; and after a day’s halt, I fixed him a sort of bed on the sledge, so that we were enabled to continue our journey.
“But now we were forced to make long detours, in order to avoid rough country.
“On the following morning, to our satisfaction, we came out upon a chain of lakes which promised us something like fair going for a while.
“In a sheltered place on the shore we found a rude cabin occupied by two hunters, who had their traps set in the surrounding woods. Neither the faces nor the manner of these men did I find prepossessing; but they received us hospitably, fed us well, and pressed us to stay with them over night.
“Not unnaturally, they were curious as to the motives of our strange journey, and before I could give him a hint of warning, my garrulous and fearless Mike had put them in possession of the whole story.
“The greedy look of intelligence which passed furtively between them upon learning we were on the way to purchase stores aroused all my suspicions, and set me sharply on my guard.
“Their hospitality now became doubly pressing. In fact, when they saw me bent on immediate departure, they grew almost threatening in their earnestness.
“At this, assuming an angry air, I asked them why they should so concern themselves about what was entirely my own business; and I gave them plainly to understand that I wanted no interference.
“Changing their tone at once, and deprecating my warmth, they called to my notice the storm that was gathering overhead.
“They were right; the signs could hardly be mistaken. The little bursts and eddies of drift that rose fitfully from the lake’s white surface; the long, whispering sob of the gusts that woke at intervals behind the forests; the heavy but vague massing of clouds all over the sky, which at a little distance was confused with the earth by a sort of pearly haze – all portended a hurricane of snow before many hours.
“With reason on their side, and the evident desire of my wounded Mike as well, our hosts urged delay till the storm should have spent its fury.
“But silencing Mike with a glance, I rejected politely, but decidedly, their proffered shelter, and made ready the team for a start.
“As soon as I had begun to tackle the dogs, the younger of our hosts suddenly took up his gun and left the cabin, saying he thought he’d better visit a few traps before the storm set in.
“He turned, I noticed, down the shore of the lake, parallel to the direction in which our own course lay.
“The older man speeded our departure with all seeming good-will, announcing that he only waited to see us safely off, and would then follow his partner to examine the traps.
“Once underway I retailed my suspicions to Mike, who, heedless as he was, had been putting this and that together during the last few minutes. Bitterly he bewailed his helplessness; and many and varied were the maledictions which from his couch in the blankets he hurled upon our prospective foes. At his suggestion we shunned the wooded shores, taking our course as nearly as possible down the middle of the lake.
“With my rifle in one hand and my long-lashed whip in the other, I urged the team to such a pace as it strained my running powers to keep up with.
“The snow was soft, and for the dogs, as for myself, the work was too severe to last; but my aim was, if possible, to settle with the first ruffian (who had, it seemed likely, undertaken to head us off) before the second could overtake and join forces with him.
“But suddenly, with a whistle and a biting blast, the storm was upon us. For a moment the dogs cowered down in their tracks, and then we were fain to hug the shore for shelter.
“The shelter was not much, for the storm seemed to rage from all quarters; yet, breathless and blinded though we were, we were able to make some headway. At a momentary lull between the gusts we rounded a sharp headland, and entered a long, narrow passage between the shore and a wooded island.
“‘A likely place enough for the murderin’ thief!’ exclaimed Mike.
“But we plunged ahead.
“The words had scarcely left his mouth when the snow seemed to rise thinly about us in a thousand spirals and swirls. A tremendous wind drove down the channel and smote us in the face, with a long, confused, yelping howl, which made my flesh creep with its resemblance to a cry of dogs. Our team trembled terribly and lay down.
“‘The gray dogs!’ came in a hoarse cry from Mike’s lips.
“And at the same moment there swept past us, in the heart of the whirlwind, a pack of wild, huddling, and leaping drifts, followed by a tall, bent, woman-like figure of snow-cloud, which seemed to stoop over and urge on their furious flight.
“The vision vanished, the shrill clamor died away over the open reaches of the lake, and shaking off my tremor, I cheered our dogs again to the road.
“But as for Mike, he was overwhelmed with horror. He would admit no doubt but that one of us must die before nightfall. And for my own part, I felt that our circumstances lent only too ugly a color to his fancy.
“A succession of fitful though not violent gusts confronted us through our whole course up this defile. The air was white with fine snow, and we made but meagre headway.
“It must have been about half a mile that we had covered since seeing the apparition, when we were startled by a sharp report just ahead of us; and instantly our dogs stopped short and fell into wild confusion.
“Springing to their heads, I found the great black-and-white leader in his death-struggle, bleeding upon the snow.
“‘Cut the traces!’ cried Mike.
“And though not comprehending his purpose, I stooped to do so.
“It was well for me I obeyed. As I stooped, a shot snapped behind us, and the shrill whimper of a bullet sang past my ear.
“At the same moment, the gust subsiding, I saw our first assailant step boldly out of cover just ahead of us, and raise his gun to shoulder for a second shot.
“But I had severed the traces; there was a sort of fierce hiss from Mike’s tongue, and with a yell, the whole team sprang forward to avenge their leader.
“The ruffian, realizing at once his peril, discharged his gun wildly, threw it down, and fled for his life.
“But he was too late! In briefer space, I think, than it takes to tell it, the pack was upon him. He was literally torn to pieces.
“With whip and gun-stock I threw myself upon the mad brutes, who presently, as if satisfied with their dreadful revenge, followed me back in submission to their places.
“As for the second scoundrel, he had taken swift warning, and vanished.
“The dogs themselves seemed cowed by what they had done; and for my own part, I was filled with horror.
“But no such weak sentimentality found the slightest favor with Mike. Rebuking me for having beaten them, he lavished praise and endearments upon the dogs.
“He reminded me, moreover, that they had saved the lives of both of us, or had, at the very least, saved myself from the necessity of taking blood upon my hands.
“Realizing this, I made hasty amends to the poor, shivering brutes, comforting them with a liberal feast of dried dogfish.
“My present feeling toward them, as I look back upon the episode, is one of unmitigated gratitude.
“The rest of our journey was accomplished without more than ordinary trouble.
“A good deal of my spare energy I wasted in the effort to overturn Mike’s faith, which stands still unshaken in the supernatural character of the Dogs of the Drift.
“With such terrible testimony in his favor I could hardly have expected much success for my arguments; for, as he concluded triumphantly, ‘if the spectral team came down that channel, as it plainly did, then the scoundrel lying in wait for us must have seen it, as well as we – and did not he meet his doom before nightfall?’”
“If that’s what you call a merry tale,” said Ranolf, “then the one I’m going to tell you of Newfoundland will make your eyes drop ‘weeping tears.’ It concerns the fate of —
‘BEN CHRISTIE’S BULL CARIBOU.’
“Ben Christie was first mate of the little coasting steamer Garnet, of the Newfoundland Coastal Service. Born in one of those narrow ‘out-harbors’ that wedge themselves in somehow between the cliffs and the gray sea, his eyes had been bent seaward from the beginning. Inland all was mystery to him – alluring mystery.
“He had never been out of sight of the sea, except when the fog was too thick for him to distinguish it as he leaned over the vessel’s rail. He had grown up with a codline in his hands, in his eyes the alternation of fog and flashing sunlight, in his ears the scream of the seafowl, and the shattering thunder of the surf upon the cliffs.
“Of his native island he knew little but the seaward faces of her rocky ramparts, over which he had often climbed to gather the eggs of puffin and gannet. Of towns he knew but the wharves and water-fronts of St. John’s and Halifax and Harbor Grace. But he was at home in his dory as it climbed the sullen purple-green slopes of the great waves on ‘the Banks,’ and he knew how to follow the seal, and triumph over the perils of the Floating Fields.
“One day in Halifax, in a little inn on Water Street, Ben Christie saw the stuffed and mounted head of a well-antlered bull caribou. It fired his fancy; and from that day forth to shoot a bull caribou became his consuming ambition.
“When he had been serving as mate of the Garnet for about two years, the boiler of that redoubtable craft refused to perform its functions, and she was laid up in St. John’s harbor for repairs.
“Christie’s opportunity had come. He furbished up his old muzzle-loading sealing-gun, long of barrel and huge of bore, and took passage on a little coasting-schooner bound for the West Shore and the mouth of the Codroy River.
“Arrived at the Codroy, he remained in the settlement for a few days, looking for a suitable comrade to go with him into the interior.
“When his errand became known, – which was right speedily, seeing that he could talk of nothing but bull caribou, – he found plenty of practised hunters ready to accompany him on his quest; but none of these were quite to his liking. They all knew too much. They seemed to him to be impressed with the idea that he did not know anything about caribou hunting, and they talked about ‘getting him the finest pair of horns on the barrens.’
“Now just what Ben wanted was to get those horns himself. He wanted to do the shooting himself, and the hunting himself; and he did not want any one around to patronize him, and deride his mistakes. Ben was off on a holiday, and he felt himself entitled to make mistakes if he wanted to.
“At length he met a harum-scarum little Irishman named Mike Slohan, who said he doted on hunting, but couldn’t hit anything smaller than a barn door, and wouldn’t know – to use his own phrase – ‘a spruce caribou from a bull pa’tridge.’
“Ben took him to his heart at once, and without delay the pair made ready for their expedition. Inextinguishable was the mirth of all the experienced hunters, and grievous were the mishaps they prophesied for our amateur Nimrods till at last Ben’s keen blue eyes began to flash dangerously, and they judged it prudent to check their jibes.
“Whatever Mike Slohan’s inefficiency as a hunter, he was as fearless as a grizzly, and he understood to its minutest detail the art of camping out with comfort. He armed himself only with a little muzzle-loading shotgun, but in other respects the two went well equipped.