Before the Great War in Europe, freights were low and the schooner skippers earned scanty incomes.

Then came a world shortage of tonnage and immediately coastwise freights soared skyward.

The big schooners of the Palmer fleet began to reap fabulous dividends and their masters shared in the unexpected opulence.

Besides their primage they owned shares in their vessels, a thirty-second or so, and presently their settlement at the end of a voyage coastwise amounted to an income of a thousand dollars a month.

They earned this money, and the managing owners cheerfully paid them, for there had been lean years and uncomplaining service and the sailor had proved himself worthy of his hire.