There is one green hand in the crew, Harrison by name, a clumsy-looking country boy, mastered, I imagine, by the spirit of adventure, and making his first voyage.

In the light baffling airs the schooner had been tacking about a great deal, at which times the sails pass from one side to the other and a man is sent aloft to shift over the fore-gaff-topsail.

In some way, when Harrison was aloft, the sheet jammed in the block through which it runs at the end of the gaff.

As I understood it, there were two ways of getting it cleared,--first, by lowering the foresail, which was comparatively easy and without danger; and second, by climbing out the peak-halyards to the end of the gaff itself, an exceedingly hazardous performance.
Johansen called out to Harrison to go out the halyards.

It was patent to everybody that the boy was afraid.