

E-text prepared by David Edwards, Emmy, and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net) from page images generously made
available by Internet Archive (https://archive.org)



Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this
      file which includes the original illustrations.
      See 44037-h.htm or 44037-h.zip:
      (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/44037/44037-h/44037-h.htm)
      or
      (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/44037/44037-h.zip)


      Images of the original pages are available through
      Internet Archive. See
      https://archive.org/details/adventuresofbill00duncuoft





THE ADVENTURES OF BILLY TOPSAIL


       *       *       *       *       *

_THE WORKS OF_

NORMAN DUNCAN

_Second Edition_

The Mother

    A Novelette of New York Life. 12mo, cloth, $1.25, de
    Luxe, $2.00 net.

    "Another book quite unlike 'Dr. Luke' in environment,
    but very like it in its intuitive understandings of the
    natures of the lowly and obscure... holds the reader
    spellbound."--_Nashville American._


_Twenty-fifth Thousand_

Doctor Luke of the Labrador

    12mo, cloth, $1.50.

    "Norman Duncan has fulfilled all that was expected
    of him in this story; it established him beyond
    question as one of the strong masters of the present
    day."--_Brooklyn Eagle._


_Fourth Edition_

Dr. Grenfell's Parish

    Illustrated. Cloth, $1.00 net.

    "He tells vividly and picturesquely many of the things
    done by Dr. Grenfell and his associates. They have
    a distinct literary tone. It is splendid, heroic
    work that Dr. Grenfell and his fellows are doing as
    missionaries of humanity and civilization in a field
    that is painfully near home."--_N. Y. Sun._


    FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY
    _Publishers_


       *       *       *       *       *


[Illustration: HIS CLOTHES WERE FROZEN STIFF, AND HE HAD TO BEAT THEM
ON THE ICE TO SOFTEN THEM.]


THE ADVENTURES OF BILLY TOPSAIL

by

NORMAN DUNCAN

Author of "Doctor Luke of The Labrador,"
"The Mother," "Dr. Grenfell's Parish"

Illustrated







[Illustration]

New York  Chicago  Toronto
Fleming H. Revell Company
London and Edinburgh

Copyright, 1906, by
Fleming H. Revell Company

New York: 158 Fifth Avenue
Chicago: 80 Wabash Avenue
Toronto: 27 Richmond Street, W.
London: 21 Paternoster Square
Edinburgh: 100 Princes Street




              _J. K._




    _To the editors of the "Youth's Companion" the author's
    thanks are due for the permission to reprint much of
    the contents of this book._




_To the Boy who Reads the Book_


YOU must not be surprised because the adventures of Billy Topsail and
a few of his friends fill this book. If _all_ the adventures of these
real boys were written the record would fill many books. This is not
hard to explain. The British Colony of Newfoundland lies to the north
of the Gulf of St. Lawrence and to the east of the Canadian Labrador.
It is so situated that the inhabitants may not escape adventures.
On the map, it looks bleak and far away and inhospitable--a lonely
island, outlying in the stormy water of the Atlantic. Indeed, it is
all that. The interior is a vast wilderness--a waste place. The folk
are fishermen all. They live on the coast, in little harbours, remote,
widely scattered, not connected by roads; communication is only by way
of the sea. They are hospitable, fearless, tender, simple, willing for
toil; and, surely, little else can be said of a people. Long, long ago,
their forbears first strayed up that forbidding shore in chase of the
fish; and the succeeding generations, though such men as we are, have
there lived their lives, apart from the world's comforts and delights
as we know them. The land is barren; sustenance is from the sea, which
is moody and cold and gray: thus life in that far place has many perils
and deprivations and toilsome duties. The boys of the outports are like
English-speaking boys the world over. They are merry or not, brave or
not, kind or not, as boys go; but it may be that they are somewhat
merrier and braver and kinder than boys to whom self-reliance and
physical courage are less needful. At any rate, they have adventures,
every one of them; and that is not surprising--for the conditions of
life are such that every Newfoundland lad intimately knows hardship and
peril at an age when the boys of the cities still grasp a hand when
they cross the street.

                                                        N. D.

New York, _September, 1906_.




CONTENTS


  CHAPTER I                                                          11

  In which young Billy Topsail of Ruddy Cove puts out to his first
      adventure with his dog in the bow of the punt.


  CHAPTER II                                                         19

  Concerning the behaviour of Billy Topsail and his dog in the
      water when the _Never Give Up_ went to the bottom, and
      closing with an apology and a wag of the tail.


  CHAPTER III                                                        26

  Describing the haunts and habits of devil-fish and informing
      the reader of Billy Topsail's determination to make a
      capture at all hazards.


  CHAPTER IV                                                         34

  Recounting the adventure of the giant squid of Chain Tickle,
      in which