must be getting out of this. That canoe will not stand towing in this chop much longer. We shall have to leave you.”
“Pull it in aboard,” said Jack Harvey.
“No, it would be in the way,” replied Tom Harris. “Just as much obliged to you. We’ll meet you at the camp. Say that you will come ashore and eat supper with us, and Bob will have one of those fine chowders waiting for you; won’t you, Bob?”
“Ay, ay, sir,” replied Bob.
“You mean that you will cook one while we sit by and watch you, don’t you?” asked Harvey. “We shall get there before you do.”
“Perhaps not,” returned Bob. “You have got to beat down, while we push right through. It is four o’clock now, and there’s some fourteen miles to go. We can do that in about three hours, because when we get across the bay we can go close alongshore under the lee, in smooth water; while you will have to stick to the rough part of the bay most of the time.”
“All right,” said Harvey, “we will have a race to see who gets there first. But we’ll do it in half that time.”
So saying, he luffed the Viking into the wind, while Bob White drew the dancing canoe alongside. The canoeists and the yachtsmen parted company, the Viking’s sails filling with the breeze, as she quickly gathered headway, throwing the spray lightly from her bows; the canoe plunging stubbornly into the rough water, and forcing its way slowly ahead, propelled by the energy of strong young arms.
The Viking stood over on the starboard tack, while the canoe made a direct course for the island; and the two craft were soon far apart. In the course of a half-hour the canoe appeared from the deck of the Viking a mere dancing, foam-dashed object. But, in the meantime, another boat had appeared, some way ahead, that attracted the attention and interest of the yachtsmen. It was a small sailboat, carrying a mainsail and single jib. The smaller yacht was coming up to them from the direction of Grand Island, and was now running almost squarely before the wind, with its jib flapping to little purpose, save that it now and then filled for a moment on one side or the other, as the breeze happened to catch it.
“There’s a boat that is being badly sailed,” exclaimed Harvey, as the two watched its progress. “Look at it pitch; and look at that boom, how near it comes to hitting the waves every time it rolls. There’s a chap that doesn’t know enough, evidently, to top up his boom when running in a seaway. What does he think topping-lifts are made for, anyway, if not to lift the boom out of the reach of a sea like this?
“And let me tell you, running square before the wind in a heavy sea, with a boat rolling like that, is reckless business, anyway. It is much better to lay a course not quite so direct, and run with the wind not squarely astern, with the sheet hauled in some. That’s no fisherman sailing that boat.”
“It may be some one caught out who doesn’t know how to get back,” said Henry Burns. “See, there he is, waving to us. He is in some trouble or other. Let’s stand on up close to him and see what the matter is.”
“Well, I’ll take the chance,” replied Harvey. “There, he’s doing better now. He is pointing up a little bit. We’ll keep on this tack and run pretty close to him, and hail him. I’ll just sing out to him about that topping-lift, anyway; and if he doesn’t like our interfering, why he can come aboard and thrash us.”
As the sailboat drew nearer, there appeared to be a single occupant, a youth of about Harvey’s age, perhaps a year older, holding the tiller. His hat was gone and he was standing up, with hair dishevelled, glaring wildly ahead, in a confused sort of way. The boom of the sailboat was well out on the starboard side. Harvey kept the Viking on the starboard tack, and near enough to have passed quite close to the other boat.
A little too close, in fact, considering that the youth at the tiller of the oncoming boat had, indeed, completely lost his head. Suddenly, without warning, he put his tiller over so that the sailboat headed away from the Viking for an instant. Then, as the wind got back of his sail, and the boat at the same time rolled heavily in the seas, the boom jibed with terrific force. The sailboat swung in swiftly toward the starboard beam of the Viking, and the wind and sea knocked it down so that the water poured in over the side, threatening to swamp it. At the instant, Jack Harvey had thrown the Viking off the wind to avoid a crash with the other boat. The boom of the sailboat swept around with amazing swiftness, and then, as the boat careened, threatening to founder, the end of the boom brought up with a smashing blow against the Viking’s starboard quarter, breaking off several feet of the boom and tearing the sail badly.
The sailboat, half-filled with water, fell heavily into the trough of the sea and rolled threateningly; while at every pitch the boom struck the waves as though it would break again.
The Viking, under Jack Harvey’s guidance, stood away a short distance, then came about and beat up in to the wind a rod or two above the wreck.
“Get that mainsail down as quick as ever you can!” shouted Jack Harvey to the strange youth, who had dropped the tiller, and who stood now at the rail, dancing about frantically, as though he intended to jump overboard.
“I can’t,” cried the youth, tremulously. “Oh, come aboard here quick, won’t you? I’m going to sink and drown. This boat’s going down. I don’t know how to handle her.”
“We guessed that,” remarked Henry Burns, and added, reassuringly, “Don’t lose your head now. You know where the halyards are. Go ahead and get your sail down, and we’ll stand by and help you.”
Henry Burns’s calm manner seemed to instil a spark of courage into the youth. He splashed his way up to the cabin bulkhead, where the halyards were belayed on cleats on either side, and let them run. The sail dropped a little way and then stuck. The youth turned to the other boys appealingly.
“Pull up on your peak-halyard a little,” said Jack Harvey, “and let the throat drop first a way. Then the throat won’t stick.”
The youth made another attempt and the sail came nearly down, hanging in bagging folds.
“Lucky that’s not a heavy sail nor a heavy boom,” exclaimed Jack Harvey, “or the boat would be over and sunk by this time. I think I could lift the boom inboard if I could only get aboard there.”
“Here,” cried Harvey, coiling up a light, strong line that he had darted into the cabin after, “catch this and make it fast up forward – and mind you tie a knot that will hold.”
He threw the line across, and it was clutched by the boy aboard the smaller boat. The boy carried it forward and did as Harvey had directed.
“Now,” said Harvey to Henry Burns, as he made fast the line astern, “the moment we get near enough so that I can jump aboard, you bring the Viking right on her course, with a good full, so she won’t drift back on to the wreck completely.”
He, himself, held the wheel of the Viking long enough to allow the yacht to come into the wind a little. Thus it lost headway sufficiently so that the seas caused it to drift back, without its coming about or losing all steerageway. Then, as the Viking drifted within reach of the smaller boat, he leaped quickly and landed safely on the deck. At the same time, or an instant later, Henry Burns threw the wheel of the Viking over so that the yacht gathered headway again and tautened the rope that connected the two boats.
CHAPTER III.
A RESCUE UNREWARDED
Harvey, having landed on the deck of the sailboat,
