in complied, hesitating.

"Now, what," he said grimly, "now, what do you think you're going to do,
sonny?"

"I'm going to show you the Bob Cook stroke we used in our boat in '95,
when we beat Harvard," answered Wilbur.

Kitchell gazed doubtfully at the first few strokes, then with growing
interest watched the tremendous reach, the powerful knee-drive, the
swing, the easy catch, and the perfect recover. The dory was cutting the
water like a gasoline launch, and between strokes there was the least
possible diminishing of the speed.

"I'm a bit out of form just now," remarked Wilbur, "and I'm used to
the sliding seat; but I guess it'll do." Kitchell glanced at the human
machine that once was No. 5 in the Yale boat and then at the water
hissing from the dory's bows. "My Gawd!" he said, under his breath.
He spat over the bows and sucked the nicotine from his mustache,
thoughtfully.

"I ree-marked," he observed, "as how you had brains, my son."

A few minutes later the Captain, who was standing in the dory's bow and
alternately conning the ocean's surface and looking back to the Chinaman
standing on the schooner's masthead, uttered an exclamation:

"Steady, ship your oars, quiet now, quiet, you damn fools! We're right
on 'em--four, by Gawd, an' big as dinin' tables!"

The oars were shipped. The dory's speed dwindled. "Out your paddles, sit
on the gun'l, and paddle ee-asy." The hands obeyed. The Captain's voice
dropped to a whisper. His back was toward them and he gestured with one
free hand. Looking out over the water from his seat on the gun'l, Wilbur
could make out a round, greenish mass like a patch of floating seaweed,
just under the surface, some sixty yards ahead.

"Easy sta'board," whispered the Captain under his elbow. "Go ahead,
port; e-e-easy all, steady, steady."

The affair began to assume the intensity of a little drama--a little
drama of midocean. In spite of himself, Wilbur was excited. He even
found occasion to observe that the life was not so bad, after all. This
was as good fun as stalking deer. The dory moved forward by inches.
Kitchell's whisper was as faint as a dying infant's: "Steady all,
s-stead-ee, sh-stead--"

He lunged forward sharply with the gaff, and shouted aloud: "I got
him--grab holt his tail flippers, you fool swabs; grab holt quick--don't
you leggo--got him there, Charlie? If he gets away, you swine, I'll rip
y' open with the gaff--heave now--heave--there--there--soh, stand clea