efoot
had changed into a series of resounding thumps; that the wind was
rising, and that the summer afternoon sky had become suddenly overcast.
The pretty tiller maiden was pushing the helm down with her foot and
hauling in briskly on the sheet when he sat up.

"What's this we're coming to?" he asked, thinking less of the changed
weather conditions than of the charming picture she made in action.

"Weather," she said shortly. "Look behind you."

He looked and saw a huge storm cloud rising out of the north-west and
spreading like a great gray dust curtain from horizon to zenith. With
the sun blotted out, a brazen light filled all the upper air, and in the
heart of the cloud fleecy masses of vapor were writhing and twisting
like formless giants in battle.

Quickly he measured the hazards. The _Clytie_ was fairly in mid-lake,
with plenty of sea room to leeward. There was an intervening island to
shut off the down-lake view, but though its forested bluffs and abrupt
headland were uncomfortably close at hand, a bit of skilful
manoeuvring would put it to windward. Beyond the island he could see
the breeze-blown smoke trail of the summer-resort hotel's steam launch
evidently making for its home port at full speed.

"There's a good bunch of wind in that cloud," he said, springing to help
his companion with the slatting main-sail. "Hadn't we better lie up
under the island and let it blow over?"

"No," she snapped. "We'll have to reef, and be quick about it. Help me!"

He helped with the reefing, and the great main-sail had been
successfully reduced to its smallest area and hoisted home again before
the trees on the western shore began to bow and churn in the precursor
blasts of the coming storm.

"It will hit us in less than a minute: how about weathering that
island?" he asked.

"We've _got_ to weather it," was the instant decision; "we can't go
around." Then, the catboat still hanging in the wind's eye: "Help me get
her over."

Together they held the shortened sail off at an angle, and slowly, very
slowly, the boat's bow fell off toward the island. Griswold was enough
of a sailor to know that it was the thing to do, but there was a
perilously narrow margin. The storm squall was already tearing across
from the western shore, blackening the water ahead of it and picking up
a small tidal wave as it came. If it should strike them before they were
ready for it, it meant one of two things: a capsize, or an instant
drivi