h on that course, down about where the wreck is.
It'll be dry enough walking when she gets there. If she keeps on the
gait she's going now, she ought to be able to fetch good and high and
dry up on the mud. They'd cert'nly be able to step ashore--when they
get there. Ah-h-h, but that's more like it."

She was taking it over the quarter then. She cleared the stern of the
most leeward of the fleet and then kicked off, heading over to where
the Johnnie Duncan and the Victory lay. The betting was that she would
round to and drop in between us two. There was room there, but only
just room. It would be a close fit, but there was room.

But she didn't round to. She held straight on without the sign of a
swerve. On the Johnnie, the gang being almost in her path picked out a
course for her. Between the outer end of our seine-boat and the end of
the bowsprit of the Mary Grace Adams was a passage that may have been
the width of a vessel. But the space seemed too narrow. Our crew were
wondering if he would try it. Even the skipper, standing in the
companionway, stepped up on deck to have a better look.

"He's got to take it quarterin', and it ain't wide enough," said Eddie
Parsons.

"Quartering--yes, but with everything hauled inboard," said the
skipper. "He'll try it, I guess. I was with him for two years, and if
he feels like trying it he'll try it."

"And s'pose he does try it, Skipper?"

"Oh, he'll come pretty near making it, though he stands a good chance
to scrape the paint off our seine-boat going by. No, don't touch the
seine-boat--let her be as she is. We'll fool 'em if they think they
c'n jar anybody here coming on like that. There's room enough if
nothing slips, and if they hit it's their lookout."

It looked like a narrow space for a vessel of her beam to go through,
but she hopped along, and the eyes of all the harbor followed her to
the point where she must turn tail or make the passage.

She held on--her chance to go back was gone.

"Watch her, boys. Now she's whooping--look at her come!"

And she was coming. Her windward side was lifted so high that her
bottom planks could be seen. Her oil-skinned crew were crowded
forward. There were men at the fore-halyards, at jib-halyards, at the
down-hauls, and a group were standing by the anchor. Two men were at
the wheel.

She bit into it. There was froth at her mouth. She was so near now
that we could read the faces of her crew; and wide awake to this fine
seam