anship we all leaned over the rail, the better to see how she'd
make out. The crews of half the vessels inside the Breakwater were
watching her.

She was a length away and jumping to it. It was yet in doubt, but she
was certainly rushing to some sort of a finish. She rushed on, and
w-r-r-rp! her weather bow came down on the Johnnie's seine-boat. But
it didn't quite hit it. Her quarter to leeward just cut under the
Adams' bowsprit and the leech of her mainsail seemed to flatten past.
For a moment we were not certain, but no jolt or lurch came and our
seine-boat seemed all right. Another jump and she was clear by. And
then we felt like cheering her, and her skipper Wesley Marrs, too, as
he stood to the wheel and sung out, "Couldn't scare you, could I,
Maurice. I thought you'd haul your seine-boat in. I've got your extra
seine," and swept by.

From our deck and from the deck of the Adams, and from the decks of
half a dozen others, could be heard murmurs, and there was a general
pointing out of the redoubtable skipper himself to the green hands
that knew him only by reputation. "That's him, Wesley himself--the
stocky little man of the two at the wheel."

If the stocky little man heard the hails that were sent after him, he
made no sign, unless a faint dipping of his sou'wester back over his
windward shoulder was his way of showing it.

He had business yet, had Wesley Marrs. There was a tug and a barge and
another big seiner in his course. He clipped the tug, scraped the
barge, and set the seiner's boat a-dancing, and two lengths more he
put down the wheel and threw her gracefully into the wind. Down came
jib, down came jumbo, over splashed the anchor. She ran forward a
little, rattled back a link or two, steadied herself, and there she
was. Her big mainsail was yet shaking in the wind, her gaff-topsail
yet fluttering aloft, but she herself, the Lucy Foster of Gloucester,
was at your service. "And what do you think of her, people?" might
just as well have been shot off her deck through a megaphone, for that
was what her bearing and the unnatural smartness of her crew plainly
were saying.

We all drew breath again. Clancy unbent from the rail and shook his
head in high approval. He took off his sou'wester, slatted it over the
after-bitt to clear the brim of water, and spoke his mind. "You'll see
nothing cleaner than that in this harbor to-day, fellows, and you'll
see some pretty fair work at that. That fellow--he's an a