ore than eleven or eleven and a half knots out of her,"
said Clancy. "I know her--the Nautilus--and if this one under us ain't
logging her fourteen good then I don't know. And she'll be doing
better yet before we see New York."

They were driving the porgyman then, but she was fated. Once we began
to get her she came back to us fast enough, and once she was astern
she troubled us no more. After the porgyman we passed a big white
yacht, evidently just up from the West Indies after a winter's cruise.
She looked a model for a good sailer, but there was no chance to try
her out, for they had her under shortened sail when we went by.

There was a New York blue-fisherman on our weather bow bound for New
York, too, and the way we went by her was a scandal. And farther on
we drove by a big bark--big enough, almost, to take us aboard. They
were plainly trying to make a passage on her, but we left her too.
Then we passed another yacht, but she wasn't carrying half our sail.
Her hull was as long as ours, but she didn't begin to be sparred as we
were. We must have had ten feet on her main-boom and ten feet more
bowsprit outboard, and yet under her four lower sails she seemed to be
making heavy going of it. It's a good yacht that can hold a fisherman
in a breeze and a sea-way. We beat this one about as bad as we beat
the blue-fisherman. As we went by we tried to look as though we had
beaten so many vessels that we'd lost all interest in racing, and at
the same time we were all dancing on our toes to think what a vessel
we had under us. It was that passage we held the north-bound Savannah
steamer for seven hours. Her passengers stood by the rail and watched
us, and when at last we crowded our bowsprit past her nose, they waved
their handkerchiefs and cheered us like mad.

"When we get this one loosened up a bit and down to her trim, she'll
sail some or I don't know," said our skipper. He stood in the cabin
gangway then and filled his boots with water, but he wouldn't take in
sail. Back behind us was another seiner. We could just make out that
they were soaking it to her too. The skipper nodded his head back at
her. Then, with one hand on the house and the other on the rail, he
looked out from under our main-boom and across at the steamer. "Not a
rag--let the spars come out of her."

One thing was sure--the Johnnie was a vessel that could stand driving.
She didn't crowd herself as she got going. No, sir! The harder we
drove her th