an, seiner of Gloucester--watch her walk across the
Bay to-day," was George Moore's little speech when he came on deck to
heave his first bucket of scraps over the rail. George was cook.

And she did walk. We squared away with half a dozen others abreast of
us and Eastern Point astern of us all. Among the forty sail of
fishermen that were standing across the Bay that morning we knew we'd
find some that could sail. There was the Ruth Ripley, Pitt Ripley's
vessel. He worked her clear of the bunch that came out of the harbor
and came after us, and we had it with him across to Cape Cod. Forty
miles before we beat him; but Pitt Ripley had a great sailer in the
Ruth, and we would have been satisfied to hold her even. "Only wait
till by and by, when we get her in trim," we kept saying.

"This one'll smother some of them yet," said Eddie Parsons, looking
back at the Ruth. He felt pretty good, because he had the wheel when
we finally crossed the Ruth's bow.

"With good steering--yes," said Clancy.

"Of course," exclaimed Eddie to that, and filled his chest full, and
then, looking around and catching everybody laughing, let his chest
flatten again.

The skipper didn't have much to say right away about her sailing. He
was watching her, though. He'd look at her sails, have an eye on how
they set and drew, take a look over her quarter, another look aloft,
and then back at the Ruth, then a look for the vessels still ahead.
"We'll know more about it after we've tried her out with the Lucy
Foster or the Colleen Bawn or Hollis's new vessel," he said, after a
while.

One thing we soon found out, and that was that she was a stiff vessel.
That was after a squall hit us off Cape Cod. We watched the rest of
them then. Some luffed and others took in sail, and about them we
could not tell. But those that took it full gave us an idea of how we
were behaving. "Let her have it and see how she'll do," said the
skipper, and Howe, who was at the wheel--with his clothes good and dry
again--let her have it full. With everything on and tearing through
the water like a torpedo-boat, one puff rolled her down till she
filled herself chock up between the house and rail, but she kept right
on going. Some vessels can't sail at all with decks under, but the
Johnnie never stopped. "She's all right, this one," said everybody
then. A second later she took a slap of it over her bow, nearly
smothering the cook, who had just come up to dump some potato parin