ly, we're going to beat them!"

"I guess we are," said Dolly, with a sigh of satisfaction. "It was about
the most hopeless looking race I ever saw twenty minutes ago, but you
never can tell."

And now every minute seemed to make the issue more and more certain.
Sometimes a little puff of wind would strike the _Defiance_, fill
her sails, and push her a little nearer her goal, but the hopes that
those puffs must have raised in Dolly's rival and her crew were false,
for each died away before the _Defiance_ really got moving again.

And at last, passing within a hundred yards, so that they could see poor
Gladys, her eyes filled with tears, the _Eleanor_ slipped by the
_Defiance_ and took the lead. And then, by some strange irony of
fate, the wind came to the _Defiance_--but it came too late. For
the _Eleanor_, slipping through the water as if some invisible
force had been dragging her, passed through the opening and into the
still waters of the cove fully two hundred feet in the lead.

"That certainly was your victory, Dolly," said Eleanor. "If you hadn't
found that wind, we'd still be floundering around somewhere near the
lighthouse."

"I do feel sorry for Gladys, though," said Dolly. "It must have been
hard--when she was so sure that she had won."

CHAPTER IX

THE SPY

"That was bad luck. You really deserved to win that race, Gladys," Dolly
called out, as the _Defiance_ came within hailing distance of the
_Eleanor_ again.

Gladys looked at her old friend but said not a word. It was very plain
that the loss of the race, which she had considered already won, was a
severe blow to her, and she was not yet able, even had she been willing,
to say anything.

"That's very nice of you, Dolly," called Mary Turner. "But it isn't so
at all. You sailed your boat very cleverly. We didn't think of going off
after the wind until it was too late. I think it was mighty plucky of
you to keep on when we had such a big lead. Congratulations!"

"Oh, what's the use of talking like that?" cried Gladys, furiously. "It
was a trick--that was all it was! If we had had a real wind all the way,
we'd have beaten you by half a mile!"

"I know it, Gladys. It was a trick," said Dolly, cheerfully. "That's
just what I said. We'll have another race, won't we? And we'll pick out
a day when the wind is good and strong, so that it will be just the same
for both boats."

"Oh, you'd find some other trick to help you win," said Gladys, sul