right hand, easing
it off and holding it tight by looping the rope on a peg set in the
gunwhale. But it was impossible for Lincoln to help him. All depended
on him alone.

"Turn!--turn it!" shouted Lincoln. "Don't you see we can't get back?"

"I'm afraid of breakin' my rudder."

There lay the danger. The oar was merely lashed into a notch in the
stern, with wire. The leverage was very great, but Rance brought the
boat about and headed her for the town nearly three miles away.

They both thrilled with a sort of pleasure to feel the boat leap under
them as she caught the full force of the wind in her sail. If they
could hold her in that line, they were all right. She careened once
till she dipped water.

"Get on the edge!" commanded Rance, easing the sail off. Lincoln
climbed upon the edge of the little pine shell, scarcely eighteen
inches high, and the boat steadied. Both looked relieved.

The water was getting a lead color, streaked with foam, and the hissing
of the whitecaps had a curiously snaky sound, as they spit water into
the boat. The rocking had opened a seam in the bottom, and Lincoln was
forced to bail furiously.

Rance, though a boy of unusual strength, clear-headed and resolute in
time of danger, began to feel that he was master only for a time.

"I don't suppose this is much of a blow," he grunted, "but I don't see
any of the other boats out."

Lincoln glanced around him; all the boats, even the two-masters, were
in or putting in. Lightning began to run down the clouds in the west in
zigzag streams. The boat, from time to time, was swept sidewise out of
its course, but Rance dared not ease the sail for fear he could not
steer her, and besides he was afraid of the rapidly approaching squall.
If she turned sideways toward the wind, she would instantly fill.

He sat there, with the handle of the oar at his right hip, the rope in
his hand with one loop round the peg, and every time the gust struck
the sail he was lifted from his seat by the crowding of the oar and the
haul of the rope. His muscles swelled tense and rigid--the sweat poured
from his face; but he laughed when Lincoln, with reckless drollery,
began to shout a few nautical words.

"Luff,[111-1] you lubber--why don't you luff? Hard-a-port, there,
you'll have us playin' on the sand yet. That's right. All we got to do
is to hard-a-port when the wind blows."

The farther they went, the higher the waves rolled, till the boat
creaked and ga