Was everybody aboard hard of hearing? Jim raised his voice.
"Eighteen hundred of hake!"
"What'll you take for 'em just as they are? We'll give you fifty cents a hundred."
"Can't trade with you for any such figure as that."
"Good-by, then!"
The tip of the Cassie J.'s bowsprit was less than two yards from the port bow of the Barracouta, altogether too near for comfort.
"Keep off!" roared Spurling. "You'll run us down!"
The steersman whirled his wheel swiftly in the apparent endeavor to avert a collision. Unluckily, he whirled it the wrong way. Round swung the schooner's bow, directly toward the sloop. A few seconds more and she would be forced down beneath the larger vessel's cutwater, ridden under.
Only Jim's coolness prevented the catastrophe. The instant he saw the Cassie J. turn toward his boat he flung his helm to port. The sloop, under good headway, responded more quickly than the schooner. For a moment the bowsprit of the latter seesawed threateningly along the jibstay of the smaller craft. Then the two drew apart.
Jim was white with anger. It was only by the greatest good fortune that the Barracouta had escaped.