Polly had accepted Wyn’s help quietly, but with a look that Wyn was not likely to forget. It meant much to the Jarleys if the Coquette won the twenty-five dollars. They needed every dollar they could honestly earn.
The boatman’s daughter did not stop then to thank her friend. Instead she gave her brief, but plain, instructions as to what she was to do, and Wyn went about her work in a practical manner.
The catboat was sixteen feet over all, with its mast stepped well forward, of course, carrying a large fore-and-aft sail with gaff and boom. A single person can sail a cat all right; but to get speed out of one, and manœuver quickly, it takes a sheet-tender as well as a steersman.
“Sixteen!” shouted the starter’s assistant through his megaphone, and Polly brought the Coquette about and shot towards the starter’s boat.
The boatman’s girl had held off some distance from the line. Number Fifteen had just crossed and was now swooping away on her first tack toward the distant stake-boat. The momentum the Coquette obtained racing down to the line was what Polly wanted.
“Go!” shouted the starter, looking at his watch and comparing it with the timekeeper’s.
The Coquette flashed past the line of motor-boats and smaller craft that lined the course for some distance. The course was not very well policed and one of the small steamers, with a party of excursionists aboard, got right in the way of the racing boats.
“Look out, Wynnie!” shouted Polly. “I’m going to tack to pass those boats.”
Wyn fell flat on the decked-over portion of the Coquette, and the boom swung across. With gathering speed the catboat flew on and on. Although her sail was patched, and she was shabby-looking in the extreme, the Coquette showed her heels that day to many handsomer craft.
The various boats raced with each other–first one ahead, and then another. There were not many important changes in the positions of the contesting boats, however, until the stake-boat was reached.