"How do you know we have to board her?" Monsieur thrust half a biscuit in his mouth and took a long drink of coffee. "I have been thinking since; I have been on deck, and observed. There is wind, and we are catching up. Off there," he pointed toward something the cabin walls prevented us from seeing, "is land; low, gray-blue land. Now it can be done with cattle, but can it be done with yachts?"
"Can what be done?" we asked.
"We shall sail out, head her back, and drive her into the land until she sticks!"
Never having heard of such a silly idea I looked at Gates, who was chuckling.
"Oh, it might be done, sir," he laughed, "if she stood close enough to the islands. We might jockey her that way, foul her a bit, and make her go aground—or fight. But, Lor' bless you, she's sailing straight west across the Gulf, with nothing but a thousand miles of good water between her and the mouth of the Rio Grande!"
"Get in front—butt her around," Monsieur cried. "If she does not like it, then let her, as you suggest, fight!"
"Well, you've said something at last," Tommy grinned. "How about it, Gates? And, by the way, what are those islands you spoke of? We're looking for a certain
'——one of many, many islands
Set like emerald jewels in an ever changing sea.'"
Though with his sincerity there was also the bantering tone of the unbeliever here.
"It's the Ponce de Leon Bay, sir, with the Ten Thousand Islands—and I'd say there're all of ten thousand, or quite harf, anyway."