“Will it hold?” questioned Paxton.
“Trust me for that,” answered Reff Ritter.
Not without difficulty he crawled aboard the sloop and his cronies followed. They gave a brief look into the cuddy, but did not discover those in hiding.
“Now, let us go at the ropes first,” said Ritter. “Mind, don’t file them too thin. We don’t want them to break until the race is on.”
“I’d like to put a hole in the sloop’s bottom and sink her,” growled Gus Coulter.
“If you did that, the race would be off,” said Ritter. “No, we want her to go in and lose.”
The three plotters moved to various parts of the Alice and with large files began to saw on several of the ropes used for hoisting the mainsail and jib.
“I guess we have heard enough,” whispered Pepper. “You recognize them, don’t you?”
“Ritter, Coulter and Paxton,” said Andy, promptly.
“Correct.”