"Give us a grip of them. Let go before she goes over with you," shouted somebody, and a man swinging himself over the rail clutched at the packet held out to him. Then Donegal loosed his grasp, and they were rocking on the white wake as the steamer went on.
"Just 'bout did it," said Stickine. "I guess it was worth a pull."
Neither of the lads said anything, for they were dazed and dripping, and had no breath to waste, but they forgot their pains in a supreme content. It had been a good race, perhaps the best they would ever make, for they knew as they watched her roll away into the mist that the letters the steamer was bearing south would lift a dark cloud from an English home.
CHAPTER XVIII
TREACHERY
Here and there a streak of ripples crept across the water as they returned to the schooner, and when they stopped rowing, Jordan called to them.
"You can pull her head round before you come on board."
They pulled hard before they swung the schooner round, and when they had hoisted the boat in Stickine glanced at the skipper.
"We're going back west?" he said.
Jordan nodded. "Right now," he said. "We've lost two weeks already and the season's getting through."