"You've got to begin sometime," he said.
It was not easy to keep a grip of the foot-rope, and more difficult still to roll up the sail and tie the reef points round it because both hands were needed and to hold on they must lie across the boom. Still, they accomplished it, and Appleby felt content when Jordan made a little gesture as they sprang down. He was not a man who said more than was necessary, but it was evident that he was pleased with them. Then they hauled at the halliards with the rest, and in a few more minutes they were once more on their way under easy sail.
"She's snug for a while, but we'll have the trysail handy," said Jordan quietly. "Old man Carter was a little slow. They're catching the heft of it on board the Argo."
Appleby glanced down to leeward and saw the Argo. She was hove down with one side lifted high above the sea, and loose canvas thrashing all over her.
"I'll figure he'll just save his masts," said Stickine. "Wouldn't snug her down till we did. Well, I figure Carter couldn't help being born a mule."
Then the Argo grew dim behind them, and they swept on into an empty sea, for the race was over, and there was no sign of the Belle.
CHAPTER X
HOVE TO
At noon next day, Jordan once more brought the Champlain's head to wind, and they put the third reef in her mainsail, while when she swept on again the sea grew steeper behind her, until the combers that raced after her apparently hung frothing above her helmsman's head. She would fling her stern up to meet them and while the man panted over his jerking wheel her bowsprit went down and down. Then she would leisurely lift her nose and surge forward lapped in seething foam, only to sink with a smooth, swift lurch again.
It was dryest aft, though there was water splashing everywhere, and the two lads hung about the mainmast where the little deckhouse partly sheltered them, watching the helmsman's grim face as he swung with his wheel. They knew, by this time, that, while it is a somewhat difficult affair to keep a hard-pressed vessel straight before the sea, unpleasant things are apt to happen to a fore-and-aft one if it is not done.