“I don’t see what she’s making all that noise about,” Sue exclaimed, as they heard Crullers calling to them, frantically. “That boat of hers wouldn’t sink if you jumped on it, and she’s got all those life preservers packed away in the lockers, and the buoys too. There’s no danger at all. She’s just scared.”
But suddenly there came a sound from the channel that made their blood chill, the long, hollow boom of a steamer’s signal.
“Polly! Polly! Polly!” cried poor Crullers, in agony, and then they saw her drop down in the boat, and cover her face with her hands.
“It’s the City of Portland coming in, Polly,” Kate shouted, with her hands up to her lips.
Polly shook her curls out of her face and nodded. “I’ll get her all right,” she called back.
One hand held the tiller firm and steady, the other had loosened the main sheet, and held it so as to get the benefit of every breath of wind. Her head was bending forward, her eyes half closed like the Captain’s, as they watched the squat little catboat ahead with Crullers crouching it.
The big boat whistled again, sharp long calls of direction, of which not one of the girls understood the meaning. Crullers stood up.
“Sit down,” called Polly, “sit down, and steady your boat, you little goose. Hold her off to windward, Crullers, not that way, towards the island, towards the island! Oh, can’t you hear anything? Loosen the main sheet, that rope right there at the end of your boom, and let the wind swing her about. Oh, dear, can’t you do what I say, Crullers?”
Crullers’ fingers fumbled over the main sheet. They were out in the channel now, with the Point of the Sickle lying at their right hand, and the lighthouse and station in plain sight. Just as Polly set her teeth, and tried to make straight for the other boat, the great white steamer, City of Portland, hove into sight, steaming up the channel. Then something that Polly had either read or heard flashed through her mind. A sailing vessel has the right of way. But Crullers did not know that, and when she saw that monster bearing straight down on her, all her courage and presence of mind left her. The one thing she did remember were the ring buoys in the lockers at the stern.
The Portland was blowing its whistle steadily now, and Polly called as she came near, “It’s all right, Crullers. They’re holding up to let us pass. Keep right along.”