Suddenly Ramsay leaped to his feet and stifled a cry. Far out in the lake's surging gray masses he thought that he had seen something pure white. But he could not be sure. A moment later he saw it again. A sail! Then he was able clearly to identify a little peanut shell of a boat.
She was the Spray, and she was in serious trouble.
CHAPTER FIVE
RESCUE
A fresh gust of wind sent the waves leaping higher, and for a moment only the furious lake could be seen. Ramsay rose, and Pieter rose beside him; and both went to the barn door. They stood alert, still not speaking and not even certain of what they had seen. Then they saw it again.
Beyond any possible doubt it was the Spray, and she was working valiantly to get into shore. Ramsay swallowed a lump in his throat. He had first seen the Spray as a dancing bit of gaiety on a lake as stormy as this one, and then she had seemed so sure of herself and so capable. Now she was like a shot-wounded duck which, no longer able to rise in graceful flight, must lie on the water and flutter desperate wings. For another tense moment Ramsay and Pieter stood side by side.
By inches the Spray was fighting her way toward shore, but a glance was sufficient to reveal the tremendous odds against her ever making safety. Still, even in this terrible dilemma, there was a spirit about her which the Holter never had and never could have. The two men on the Spray—and did not the crazy Dutch fisherman usually carry a crew of four?—seemed to be working calmly and easily. There was, from this distance, no trace of the near-panic that had reigned when the Holter went down.
Ramsay knew a moment's intense gratification. This was part of the dream, part of the picture he had engraved in his heart when he first saw the Spray and her skipper. When they challenged the lake, they accepted it in all its aspects. Now they were behaving as all fishermen should behave. Before they could even begin to follow their trade they must make an unbreakable pact with their fortune on the water, be it good or bad.
Then the trance was broken. Out on the lake, within sight of Pieter and Ramsay, men were about to die. They must not die if there was any way to help them. As though their eyes were guided by one common impulse, both men looked toward Pieter's small boat.