It was a boat, a little boat no more than twenty-four feet from bowsprit to stern, and it was carrying almost a full load of sail as it tacked back and forth into the wind. Ramsay had not seen the sails because, when he first spotted the boat, it had been heeled over so far that the sails did not show. Now they were showing and full, and the little boat sailed like a proud swan with its wings spread.
Ramsay forgot the Holter, the man beside him and everything else save the little boat. The Holter and nothing on it, with the possible exception of the little black horse, was even remotely interesting. But this was. Ramsay breathed a sigh of relief.
He should have known. He should have understood from the first that, when any water was as mighty and as exciting as Lake Michigan, there would be some to meet its challenge with daring, grace and spirit. The tiny craft was a mere cockleshell of a boat, a ridiculously small thing with which to venture upon such a water, but Ramsay could not help feeling that it would be much better to sail on the little boat than on the Holter.
He kept fascinated eyes on it as it tacked back into the wind. Again it heeled over, so far that it was almost hidden in the trough of a vast wave. Saucily, jauntily it bobbed up again.
The Holter, that workhorse of the water, plodded stolidly on its appointed way. Ramsay continued to watch the little boat, and now they were near enough so that he could see its crew of four. He gasped involuntarily.
Working into the wind, the little boat was coming back, and its course took it directly across the Holter's right of way. Ramsay clenched his fingers and bit his lip fiercely. A collision seemed inevitable. Wide-eyed, he watched the little boat.
Now he saw its name, not painted on with stencils but written in a fine, free-flowing script, Spray, and the carved Valkyrie maiden that was its figurehead. A big gull, obviously its tame one, sat on the very top of the mast and flapped its wings. The Spray had a crew of four, but Ramsay concentrated on just one of them.
He was huge, fully as tall as the black beard who had accosted Ramsay and just as heavy, but he was a different kind of man. He balanced on his little boat's swaying deck with all the grace of a dancer, while he clung almost carelessly to a line that ran through a pulley.
No inch of the man's shirt and trousers, which were all the clothing he wore, for he was bare-footed, remained dry, and the shaggy blond curls that carpeted his head were dripping. White teeth gleamed as he looked up at the Holter and laughed. Ramsay leaned forward excitedly. He warmed to this man, even as he had been repelled by the black beard the deck hand called Devil Chad. The man on the boat was gay and spirited, and he seemed complete master of everything about him.
The deck hand put cupped hands to his mouth and screamed, "Sheer off! Sheer off!"