“Maine hasn’t got equal suffrage yet, or I guess she would have been voting these many years,” chuckled Fred.
“Say, Cap! Look at her now—she’s trying to run down our Island,” cried Billy.
For some moments past the Captain had been watching the old schooner and now he exclaimed: “By Heck! They must all be asleep or dead on board her. If she clears the south-end she’ll drift down on our Medric!”
Fear made the Captain turn his launch and make for the little sloop Medric which was anchored off the float-stage of Sunset Island.
With a booming crash, however, and a terrifying slatting of sails, the old schooner piled up on the rocks of the little peninsula-point on the extreme south of the island, named Cape Horn by the Islanders.
Two lank youths were seen scrambling out of the companionway of the vessel’s cabin and a third was observed aft of the wheel. The breeze was increasing every minute and the situation of the stranded schooner was such that it was dangerous to board her from the water. But, it was nearly high tide and her bowsprit almost touched the grass on the high bank, or spur of ledge that Billy called Pulpit Rock. Consequently, it didn’t take long for the trawlers to land and swing themselves aboard the wreck by means of her jib-sheets and bobstay.
Mrs. Remington and the girls had heard the crash and the shouts from the schooner and they all ran from the bungalow to see what had happened; soon, they too joined the others in the unusual excitement of trying to save a wreck.
The young skipper and mate of the schooner were crestfallen for it appeared they had been fast asleep after a night of dancing and revelry in their hometown of Rockport. The third youth was even more disgusted with himself for he had been steering and had actually stretched himself out and dozed while he left the wheel in a cleat.
“You’ve only got half an hour of tide to help yuh git floated off,” called Captain Ed.
“Don’t we know it,” surlily replied the older boy, most likely thinking of the reckoning with his stern father who owned the Edward Everett.