Wash Barker, who appeared to act as the commodore of the squadron,—Mad Twinker, in the Racer following his lead,—could not help seeing the result of these manœuvres, whether he comprehended their purpose or not. The white-caps were before him, and he knew that his crew made bad work in the waves. Already the Dasher was beginning to pitch, and the spray to swash in over her stern. But it looked to him just then as though, if he headed for the shore, the sharp bow of the Winooski would cut his craft into two pieces.
Wash tried several times to get out of the scrape, but the Beech Hill boat looked like a streak of lightning to him, and he did not want it to come any nearer to him. He was soon compelled to give it up as a bad job: his pursuer would allow him to go only to the southward. But Wash had brains if he didn't know much about handling a boat. The force of the waves was increasing every length he went in the present direction.
Dory heard him shout to Mad Twinker, but he could not understand what he said. A moment later the Dasher began to head more to the eastward, the Racer taking the same course. The commodore had evidently decided to get about in the opposite direction. Dory followed him up closely till the two barges were in the trough of the sea, and began to roll instead of pitching as before. The rowers on the lee side, as the boats careened in that direction, had their looms thrown out of the rowlocks. Some of them went over backwards, and some of them, in their efforts to save themselves, lost their oars overboard.
In a word, the crews of both the Chesterfield barges were in a fearful snarl. The boats continued to roll in the heavy waves, and Dory thought it not unlikely that his crew would be called upon to save the collegiate gentlemen from being drowned. Of course it was nothing but clumsiness which had reduced them to this extremity.
The crew of the Winooski were in a position to see all that occurred to the unfortunate barges; for Dory, as soon as he saw what Wash had intended to do, had come about in the opposite way from that taken by the other barges. When his boat was headed into the wind, he called upon the crew to lay upon their oars.
"That's a bad egg for them," said Life, chuckling at the misfortune of the enemy.
"There are three of their oars floating off into the lake," Phil Gawner added.
"Don't you think we had better go out and tow them in, Dory?" laughed Ned Bellows.
"Until they get overboard, we will continue to mind our own business; but if they need help we must do all we can for them," replied the coxswain. "While we are waiting we might as well run out and pick up their oars."