"He doesn't seem to have very good manners, does he? Maybe he ought to be taught a lesson. Take the wheel while I go below and have a few words with Mr. McKnight."
The chief engineer was leaning against a stanchion and muttering insults at the balky Henry Foster, with special emphasis on the shortcomings of Mr. J. Pringle.
"Are you going to sit here all day and let those Henry Fosters laugh at you, Captain?" asked McKnight.
"Not if you have steam enough to do as I tell you, Bill. All I want you to do is to jump her ahead for all she's worth when I ring the jingle bell. Then hold on tight and say your prayers."
"Going to push Pringle out of the way?" asked the engineer with a smile of happy anticipation. "Well, there's steam enough to make the Henry Foster know she's been bumped. It's about time something happened."
The captain returned to the wheel-house and gave the signal to back her. The Resolute slipped very slowly astern until she was in a position for a "running start." As a final warning her whistle was blown, without reply from the Henry Foster. Then, with one long blast like a war-whoop, the Resolute moved straight ahead, gathering headway until her rearing bow was flinging cascades of spray. The mate gasped:
"Keep her off, Captain, or you'll be in collision."
Captain Wetherly grinned and nodded as he held his tug straight at the after part of the Henry Foster on board of which there was much shouting and running to and fro.
Her crew had taken it for granted that the Resolute would pass astern of them until her tall cut-water loomed within a hundred feet of their overhang. Then her engine-room bells ding-donged one frantic signal after another, but she began to move too late. Crash! and she heeled far over from the shock of the collision. Like a keen-edged axe through a soft timber, the bow of the Resolute, with her weight and momentum behind it, sheared through the overhang and sliced a dozen feet off the stern of the luckless Henry Foster. It was done and over within a twinkling. The Resolute ploughed on with headway almost unchecked, and as her horrified mate rushed forward to see what damage had been done to her own hull, Captain Jim Wetherly looked back and remarked to himself: