“Do you mean we’ve done it again?” Sandy gasped.
“That’s right,” Jerry said sadly. “We goofed again, and took Jones’s boat instead of yours!”
There was nothing to say. They turned in silence to look aft at the dim white shape that followed them through the night, and that slowly ate away at the distance that kept them apart.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Slow-Motion Chase
“What can we do now?” Sandy asked.
“Just what we’re doing,” Jerry answered mournfully. “Just sail the best we can and hope that he won’t close in on us before we come across some other boat.”
“Maybe Jones won’t find our spinnaker,” Sandy suggested. “If he thinks he’s on his own boat, he knows he hasn’t got a spinnaker below, and maybe he won’t see any reason to go poking around in our sail locker.”
“I wouldn’t bet on it,” Jerry said. “We can make a mistake like this—and make it twice—because neither of us is really familiar with your boat. But a good sailor like Jones knows his own boat the way he knows his own living room. He isn’t going to be fooled the same way we were!”
“Still,” Sandy reasoned, “that’s no guarantee he’s going to go to our sail locker, is it?”
“It’s almost a sure bet,” Jerry replied. “He’s probably got Turk looking around now to see what kind of extra canvas we might have on board, and when he finds that spinnaker, we can kiss our chances goodbye!”