They went to work with a will, the crew of the Surprise doing likewise.
“Too bad to stow fish in this nice, clean cabin,” said Joe Hinman; “but never mind, we’ll have to turn to, by and by, and scrub it, that’s all.”
They had the luck with them, again; for hardly had they begun to prepare breakfast, than the water rippled with a second day’s westerly breeze. They got the two yachts under sail, without a moment’s loss of time.
“See here, Joe,” called Harvey, as the yachts began to fill away, “we’ll play fair with you. We can outsail you some, and we shall get to Stoneland before you do. We’ll take the big hotel in the harbour, and then the market. The market will buy all that either of us have left. We’ll leave you the other hotel, a half-mile up the shore. There are ’most as many guests there, and they’re all summer boarders, so they’ll take as many fish. If we break a stay on the trip over and get delayed, you give us the same chance, eh?”
“Ay, ay,” responded Joe. “Good luck!”
The wind not only came sharp and strong, an hour later, but there were thunder-clouds in the sky, down near the horizon-line, and the breeze was full of quick flaws and was treacherous. Before they were half-way over to Stoneland, they were sailing under two reefs and making the water fly.
“It’s great!” cried Harvey, hugging the wheel, in his delight. “Let her blow good and hard as long as it doesn’t storm. We’ll do the fifteen miles in an hour and a half, at this rate.”
The two yachts were lying well over in the water, crushing it white under the lee-rail, and making fast time.
“We’ll get a storm, too, by nightfall,” said Henry Burns, looking weather-wise at the sky. “But we shall have sold our fish first, and we’ll be snug behind the breakwater. So let it come.”
The yachtsmen were in great spirits. Even Henry Burns betrayed symptoms of excitement as they ran into the harbour, early in the forenoon, and brought the Viking up neatly at the hotel wharf.