“Why, I’m all right,” answered George Baker. “I could hardly walk when we first saw the fire, but I just made up my mind I wasn’t going to miss it, and so I started out. When the sparks began to fly I forgot all about the pain, and I hadn’t thought of it since. It’s all gone now, anyway.”
Two hours later they were nearing the southern end of Grand Island and coming in sight of a chain, or cluster, of smaller islands, through which an obscure and little used passage ran from the western bay to the outer sea. Jack Harvey had sent young Tim into the cabin to snatch a wink of sleep, and Joe had come up, heavy and dull.
“I’ll go without my sleep this once,” said Harvey. “Here, Joe, hold her a minute. I’ll get a bit of rest right here on deck, with one eye open.”
It was growing light fast now, and they strained their eyes for a sail.
“I guess we are in time,” said Harvey, as they came abreast of Tom’s Island. “He is not in sight. We’ll head out to sea a bit more, and cut into the Thoroughfare farther down, for the tide will be high in an hour, and we can cross Pine Island Bar. Then, if he has taken the channel on the other side of Tom’s Island, we can still head him off,—unless he went through in the night.”
And Harvey, having relinquished the tiller to Joe, stretched himself out at full length on the seat to rest.
Thus they sailed for a short cut into the Thoroughfare at a point where they could command the farther of the two channels.
And, as they sailed, so sailed another and a larger sloop, beating its way out to sea through the farther channel. A man, powerfully built, and with a hard, desperate look in his eyes, sat at the wheel,—and he was all alone. The yacht cut a clean path through the smooth waters of the Thoroughfare, and, as the man looked at the coast-line along which he was passing rapidly, he muttered: “It’s a clear passage; a safe run to sea. And, once there, who’s to say I was ever in these waters? I said I’d have revenge on this town for what I’ve lost, if it took all summer, and I’ve done it. The blaze did me good as it lit the sky. Twenty minutes more and I’ll be clear of this, and good-bye to this coast for ever.”
But even as he said it a smaller sloop turned the head of an island half a mile ahead, and came down the Thoroughfare, running off the wind.