“It’s lucky the lightning didn’t hit the gymnasium, anyway,” commented Lester. “We’ll have some tough teams to tackle this coming year and we’ll need all the practice we can get. Ease her off a little, Fred,” he added, to the older Rushton boy, who was handling the sheet.
Fred did so, just in time to avoid the full force of a big wave that was coming on the port side. But enough of it came aboard to drench thoroughly Teddy and Bill, who were lounging at the foot of the mast.
“Wow!” yelled Teddy, as he scrambled to his feet. “That was a corker. I got a gallon down my back that time.”
“Gallon?” echoed Bill. “It seemed to me more like a hogshead. I’m as wet as a drowned rat.”
“Don’t you care, fellows,” called out Lester. 4 “We won’t any of us have a dry stitch on by the time we get to land.”
“You don’t suppose there’s any danger, do you?” asked Bill, who at his father’s ranch would have been perfectly at home on the back of a bucking broncho, but here on the sea felt out of his element.
“Oh, no,” replied Lester, carelessly. “That is,” he hastened to add, “there’s always more or less danger when one’s out in an open boat in a storm. But this Ariel of mine is a jim dandy, and I don’t think we’ll have any trouble. Even if she should go over, we could hang on to the bottom, and there are so many boats in these waters that we’d soon be picked up.”
Despite his careless air and confident words, it was evident from the way he scanned the sky and the tumbling waste of waters that he was secretly uneasy.
The sky had by this time become completely overcast, and although it was only mid afternoon, it was as dark as though twilight were coming on. The wind came in stronger gusts, and the waves broke ever more threateningly against the side of the boat. The land was blotted out, and only the tossing waters met the view in every direction.
“I ought to have turned around sooner,” Lester muttered to himself, “but I was so interested in the letter that Fred got from Mel I didn’t notice those storm clouds coming up.”