She knew what she was talking about and spoke good sense.
"It's going to be luck," said Ryder. "If either of us get a good slant that the other misses, the last will be out of it. But I wish I'd had those other two hands. The Star wants 'beef' on the braces. Mr. Semple, as soon as possible see all the parrals greased and the blocks running as free as you can make 'em."
And Semple did his best, as the crew did. But Mrs. Ryder had her doubts as to whether her husband was doing his. For once he seemed to think failure was a foregone conclusion.
"I think it must be his liver," said Mrs. Ryder. "I'll see to that at once."
But instead of looking up the medicine chest she came across the Pacific Directory.
"I never thought of that," she said. "He's never done it, now he shall."
She took the big book down and read one part of it eagerly.
"I don't see why not," she decided, and she went to her husband with the request that he should run through Magellan's Straits when he came to it.
"Not for dollars," said Will Ryder. "When I'm skipper of a Pacific Navigation boat I'll take you through, but not till then."
"But look at all you cut off," urged his wife, "if you get through."