From looking at the “Pollard” Captain Jack glanced down at the water. His own boat's bows seemed to be cutting the water at a fast gait. The young skipper, knowing what he knew about both boats, could not understand this losing to the other craft.
“The Navy men must know a few tricks with engines that we haven't guessed,” he observed, anxiously, to young Hastings.
“I don't know what it can be, then,” murmured Hal, uneasily. “There aren't so confusingly many parts to a six-cylinder gasoline motor. They aren't hard engines to run. More depends on the engine itself than on the engineer.”
“But look over there,” returned Captain Jack Benson. “You see the 'Pollard' taking the wind out of our teeth, don't you?”
“Yes,” Hal admitted, looking more puzzled.
“Do you think our engines are doing the top-notch of their best?” asked Benson.
“Yes; for Williamson is a crackerjack machinist. He knows our engines as well as any man alive could do.”
“Do you think it would do any good for you to go below, Hal?”
[pg 157] “I will, if you say so,” offered Hastings. “Yet there's another side to it.”
“What?”