“Cape Henry, sir!” shouted our man to the skipper.
“Aye, aye,” said Cap’n Joe, eagerly. “And when we tack back again we’re going to cross ahead of the Seamew’s bow—and the race will be over.”
He said it with enormous satisfaction. He believed it, too.
“Why will the race be over, Clint?” asked Phillis, who stood beside me at the moment. “I looked at the chart. We’re a long way yet from Baltimore. We are not in sight of the opening into Chesapeake Bay.”
“There are tugs waiting up there in the roads for us,” I told her. “You’ll soon see their smoke. They will race out for us, as we race in for the port. We shall go up to Baltimore under steam.”
And my statement was scarcely made ere we saw in the far distance the pillars of smoke from the stacks of the ocean-going tugs. The land that had been merely a hazy line, grew more clearly defined, although we were not approaching it directly. Soon I could point out to my little friend the other cape guarding the mouth of the Chesapeake—Cape Charles.
The tugs steamed out to meet us under forced draught. More quickly to get in tow of the tug nearest us, which was coming already hooked up, Cap’n Bowditch put the Gullwing about earlier than he had originally intended. As we tacked, so did the Seamew.
“She’s afraid to give us an inch,” laughed Mr. Barney, taking his place beside the wheel again, and looking up at Mr. Gates.
“It’s nip and tuck,” returned the first mate. Then to the skipper he said: “Shall I make ready to take the tug’s hawser, sir?”
“Right-oh!” declared Captain Bowditch. “And be lively with it. We’re too close to fool away a moment. I hope we get the fastest tug.”