“Wa-al! I ain’t goin’ to waste no time puttin’ you aboard. He’s short-handed anyway. He allus is. I’ll feed ye for the sake of keepin’ ye,” and he cackled rather unpleasantly.
I didn’t like him as well as I did Captain Bowditch. And my interest was centered in the success of the Gullwing, too. I wanted to get back to her and see her win the race.
I found the fo’castle hands of the Seamew just as much interested in the rivalry of the two ships as the Gullwing’s hands were. They believed they were on the better craft, too.
“Why, she sails a foot and a half to the Gullwing’s one in fair weather,” one man told me. “Wait till we get out of this latitude. You’ll see something like sailing, then, when the Seamew gits to going.”
I thought she was sailing pretty fast just then, and said so.
“If she ever struck another craft—or anything drifting in the sea—she’d just about cut it down with that sharp bow,” I observed.
“Ain’t much danger of running into anything down here. We ain’t seen another sail but the Gullwing—save one—for a week.”
“We hadn’t spoken a vessel on the Gullwing for a number of days,” I replied.
“No. Not many windjammers just now in these waters. And all the steamers go through the Straits,” my informant said. “But this craft we spoke three days ago was a-wallowin’ along pretty well—and she had a tow, too.”
“A steamship, then?”