The Rival Campers Afloat: or, The Prize Yacht Viking

“Well, I’ll take the chance,” replied Harvey. “There, he’s doing better now. He is pointing up a little bit. We’ll keep on this tack and run pretty close to him, and hail him. I’ll just sing out to him about that topping-lift, anyway; and if he doesn’t like our interfering, why he can come aboard and thrash us.”

As the sailboat drew nearer, there appeared to be a single occupant, a youth of about Harvey’s age, perhaps a year older, holding the tiller. His hat was gone and he was standing up, with hair dishevelled, glaring wildly ahead, in a confused sort of way. The boom of the sailboat was well out on the starboard side. Harvey kept the Viking on the starboard tack, and near enough to have passed quite close to the other boat.

A little too close, in fact, considering that the youth at the tiller of the oncoming boat had, indeed, completely lost his head. Suddenly, without warning, he put his tiller over so that the sailboat headed away from the Viking for an instant. Then, as the wind got back of his sail, and the boat at the same time rolled heavily in the seas, the boom jibed with terrific force. The sailboat swung in swiftly toward the starboard beam of the Viking, and the wind and sea knocked it down so that the water poured in over the side, threatening to swamp it. At the instant, Jack Harvey had thrown the Viking off the wind to avoid a crash with the other boat. The boom of the sailboat swept around with amazing swiftness, and then, as the boat careened, threatening to founder, the end of the boom brought up with a smashing blow against the Viking’s starboard quarter, breaking off several feet of the boom and tearing the sail badly.

The sailboat, half-filled with water, fell heavily into the trough of the sea and rolled threateningly; while at every pitch the boom struck the waves as though it would break again.

The Viking, under Jack Harvey’s guidance, stood away a short distance, then came about and beat up in to the wind a rod or two above the wreck.

“Get that mainsail down as quick as ever you can!” shouted Jack Harvey to the strange youth, who had dropped the tiller, and who stood now at the rail, dancing about frantically, as though he intended to jump overboard.

“I can’t,” cried the youth, tremulously. “Oh, come aboard here quick, won’t you? I’m going to sink and drown. This boat’s going down. I don’t know how to handle her.”

“We guessed that,” remarked Henry Burns, and added, reassuringly, “Don’t lose your head now. You know where the halyards are. Go ahead and get your sail down, and we’ll stand by and help you.”

Henry Burns’s calm manner seemed to instil a spark of courage into the youth. He splashed his way up to the cabin bulkhead, where the halyards were belayed on cleats on either side, and let them run. The sail dropped a little way and then stuck. The youth turned to the other boys appealingly.

“Pull up on your peak-halyard a little,” said Jack Harvey, “and let the throat drop first a way. Then the throat won’t stick.”

The youth made another attempt and the sail came nearly down, hanging in bagging folds.

“Lucky that’s not a heavy sail nor a heavy boom,” exclaimed Jack Harvey, “or the boat would be over and sunk by this time. I think I could lift the boom inboard if I could only get aboard there.”

“Here,” cried Harvey, coiling up a light, strong line that he had darted into the cabin after, “catch this and make it fast up forward – and mind you tie a knot that will hold.”

He threw the line across, and it was clutched by the boy aboard the smaller boat. The boy carried it forward and did as Harvey had directed.

“Now,” said Harvey to Henry Burns, as he made fast the line astern, “the moment we get near enough so that I can jump aboard, you bring the Viking right on her course, with a good full, so she won’t drift back on to the wreck completely.”

He, himself, held the wheel of the Viking long enough to allow the yacht to come into the wind a little. Thus it lost headway sufficiently so that the seas caused it to drift back, without its coming about or losing all steerageway. Then, as the Viking drifted within reach of the smaller boat, he leaped quickly and landed safely on the deck. At the same time, or an instant later, Henry Burns threw the wheel of the Viking over so that the yacht gathered headway again and tautened the rope that connected the two boats.

CHAPTER III.

A RESCUE UNREWARDED

Harvey, having landed on the deck of the sailboat, steadied himself by grasping the starboard stay, and took a quick, comprehensive glance over the situation. A foot and a half or so of the boom had split off from the end, and the mainsail was badly torn. The main-sheet had been snapped by the jibing of the boom, but the break in the boom was beyond the point where the sheet was fastened. The broken end of the sheet was trailing in the water. The boat could be got in hand if that were regained.

Seizing the end of the main-sheet that remained in the boat, and casting it loose from the cleat, Harvey found he had still the use of a rope of considerable length. Coiling this up, and hanging it over one arm, he regained the deck, over the small cabin, and took up his position on the port side of the boat. The stay on that side had been saved from carrying away only because the quarter of the Viking had arrested the force of the boom. Having this stay, then, to hold fast to, Harvey leaned over the side, as far as he was able, passed an end of the rope about the boom, took a turn, and made it fast.

Carrying the other end aft, Harvey handed it to the youth, who stood gazing at his efforts stupidly, evidently knowing not in the least what to do.

“Now you hold on to that,” said Harvey, “and when I tell you to, you haul as hard as ever you can.”

The youth took the rope silently and sullenly.

Harvey sprang again upon the deck, caught the flying ends of the halyards and ran the mainsail up. It was slow work, for the sail was soaked with water, and the tear in it began to rip more when the strain was brought to bear. When Harvey had hoisted the sail sufficiently so that the topping-lift would have lifted the boom, he started for that; but it had parted, and was of no use.

“Well,” said Harvey, “we’ll get the boom up a little more, with the sail, no matter if it does tear. We can’t help it.”

So he took another pull at the peak-halyard. The boom lifted a little.

“That’s enough,” said Harvey. “Now haul in on that sheet lively, before the sail tears any more. Get that boom in quick!”

The youth, with no great spirit nor heartiness in his movements, did as directed, and the boom came inboard. Then Harvey once more dropped the sail.

He was brim full of life, was Jack Harvey, and now that there was something here worth doing, and necessary to be done quickly, he was eager with the spirit of it.

“Have you got anything aboard here to bail with?” he asked, hurriedly; and, without waiting for the more sluggish movements of the other, he darted forward, through the water in the cockpit, to where he had espied a pail half-submerged under the seat. With this he began bailing furiously, dipping up the pailfuls and dashing them out over the side, as though the boat were sinking and he had but one chance for life in a hundred.

Harvey was working in this way, with never a thought of his companion, when presently there came a hail from the Viking. He paused and looked across the water to where Henry Burns was standing at the wheel of the larger craft, with a look of amusement on his face.

“I say, Jack,” called Henry Burns, drawling very slightly, as was his habit at times when other youths of more excitable temperament would speak quickly, “that other chap aboard there is just dying to help bail the boat. Why don’t you let him do his share of it?”

Harvey glanced back astern at his companion of the sailboat. What he saw caused an angry flush to spread over his face. But the next moment the cool effrontery of it made him laugh.

The youth whom Harvey’s surprised gaze rested upon was a rather tall, thin, sallow chap, with an expression on his face that looked like a perpetual sneer. He wore no yachting costume nor clothing of any sort fit for roughing it. Instead, he was rather flashily dressed, in clothes more often affected by men of sporting propensities than youths of any age. In a scarf of brilliant and gaudy tint he wore a large pin in the form of a horseshoe, with imitation brilliants in it. In fact, his dress and whole demeanour were of one who had a far more intimate knowledge of certain phases of life than he should. A telltale smear upon the fingers of his right hand told of the smoking habit, which accounted for his thin and sallow appearance – and which habit was now in evidence.

It was this latter that particularly angered Harvey, as he paused, perspiring, from his work.

The youth had seated himself calmly on the edge of the after-rail, with an elbow rested on one knee. In this comfortable attitude, and smoking a cigarette, he was aimlessly watching Harvey work.

Harvey glared for a moment in amazement. Then his face relaxed.

“I say!” he exclaimed, throwing down the pail, wiping his brow, and advancing aft toward the other youth, “this seems to be a sort of afternoon tea, or reception, with cigarettes provided by the host.”

“No, thanks,” he added, shortly, as the other reached a hand into his pocket and proffered a box of them. “You’re just too kind and generous for anything. But I don’t smoke them. Some of my crew used to. But I tell little Tim Reardon that that’s what keeps him from growing any. He’s at them all the time. Guess you are, too, by the looks of you.”

Harvey glanced rather contemptuously at the lean, attenuated arm that the other displayed, where he had rolled his cuffs back.

“Well, you don’t have to smoke them if you don’t want to,” said the other, surlily. “But don’t preach. I’m as old as you are. My smoking is my business.”

“Of course it is,” said Harvey. “I don’t care whether you smoke or not. But what I object to is your doing the smoking and letting me do the work. Your smoking is your business, and so is bailing out your own boat your business – that is, your share of it is. Now, if you want any more help from me, you just break up this smoking party and take that pail and go to bailing. I’ve got enough to keep me busy while you are doing that.”

The youth glanced angrily at Harvey, but made no reply. Harvey’s stalwart figure forbade any unpleasant retort. Sullenly, he tossed away the half-finished cigarette, slumped down once more into the cockpit, took up the pail that Harvey had dropped, and went to work.

“He looks like a real man now,” called out Henry Burns.

The youth, with eyes flashing, shot one glance at the smiling face of Henry Burns, but deigned no reply.

Harvey, without further notice of his companion, proceeded to hoist the sail a little so that he could take two reefs in it. This brought the sail down so small as to include the torn part in that tied in. The sail would, therefore, answer for the continuation of the trip.

“Say,” asked Harvey finally, “why didn’t you reef before, when it began to blow up fresh and the sea got a bit nasty? You might have saved all this.”

The youth hesitated, glanced at Harvey sheepishly, and mumbled something that sounded like he didn’t know why he hadn’t.

“Hm!” said Harvey, under his breath. “He didn’t know enough.

“Well,” he continued, after a little time, “you’re all right to start off again, if you think you can get along. That sail is down so small it won’t give you any more trouble, and there is plenty of it to keep headway on the boat; that is, if you are going on up the bay. Where are you bound for, anyway?”