Page:Dangerous Business (1927).pdf/227

 eyed for the start. Outside the harbor, now, all of them; outside but short of the line between the jetty and the stake boat.

A gun again! The schooners were off—the big ships of the racing fleet, two masts, mainsail, foresail, topsail and jibs. Heavy weather boats, they; wind and wave, they hoped for, particularly the Vega, first across the line.

Jay, at the Arletta's helm, put about and waited. Hot! He was brown, browner than his hair which, as he tanned, seemed bleached by the sun. Brown were his hands on the wheel, deeper brown than Ellen Powell's but lacking the clear smoothness of her color.

She was not here, of course. She was not even in Chicago, either upon the shore or in any of the big buildings under the sun there in the west; but, recently, he had been watching her hands become brown like a Brahmin's—her smooth, slim hands which he liked. She was north; she'd gone home. Her father, on his last voyage down, had taken her to the Soo because his father was away. Hot!

It was very hot, close to a hundred, in southern Illinois where old Stanley Alban lay and might not be moved. The heat did not help him; he endured it and prayed; and his friend, his best and closest friend since old John Rountree passed away, John Rountree's son, sat at his bedside, reading the Bible and praying with him. Lew also was there. It was no time for Lew to be neglectful.

The gun! The yawls were off—two masts, a jib and a big mainsail and a jigger. The next would be for sloops, and Jay luffed and put about quickly. He had a knack of timing, a feel for speed and for seconds which put in