Page:Dangerous Business (1927).pdf/229

 Ken Howarth clapped him on the back. Lyman called to him: "We got it!" The start, they meant, for the Saracen was ahead of the gun; she was at the line and, not to cross, had to come into the wind, sails flapping.

A puff of smoke! The sound! The gun! And the bowsprit of the Arletta was at the line, with jibs, mainsail, topsail, every inch of canvas drawing. They were across and away with the Saracen astern and to leeward.

It was only the start, and what were yards' advantage and a few seconds in three hundred and thirty miles of crow-flight course—five hundred or six, perhaps, sailing? But it was the start, and they had it.

"Steamboat track!" called Ken. "Straight to Point Betsie!"

Two hundred and three miles away, as a steamboat never swerving from its compass course would log it, north by east and across the lake, beckoned Point Betsie. Clear water all the way, ninety fathoms below them.

Jay gave over the helm to Ken and stretched out on the deck, forward. Lyman lounged comfortably beside him, talking.

They liked each other and the same sort of things: effort of nerve and muscle, a bit of bucking the elements, a bit of depending upon yourself, a bit of risk. Jay, from his schooling, knew the East; Lyman, from visits to his cousins, knew the West, as he called Chicago.

They leaned on their elbows, watching the sails racing them, and talked rig and jib patterns. Now and then Jay remembered that Lyman was a buyer and he was a seller; indeed, that Lyman held, perhaps, the fate of the future