Through all of that month and through most of the month of May we chased the mackerel up the coast. By the middle of May we were well up front with the killers, and our skipper’s reputation was gaining. The vessel, too, was getting quite a name as a sailer. Along the Maryland, Delaware, and Jersey coasts we chased them––on up to off Sandy Hook and then along the Long Island shore, running them fresh into New York. There were nights and days that spring when we saw some driving on the Johnnie Duncan.

Toward the end of May, with the fish schooling easterly to off No Man’s Land and reported as being seen on Georges and in the Bay of Fundy––working to the eastward all the time––we thought the skipper would put for home, take in salt, fill the hold with barrels and refit for a Cape Shore trip––that is, head the fish off along the Nova Scotia shore, from Cape Sable and on to anywhere around the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and stay there until we had filled her up with salt mackerel. We 154 thought so, because most of the fleet had decided on that plan and because we had been away from home since the first of April. But no––he stayed cruising off Block Island and running them fresh into Newport with the last half-dozen of the fleet.

Our idea of it was that the skipper wanted to go home badly enough, but he was set on getting a big stock and didn’t care what it cost himself or us to get it. Some of us would have given a lot to be home.

was how Clancy put it as he came down from aloft one afternoon and took the wheel from me. “By the wind is it, Joe?”

“By the wind,” I said––the usual word when seiners are cruising for mackerel, and I went aloft to take his place at the mast-head. It was a lazy watch, as the mackerel generally were not showing at this time in the middle of the day. They seemed to prefer the early morning or the late afternoon, or above all a dark night.

Long Steve, who came up this day to pass the time with me aloft, had been telling me about his old home, when we both noticed the topsails of what we knew must be the first of a fleet of big schooner yachts racing to Newport––from New 155 York, no doubt, on one of their ocean races. Steve, of course, had to try to name the leader, while she was yet miles away––seiners have wonderful eyes for vessels––and was still at it, naming the others behind, when the next on watch relieved me and I went below.

The first of the yachts was almost on us when I came down, and Clancy was watching her like a hawk when he turned the wheel over to the next man. She was as about as big as we were. We knew her well. She had been a cup defender and afterwards changed to a schooner rig. Our skipper was taking a nap below at this time, or we supposed he was. He had been up nearly a week, with no more than a two-hours’ sleep each day, and so was pretty well tired. That was what made Clancy stand by the wheel and ask if the skipper was still asleep.

“No,” said the skipper himself. He had just turned out, and in his stocking feet he came to the companionway and looked up. “What is it?”

“Here’s this big yacht crawling by on our quarter––she’ll be by us soon. I thought you wouldn’t like it.”

“I’ll be right up. Tell the gang to sway up.”

He drew on his slip-shods and came on deck. He took a look over at the yacht while we were swaying up. When we had everything good and 156 flat and trimmed sheets a bit, the skipper called out to take in the fore-topsail. “She hasn’t got hers set,” he explained.

Now, a fore-topsail does not help much––hauled up, as were the Johnnie Duncan and the yacht, it would be a hindrance to most vessels, and, perhaps, because it did not help her was why the yacht had not hers set. But it showed the skipper’s fairness. Ours had been left set, because we might need it in a hurry, and also because with the skipper below nobody could order it down. Now we clewed it up.

Clancy, standing aft, threw a look at our seine-boat, which of course we had in tow. “She’s quite a drag,” he suggested, “for a vessel that’s racing.”

“Yes,” said the skipper, “but wait a while. We won’t cast it off unless we have to.”

We did not have to. We soon had her in trim. For weeks the skipper and Clancy had been marking the Johnnie’s sheets so that in an emergency they could whip her into her best sailing in no time. With that, and with the shifting of some barrels of salt that we had on deck, we soon had her going. It is surprising what a lot of difference the shifting of a few barrels of salt will make in the trim of a vessel. We had not had a try with anything for two weeks or so and had become careless. The last thing we did was to take some barrels of fresh 157 water that happened to be standing forward of the windlass and shift them aft, and then the Johnnie began to go along for fair.

Coming up to Block Island Light things were pretty even. Then it came a question of who was to go to windward. The yacht hauled her mainsheet in to two blocks. So did we, and, further, ran a line from the cringle in her foresail to the weather rigging. She could not make it––we had her.

“Mind the time,” said the skipper, when at last we had her under our quarter––“mind the time, Tommie, when we used to do so much racing down on the Cape shore? There’s where we had plenty of time for racing and all sorts of foolishness. I was pretty young then, but I mind it well. A string of men on the rigging from the shear poles clear up to the mast-head––yes, and a man astraddle the main gaff once or twice, passing buckets of water to wet down the mains’l.”

“Yes, and barrels of water out toward the end of the main-boom keep the sail stretched. Man, but those were the days we paid attention to racing.”

“Those were the days,” asserted the skipper. “But we can do a little of it now, too.”

By that you will understand we were walking away from our yacht. We were to anchor in the 158 harbor while she was still coming, and we had towed our seine-boat all the way.

“Lord,” said Clancy, as we were tying up our foresail, “but I’d like to see this one in an ocean race with plenty of wind stirring––not a flat breeze and a short drag like we had to-day.”