Hollis was certainly driving her now. He ought to have felt safe in doing so with the Lucy Foster to go by, for the Lucy, by reason of the ballast taken out of her, should, everything else being equal, capsize before the Withrow.

Hollis must have had that in mind, for he followed Wesley Marrs’s every move. Wesley was sailing her wide. And our skipper approved of that, too. To attempt a too close course in the sea that was out in the Bay that day, with the blasts of wind that were sweeping down, would have deadened her way altogether too much––maybe hung her up. And so it was “Keep her a full whatever you do,” and that, with coming about when the others did––we being afraid to split tacks––made plenty of work for us.

“Hard-a-lee” it was one after the other, and for every “Hard-a-lee” twenty of us went down into the roaring sea fore and aft and hauled in and slackened away sheets, while aloft, the fellows lashed to the foremast head shifted top and staysail 258 tacks. They were wise to lash themselves up aloft, for with every tack, she rolled down into it as if she were never coming up, and when she did come up shook herself as if she would snap her topmasts off.

Half way to Eastern Point on the beat home it seemed to occur to the skipper and to Clancy that the Johnnie Duncan stood a chance to win the race. It was Clancy, still lashed to the wheel, now with Long Steve, turned his head for just a second to Mr. Duncan and spoke the first word of it.

“Mr. Duncan, do you know, but the Johnnie’s got a chance to win this race?”

“D’y’think so, Tommie––d’y’think so?”

Some of us in the crew had been thinking of that same thing some time, and we watched Mr. Duncan, who, with a life line about him, was clinging to a bitt aft, and watching things with tight lips, a drawn face and shiny eyes. We listened to hear what else he might have to say. But he didn’t realize at once what it meant. His eyes and his mind were on the Lucy Foster.

“What d’y’think of the Lucy and the Withrow, Tommie?” Mr. Duncan said next.

Tommie took a fresh look at the Lucy Foster, which was certainly doing stunts. It was along this time that big Jim Murch––a tall man, but even so, he was no more than six feet four, and 259 the Lucy twenty-four feet beam––was swinging from the ring-bolts under the windward rail and throwing his feet out trying to touch with his heels the sea that was swashing up on the Lucy’s deck. And every once in a while he did touch, for the Lucy, feeling the need of her ballast, was making pretty heavy weather of it. Every time she rolled and her sheer poles went under, Jim would holler out that he’d touched again.

We could hear him over on the Johnnie at times. Mr. Duncan, who believed that nothing ever built could beat the Lucy Foster, began to worry at that, and again he spoke to Clancy. He had to holler to make himself heard.

“But what do you think of the Lucy’s chances, Tommie?”

Clancy shook his head.

And getting nothing out of Clancy, Mr. Duncan called out then: “What do you think of the Lucy, you, Captain Blake?”

The skipper shook his head, too. “I’m afraid it’s too much for her.”

And then––one elbow was hitched in the weather rigging and a half hitch around his waist––the skipper swung around, and looking over to the Withrow, he went on:

“I don’t see, Mr. Duncan, why we don’t stand a pretty good chance to win out on Hollis.”

“Why not––why not––if anything happens to the Lucy.”

It jarred us some to think that even there, in spite of the great race the Johnnie was making of it, she was still, in the old man’s eyes, only a second string to the Lucy Foster.

About then the wind seemed to come harder than ever, but Clancy at the wheel never let up on the Johnnie. He socked it to her––wide and free he sailed her. Kept her going––oh, but he kept her going. “If this one only had a clean bottom and a chance to tune her up before going out,” said somebody, and we all said, “Oh, if she only had––just half a day on the railway before this race.”

We were fairly buried at times on the Johnnie––on the Lucy Foster it must have been tough. And along here the staysail came off the Withrow and eased her a lot. We would all have been better off with less sail along about that time. In proof of that we could see back behind us where the Nannie O, under her trysail, was almost holding her own. But it wouldn’t do to take it off. Had they not all said before putting off that morning that what sail came off that day would be blown off?––yes, sir––let it blow a hundred miles an hour. And fishermen’s pride was keeping sail on us and the Foster. Hollis tried to make it look 261 that his staysail blew off, but we knew better––a knife to the halyards did the work.

It was after her big staysail was off and she making easier weather of it that the Withrow crossed the Lucy’s bow for the first time in the race and took the lead.

We all felt for Mr. Duncan, who couldn’t seem to believe his eyes. We all felt for Wesley, too, who was desperately trying to hold the wind of the Withrow––he had even rigged blocks to his jib sheets and led them to cleats clear aft to flatten his headsails yet more. And Wesley’s crew hauled like demons on those jib sheets––hauled and hauled with the vessel under way all the time––hauled so hard, in fact, that with the extra purchase given them by the blocks they pulled the cleats clean out, and away went the Lucy’s jib and jumbo––and there was Wesley hung up. And out of the race, for we were all too near the finish for her to win out then unless the Johnnie and the Withrow capsized entirely.

Mr. Duncan, when he saw the Lucy’s crew trying to save the headsails, couldn’t contain himself.

“Cut ’em away––cut ’em to hell!” he sang out, and we all had to smile, he spoke so excitedly. But it was no use. The Lucy was out of the race, and going by her, we didn’t look at Mr. Duncan nor 262 Wesley Marrs––we knew they were both taking it hard––but watched the Withrow.

Over on the other tack we went, first the Withrow, then the Johnnie. We were nearing the finish line, and we were pretty well worked up––the awful squalls were swooping down and burying us. We could hear Hollis’s voice and see his crew go up when he warned his men at the wheel to ease up on her when the squalls hit. On our vessel the skipper never waved an arm nor opened his mouth to Clancy at the wheel. And of his own accord you may be sure that Clancy wasn’t easing up. Not Tommie Clancy––no, sir––he just drove her––let her have it full––lashed her like, with his teeth and eyes flashing through the sea that was swashing over him. And the Johnnie fairly sizzled through the water.

There were several times in the race when we thought the going was as bad as could be, but now we were all sure that this was the worst of all. There was some excuse for Mr. Duncan when he called out:

“My God, Tommie, but if she makes one of those low dives again, will she ever come up?”

“I dunno,” said Clancy to that. “But don’t you worry, Mr. Duncan, if any vessel out of Gloucester’ll come up, this one’ll come up.”

He was standing with the water, the clear water, 263 not the swash, well up to his waist then, and we could hear him:

That was too much for Mr. Duncan, and, watching his chance, he dove between the house and rail, to the weather rigging, where the skipper grabbed him and made him fast beside himself. The old man took a look down the slant of the deck and took a fresh hold of the rigging.

“Captain Blake, isn’t she down pretty low?”

“Maybe––maybe––Mr. Duncan, but she’ll go lower yet before the sail comes off her. This is the day Sam Hollis was going to make me take in sail.”

Less than a minute after that we made our rush for the line. Hollis tried to crowd us outside the stake-boat, which was rolling head to wind and sea, worse than a lightship in a surf gale––tried to crowd us out just as an awful squall swooped down. It was the Johnnie or the Withrow then. We took it full and they didn’t, and there is all there was to it. But for a minute it was either vessel’s race. At the critical time Sam Hollis didn’t have the nerve, and the skipper and Clancy did.

They looked at each other––the skipper and Clancy––and Clancy soaked her. Held to it cruelly––recklessly. It was too much to ask of a vessel. Down she went––buried. It was heaven or hell, as they say, for a while. I know I climbed on to her weather run, and it was from there I saw Withrow ducking her head to it––hove to, in fact, for the blast to pass.

The Johnnie weathered it. Able––able. Up she rose, a horse, and across the line we shot like a bullet, and so close to the judge’s boat that we could have jumped aboard.

We all but hit the Henry Clay Parker, Billie Simms’s vessel, on the other side of the line, and it was on her that old Peter of Crow’s Nest, leaping into the air and cracking his heels together, called out as we drove by:

“The Johnnie Duncan wins––the able Johnnie Duncan––sailin’ across the line on her side and her crew sittin’ out on the keel.”