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?”
“Up to Springton,” replied the other. “Straight ahead.”
“All right,” said Harvey, “you can get there if you will only be a little more careful. Don’t try to run straight for the town. Keep off either way – do you see?” And Harvey designated how the other could run in safety.
“Run on one course a way,” he said, continuing, “and then put her about and run on the other. But look out and don’t jibe her. Let her come about into the wind. Now do you think you can get along?”
“Yes,” answered the youth, shortly. He had by this time finished his bailing, and the cockpit floor was fairly free of water.
“Well, then, I’ll bid you an affectionate farewell,” said Harvey, who had taken mental note of the fact that the youth had not offered to thank him for all his trouble. “Sorry to leave you, but the best of friends must part, you know. Good day.”
“Good day,” answered the youth, without offering even to shake hands.
Harvey lost little time in regaining the deck of the Viking. Henry Burns was still smiling as Harvey took the wheel from him.
“We seem to have made a very pleasant acquaintance,” he said.
“Haven’t we though!” exclaimed Harvey. “If we were only in some nice, quiet harbour, where the water wasn’t very deep, I’d just see whether that young chap can swim or not. He’d get one ducking – ”
“Oh, by the way,” called Henry Burns, as the two boats were separating, “you’re entirely welcome to our assistance, you know. You needn’t write us a letter thanking us. We know your feelings are just too deep for thanks.”
“Little thanks I owe you,” snarled the other boy. “’Twas all your fault, anyway. If you had kept off, my boat wouldn’t have gone over.”
Jack Harvey sprang from his seat and shook his fist in the direction of the disappearing boat.
“Hold on there, Jack,” said Henry Burns, catching him by the arm. “Don’t get excited. Do you know the answer to what he just said? Well, there isn’t any. Just smile and wave your hand to him, as I do. He’s really funnier than Squire Brackett.”
“Oh, yes, it is funny,” answered Jack Harvey, scowling off astern. “It’s so funny it makes me sick. But perhaps you’d think it was funnier still, if you had gone at that bailing the way I did, and had looked up all of a sudden and seen that chap sitting back there at his ease, smoking. I’ll just laugh about it for the rest of the week. That’s what I will.”
Jack Harvey certainly did not appear to be laughing.
“Above all things,” he said at length, “what do you suppose he meant by saying it was our fault? That’s the last straw for me. We didn’t jibe his boat for him.”
“No,” said Henry Burns, “but he probably owns the bay, and was mad to see us sailing on it. He acted that way.”
“Well, it has cost us about an hour and a half good time,” exclaimed Harvey – “though I should not begrudge it if he hadn’t acted the way he did. We won’t win that race in to Southport, by a long shot. It’s about half-past six o’clock, and we cannot make it in less than two hours and a half, even if the wind holds.”
This latter condition expressed by Harvey was, indeed, to prove most annoying. With the dropping of the sun behind the far-distant hills, the wind perceptibly and rapidly diminished. They set their club-topsail to catch the upper airs, but the last hour was sluggish sailing. It was a few minutes to ten o’clock when the Viking rounded the bluff that guards the northeastern entrance to the snug harbour of Southport.
“There’s no show for that warm supper to-night, I’m afraid,” said Harvey, as they turned the bluff and stood slowly into the harbour.
The immediate answer to this remark was an “Ahoy, there, on board the Viking!” from across the water. The next moment, the familiar canoe shot into sight and Tom Harris and Bob White were quickly on deck.
“We beat you fellows by a few minutes,” said Tom Harris, laughing at Harvey.
“Look out for Jack,” said Henry Burns, with a wink at the other two. “He has been having so much fun that he doesn’t want any more. And, besides, he’s starving – and so am I; and we might eat little boys up if they plague us.”
“Why,