Frank Merriwell's Athletes: or, The Boys Who Won

“She’s a little boat,” he said; “but she’s a peach! There won’t be any room to spare on board, but we’ll manage to get along somehow. It is plain she was built for not more than five or six, and there are eight of us.”

Bart Hodge came down.

“By Jove!” he said, dropping on a cushioned seat, “I am feeling better, don’t you know. I hated to sail for Honolulu, and now we’ll soon be so far from San Francisco that there’ll not be much danger of arrest. I want to stick by you, Merry.”

“And I hope we’ll be able to hang together, old fellow,” assured Frank. “You have been beating about for yourself far too long.”

“I know it – I can see it now. It’s lucky you turned up just as you did, for I was going to the dogs.”

Frank examined the wardrobe, and a cry of satisfaction came from him.

“Look here!” he exclaimed. “Here are a number of yachting suits. Perhaps we can dig out suits for all of us.”

They overhauled the clothing, and Frank and Bart soon found suits which fitted them very well. In fact, Merriwell was so well built that he obtained a splendid fit, and remarkably handsome he appeared in the cap, short jacket and light trousers of a yachtsman.

“We are strictly in it,” he smiled, surveying Bart. “I’ll go on deck and send the others down for suits, while you remain here and assist them in the selections. I want to keep my eye on Lord Stanford, anyway.”

So Frank ascended the companion way, and soon took Barney’s place at the helm, sending him and Bruce below.

The boys were much surprised to see Merriwell appear in a yachting suit, and he explained that he had purchased everything on board the Greyhound, which included the suits in the wardrobe, as they plainly were not all Chandler’s personal property, having been designed for men of different build.

“Vale, uf dot don’d peat der pand!” muttered the Dutch boy. “Uf dere peen a suit der lot in dot vill fit me, I vill show der poys vat a dandy sailors der Dutch makes. Yaw!”

Barney soon returned to the deck, having found a very good fit, but he said Bruce was having more difficulty.

“Begorra! there wur a fat mon on borrud, an’ he’s lift a suit thot will fit this Dutch chase,” grinned the Irish lad.

“Why you don’d drop id callin’ me dot names, Barney!” cried Hans. “I don’t like dot, you pet!”

The other lads went below to see what they could find in the way of clothes as Frank sent them, Toots being the last.

Every boy found a suit, although in some cases the clothes were too loose. Hans came swelling on deck, wearing a suit with the legs of the trousers turned up several inches and the wrists of the coat sleeves rolled back.

“Say!” he grinned; “I vos a pird! Did you efer seen der peat me of now, I don’t know?”

Toots had discovered an ordinary sailor’s suit, with white anchors worked upon it, and he was proud as a peacock.

The very first leg across had carried them out past Black Point, upon which Fort Mason frowned down upon them when they swung close under the shore and went about on the other tack.

At first the Greyhound gained on the Fox, as Merry could see; but as Lord Stanford’s yacht approached the open ocean she found a stronger breeze and danced along in a lively manner.

Other vessels were in the narrows, but there was plenty of room for them all.

Frank had brought a marine glass from below, and he used it to watch the Fox, having permitted Barney to take the helm again.

Merry could see Lord Stanford standing on the deck near the companion way, talking to one of his men. From the manner of the Englishman, it was apparent that he did not suspect he was being pursued.

“So much the better,” muttered the new owner of the Greyhound. “If he does not catch on right away we may be able to overhaul him and lay alongside without being suspected.”

He watched the Fox till it shot out past Fort Point and disappeared beyond the point of land on which the fort was located.

“So they are bound southward,” muttered Merry. “Ten to one they are going down the coast to Santa Cruz – possibly to Santa Barbara, although that is quite a cruise.”

Half an hour later the Greyhound ran out past Fort Point, and the Fox was discovered far away along the coast, steadily bearing to the south.

“We’re after you, my boy,” muttered Frank. “I don’t believe you’ll be able to run away from us in a hurry.”

There was a heavy swell on – an “old say,” Barney called it. It was seen that the Fox was rolling a great deal.

“They are sure to hug the coast pretty close,” Merriwell decided. “I don’t believe Lord Stanford cares about getting far from land in that boat. The Greyhound will sail anywhere he can go.”

It became a steady sail to the south, and Frank cracked on every stitch of canvas, hoping to come up with the Fox hand-over-hand. In this he was disappointed, although it was plain that they gained somewhat.

The afternoon sun sank lower and lower. Toots was appointed steward, and prepared a meal from the supply of provisions on board.

At sunset the Fox was seen rounding a distant point of land and making into a bay.

“I rather think she means to stop there to-night,” said Frank.

He examined the chart and decided that it was Half-moon Bay.

“If the wind holds,” he declared, “we will come upon them there to-night.”

But as the sun sank in a reddish haze that seemed like a conflagration far out on the open ocean, the wind died entirely and the Greyhound lay becalmed, rolling helplessly on the “old sea.”

“But it’s a good bit av a brase we’ll be afther havin’ before mawnin’,” Barney declared. “Oi nivver saw th’ sun go down thot way when it didn’t poipe up lather on.”

The Irish lad was right. Frank believed this, and he ordered everything made tight, while both mainsail and jib was double-reefed, and the topsails taken in.

“I don’t see the good of all this work,” grumbled Diamond. “Here we are rolling around without a breath of wind, and yet we’re taking in sail as if it were blowing a hurricane.”

Frank paid no attention to Jack, who, in a most astonishing manner, had developed into a grumbler since starting out on the bicycle tour across the continent.

Barney, however, was not pleased with the Virginian’s remarks, and he snorted:

“Pwhat’s th’ matther wid yez? It’s a roight shmart bit av a sailor ye’d make – Oi don’t think! Ye’d wait till th’ wind blew, an’ thin ye’d be afther rafing.”

Jack did not fancy being talked to in this manner by the Irish lad. He flushed hotly, and seemed on the point of assaulting Barney, but Mulloy gave indications that he was ready and anxious for a “scrap,” and Diamond thought better of it.

The rolling swell proved decidedly trying for some of the boys, and Diamond was the first to get sick. In fact, he had begun to feel ill when he grumbled about shortening sail.

“Dot poy vas opeyin’ der Pible,” grinned Hans, pointing to Jack, who was leaning over the rail. “Der Pible says, ‘Cast your pread der vater on,’ und py shimminy! he vas doin’ dot, ain’d id!”

Then the Dutch boy opened wide his mouth and laughed heartily. Suddenly he pressed his hands to his stomach and stopped laughing, a queer, troubled look coming to his fat face.

“Shimminy!” he muttered. “I vonder vot der madder mit me vas, don’d id? I nefer felt so queer all mein life in.”

Then, as the Greyhound fell away into the trough of the sea, with a peculiar sinking motion, he gasped:

“Dot subber vot I ate don’d seem mit me to agree. I pet you your life dot canned chickens vas sboilt. I peliefed all der time dot chickens vas a hen, but id vas der first hen I efer seen as didn’t vant to set.”

“Begorra! it’s saysack ye are alriddy,” chuckled Barney. “You’ll be kapin’ company wid Diamond dirictly.”

“Yaw,” gasped Hans. “I pelief you, Parney.”

Then he made a rush for the rail, and followed Jack’s example.

Darkness came on, creeping in a blue haze across the water. Shortly after nightfall there was a faint, weird moaning away on the surface of the sea, which glowed like liquid fire under the rail of the yacht.

“It’s the auld nick av a blow we’ll have,” declared Barney to Frank. “Oi don’t loike it at all, at all.”

“You like it quite as well as I do,” admitted Merriwell. “I am not familiar with these waters, and I do not fancy the idea of piling up on lea shore.”

The moaning arose to a shrill cry, and then the wind came with a sudden rush, catching the Greyhound and knocking her on beam ends in a twinkling.

Frank assisted Barney at the helm, shouting:

“Hold fast, everybody!”

The little vessel righted, and then away she leaped, laying hard over to port, with the rail awash.

Like a frightened race horse the Greyhound sped away, with the wild wind beating upon her and shrieking through her rigging. The mast bent with a snapping sound.

“Ease off the sheet!” shouted Frank. “We’re in danger of losing that stick, and we’ll be finished if we do!”

So the boat was allowed to run free, which eased the strain somewhat.

Now the wind was shrieking as if all the demons of the deep had been set loose in a moment and were making an assault on the little yacht that had been caught in the midst of the tempest.

At nightfall Frank had taken precaution to see that the proper lights were set, green to starboard and red to port.

The sky was covered with flying masses of clouds, between which the cold stars blinked and vanished, like the flashes of guns seen through masses of rolling smoke.

After a little the moon rose and leaped up into the mass of clouds, as if eager to be in the midst of the wild delirium of the reeling sky.

The Greyhound leaped along the crests of the waves, plunged into the depths of the watery valleys, and tore her way through the seething, boiling sea.

Frank was watching her with the greatest anxiety, wondering what sort of storm boat she would prove to be.

Diamond, Browning, Hans and Toots got below. Rattleton and Hodge remained on deck with Frank and Barney.

When the moon shot out through the clouds the boys could see a great waste of water heaving and plunging all around them, like a sea of snow.

But the moon appeared and disappeared in such an erratic manner that it was extremely irritating, making the whole world seem a place of troubled shadows and awesome shapes.

“It’s dead lucky we reefed down for this, Barney,” cried Frank, placing his lips close to the Irish lad’s ear.

“Roight ye are, me b’y,” Mulloy called back, cheerfully. “It’s a good bit av a braze she’s blowing now, an’ Oi think there’s more comin’.”

“Will she stand, it?”

“Av it ain’t too sthiff. It’s a roight tight litthle boat she is, an’ all we nade is to kape off shore an’ let her go.”

Beginning to feel satisfied with the behavior of the yacht, Frank felt a wild thrill of delight in the fury of the tempest. He knew something about managing a large boat himself, and he felt confidence in Barney’s qualifications as a sailor.

The moon leaped from the edge of one cloud to the edge of another, as if it, too, were running a race across the sky and taking all sorts of desperate chances.

There was the sound of sullen thunder in the tumbling sea, which swished and swirled about the little vessel like hissing serpents.

Now and then Frank strained his eyes to port, for he knew the coast lay there to leeward, and he had no fancy for suddenly coming upon some rocky point that might project far out into the sea.

He fully understood that, in case the Greyhound should become disabled, it would not take the wind long to pile them upon the shore, where the seas would beat out their lives on the rocks.

There was danger in the tempest, and it was just enough to keep Merriwell’s blood rushing warm in his veins.

“If Stanford’s yacht has found shelter in Half-moon Bay, we’ll be a hundred miles below them in the morning,” he cried to Barney.

“Sure,” agreed the Irish lad. “But nivver a bit can we hilp thot, Frankie.”

The first half of the night was wild and boisterous. Near midnight the wind fell somewhat, but it still blew so strong that the Greyhound held on its course.

Toward morning the tempest died out, and sunrise found them rolling helplessly on the long swells, without enough breeze to steady the boat.

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