Adventure, November 1915 — page 54: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

ILD oR Rae A ad On TY Pee 7 SN fa lis pag ‘ CIF ¥ th hid Feith i tat NY age ts Fi, OGL c/ 4k -said Addams. eee 52 Adventure coffee clutched in one hand. The schooner lunged in long pitches as she rose to the seas. “Fo’ bells,’ said Selim, smiling, his brown face rimed with spray. ‘I got hot hash for you. The devil woman, she, oh, verree sick.” As their senses cleared they could hear between the slamming seas a high-pitched continuous moan from the cabin where Henley’s sister was locked in. Addams sat up, rubbing the stubborn sleep from his eyes, and began to put on the sticky oilskins he had discarded four hours before. “Let her rave,” said Jim, sleepily follow- ing his example. ‘Gee, but this coffee’s good, Selim!’ : They went into the galley, forking the hash from the pot lashed to the stove, and then gained the deck. The sunfire glowed, close to the horizon, far away across a waste of streaking seas beyond the port bow, showing through the cloud-rack as if behind the bars of a clogged grate. On either side of the dim sun was the misty loom of land, far off, the blotches showing now and then as the schooner lifted to the crests. | “Keelai Kahiki Channel, however they pronounce it,” said Addams, “lies between Lauai and Kahoolawe. Main’s beyond. You can just see the mountain.” The crest of Haleakala, ten thousand feet above sea level, wrapped in a muddy fleece of clouds, revealed itself, a smudge against the working sky. ‘“‘We’ve come seventy miles and over,” “This is going to be some race, Jim.” Foo Chin greeted them cheerily as Ad- dams took the wheel. Ah Sing and Loo Chow were forward in the lee of the foresail. Addams motioned them to go below. “We'll take her over,” he said, as the tired men gratefully sought the forward companion. “Get something to eat and turn in.” ; The wind blew steadily at a clip that presaged hours of force behind it. waves, their crests flattened to the blast like the ears of an angry cat, surged against them as the seaworthy schooner battled with them, rank by rank, shook them off and kept her steady course. Boom tackles had been rigged, but there was no need for tacking; and minute after minute, hour by - hour, they sped onward. The — “Eight bells passed, the sharp strokes of -the cabin clock repeated by Selim, who had. come on deck and tapped them off on the yacht’s bronze bell. On Addams’ order he hauled in the log. It registered eighty- seven knots. : “Take off seven for leeway,” said Ad- dams. “That’s eight knots an hour, Jim. I'll wager the lumber schooner isn’t doing a whole lot better than six with her bows and beam. At this rate we'll fetch the is- land in four days and a half, and we’re gaining fifty a day on her. We'll overhaul her easily.”’ “Great!” cried Winton. The short sleep, now that the gale had blown its linger- ing traces away, left them revivified, re- inspired with the spirit of the quest. The seas raced by them, bowing their crests as if in acknowledgment of mastery. A frigate-bird swooped above them with hard incurious eye and braced wings, wheeling away to leeward after a brief scrutiny, reap- pearing again and again at intervals. “Good luck!” cried Selim, pointing at the bird which squawked an answer as it plunged downward into the turmoil of the wake. At four bells Ah Sing and his mates reap- peared, and the two white men went below to consult their charts. Selim followed them. The flaps of the cabin table had been raised and the surface set with a cloth, and dishes held in fiddles. In the passageway between the forward staterooms stood a slight figure, lithe to the motion of the ves- sel, clad in blue serge, the eager face crowned with red-gold hair, smiling at them. “Peggy!” they cried simultaneously. _ ““Come aboard, sir,” she said, still stand- ing in the little corridor. “What are you doing here?” asked Win- ton angrily. ‘This is no place for you, Peggy!” “T had to come,” she said. “I’m a third partner. You said so, Archer. Treat me as a stowaway if you want to. I’ll scrape paint or be a cabin-boy, but I had to come.”’ “You had no right! You'll only be in the way!’’ exclaimed her brother.” Peggy’s blue eyes filled. - “T’]/ not be in the way,” she faltered. Addams’ heart went out to the plucky girl, swaying with the pitch of the schooner. ‘“Tim’s right,” he said. ‘You have no right aboard, Peggy. This is a man’s trip CORMICGLOOKS (C@