Chapter X

"Look at Dabney Kinzer," whispered Jenny Walters to her mother, in church, the next morning. "Did you ever see anybody's hair as smooth as that?"

And smooth it was, certainly; and he looked, all over, as if he had given all the care in the world to his personal appearance. How was Annie Foster to guess that he had got himself up so unusually on her account? She did not guess it; but when she met him at the church door, after service, she was careful to address him as "Mr. Kinzer," and that made poor Dabney blush to his very eyes.

"There!" he exclaimed; "I know it."

"Know what?" asked Annie.

"Know what you're thinking."

"Do you, indeed?"

"Yes, you think I'm like the crabs."

"What _do_ you mean?"

]

"You think I was green enough till you spoke to me, and now I'm boiled red in the face."

Annie could not help laughing,--a little, quiet, Sunday morning sort of a laugh,--but she was beginning to think her brother's friend was not a bad specimen of a Long Island "country boy." Ford, indeed, had come home, the previous evening, from a long conference with Dab, brimful of the proposed yachting cruise, and his father had freely given his consent, much against the will of Mrs. Foster.

"My dear," said the lawyer, "I feel sure a woman of Mrs. Kinzer's good sense would not permit her son to go out in that way if she did not feel safe about him. He's been brought up to it, you know, and so has the colored boy who is to go with them."

"Yes, mother," argued Ford, "there isn't half the danger there is in driving around New York in a carriage."

"There might be a storm."

"The horses might run away."

"Or you might upset."

"So might a carriage."

But the end of it all was that Ford was to go, and Annie was more than half sorry she could not go with him. She said so to Dabney, as soon as her little laugh was ended, that Sunday morning.

"Some time or other, I'd be glad to have you," replied Dab, "but not this trip."

"Why not?"

"We mean to go right across the bay and try some fishing."

"Couldn't I fish?"

"Well, no. I don't think you could."

"Why couldn't I?"

"Because,--well, because you'd most likely be too sea-sick by the time we got there."

Just then a low, clear voice, behind Dabney, quietly remarked: "How smooth his hair is!" And Dab's face turned red again. Annie Foster heard it as distinctly as he did, and she walked right away with her mother, for fear she should laugh again.

"It's my own hair, Jenny Walters," said Dab, almost savagely.

"I should hope it was."

"I should like to know what you go to church for, anyhow?"

"To hear people talk about sailing and fishing. How much do you s'pose a young lady like Miss Foster cares about small boys?"

"Or little girls either? Not much; but Annie and I mean to have a good sail before long."

"Annie and I!"

Jenny's pert little nose seemed to turn up more than ever as she walked away, for she had not beaten her old playfellow quite as badly as usual. There were several sharp things on the very tip of her tongue, but she was too much put out and vexed to try to say them just then. As for Dabney, a "sail" was not so wonderful a thing for him, and that Sunday was therefore a good deal like all others; but Ford Foster's mind was in a sort of turmoil all day. In fact, just after tea, that evening, his father asked him:

"What book is that you are reading, Ford?"

"Captain Cook's 'Voyages.'"

"And the other in your lap?"

"'Robinson Crusoe.'"

"Well, you might have worse books than they are, even for Sunday, that's a fact, though you ought to have better; but which of them do you and Dabney Kinzer mean to imitate to-morrow?"

"Crusoe," promptly responded Ford.

"I see. And so you've got Dick Lee to go along as your Man-Friday."

"He's Dab's man, not mine."

"Oh, and you mean to be Crusoe number two? Well, don't get cast away on too desolate an island, that's all."

Ford slipped into the library and put the books away. It had been Samantha Kinzer's room, and had plenty of shelves, in addition to the very elegant "cases" Mr. Foster had brought from the city with him.

The next morning, within half an hour after breakfast, every member of the two families was down at the landing to see their young sailors make their start, and they were all compelled to admit that Dab and Dick seemed to know precisely what they were about. As for Ford, that young gentleman was wise enough, with all those eyes watching him, not to try anything he was not sure of, though he explained that "Dab is captain, Annie, you know. I'm under his orders to-day."

Dick Lee was hardly the wisest fellow in the world, for he added, very encouragingly: "An' you's doin' tip-top for a green hand, you is."

The wind was blowing right off shore, and did not seem to promise anything more than a smart breeze. It was easy enough to handle the little craft in the inlet, and in a marvelously short time she was dancing out upon the blue waves of the spreading "bay." It was a good deal more like a land-locked "sound" than any sort of a bay, with that long, low, narrow sand-island cutting it off from the ocean.

"I don't wonder Ham Morris called her the 'Swallow,'" remarked Ford. "How she skims! Can you get in under the deck, there, forward? That's the cabin?"

"Yes, that's the cabin," replied Dab; "but Ham had the door put in with a slide, water-tight. It's fitted with rubber. We can put our things in there, but it's too small for anything else."

"What's it made so tight for?"

"Oh, Ham says he's made his yacht a life-boat. Those places at the sides and under the seats are all air-tight. She might capsize, but she'd never sink. Don't you see?"

"I see. How it blows!"

"It's a little fresh. How'd you like to be wrecked?"

"Good fun," said Ford. "I got wrecked on the cars the other day."

"On the cars?"

"Why, yes. I forgot to tell you about that."

And then followed a very vivid and graphic description of the sad fate of the pig and the locomotive. The wonder was how Ford should have failed to tell it before. No such failure would have been possible if his head and tongue had not been so wonderfully busy about so many other things ever since his arrival.

"I'm glad it was I instead of Annie," he said, at length.

"Of course. Didn't you tell me your sister came through all alone?"

"Yes; she ran away from those cousins of mine. Oh, wont I pay them off when I get to Grantley!"

"Where's that? What did they do?"

The "Swallow" was flying along nicely now, with Dab at the tiller and Dick Lee tending sail, and Dab could listen with all his ears to Ford Foster's account of his sister's tribulations.

"Aint they older and bigger than you?" asked Dabney, as Ford closed his recital. "What can you do with two of 'em?"

"They can't box worth a cent, and I can. Anyhow, I mean to teach them better manners."

"You can box?"

"Had a splendid teacher."

"Will you show me how, when we get back?"

"We can practice all we choose. I've two pair of gloves."

"Hurrah for that! Ease her, Dick! It's blowing pretty fresh. We'll have a tough time tacking home against such a breeze as this. May be it'll change before night."

"Capt'in Dab," calmly remarked Dick, "we's on'y a mile to run."

"Well, what of it?"

"Is you goin' fo' de inlet?"

"Of course. What else can we do? That's what we started for."

"Looks kind o' dirty, dat's all."

So far as Ford could see, both the sky and the water looked clean enough, but Dick was right about the weather. In fact, if Captain Dabney Kinzer had been a more experienced and prudent seaman, he would have kept the "Swallow" inside the bar, that day, at any risk of Ford Foster's good opinion. As it was, even Dick Lee's keen eyes hardly comprehended how threatening was the foggy haze that was lying low on the water, miles and miles away to seaward.

It was magnificently exciting fun, at all events, and the "Swallow" fully merited all that had been said in her favor. The "mile to run" was a very short one, and it seemed to Ford Foster that the end of it would bring them up high and dry on the sandy beach.

The narrow "strait" of the inlet was hardly visible at any considerable distance. It opened to view, however, as they drew near, and Dab Kinzer rose higher than ever in his friend's good opinion as the swift little vessel shot unerringly into the contracted channel.

"Pretty near where we're to try our fishing, aint we?" he asked.

"Just outside, there. Get ready, Dick. Sharp now!"

And then, in another minute, the white sails were down, jib and main, the "Swallow" was drifting along under "bare poles," and Dick Lee and Ford were waiting for orders to drop the grapnel.

"Heave!"

Over went the iron.

"Now for some weak-fish. It's about three fathoms, and the tide's near the turn."

Alas for human calculations! The grapnel caught on the bottom, surely and firmly; but the moment there came any strain on the seemingly stout hawser that held it, the latter parted like a thread, and the "Swallow" was adrift!

"Somebody's done gone cut dat rope!" shouted Dick, as he caught up the treacherous bit of hemp.

There was an anxious look on Dab's face for a moment, as he shouted: "Sharp now, boys, or we'll be rolling in the surf in three minutes! Haul away, Dick! Haul with him, Ford! Up with her! There, that'll give us headway."

Ford Foster looked out to seaward, even as he hauled his best on the sail halliards. All along the line of the coast, at distances varying from a hundred yards or so to nearly a mile, there was an irregular line of foaming breakers. An awful thing for a boat like the "Swallow" to run into.

Perhaps; but ten times worse for a larger craft, for the latter would be shattered on the shoals where the bit of a yacht would find plenty of water under her, if she did not at the same time find too much _over_ her.

"Can't we go back through the inlet in the bar?" asked Ford.

"Not with this wind in our teeth, and it's getting worse every minute. No more will it do to try and keep inside the surf."

"What can we do, then?"

"Take the smoothest places and run 'em. The sea isn't very rough outside. It's our only chance."

Poor Ford Foster's heart sank within him, but he saw a resolute look on "Captain Kinzer's" face which gave him a little confidence, and he turned to look at the surf. The only way for the "Swallow" to penetrate that dangerous barrier of broken water was to "take it nose on," as Dick Lee expressed it, and that was clearly what Dab Kinzer intended.

There were places of comparative smoothness, here and there, in the foaming and plunging line, but they were bad enough, at the best, and would have been a great deal worse but for that stiff breeze off shore.

Bows foremost, full sail, rising like a cork on the long, strong billows, which would have rolled her over and over if she had not been really so skillfully handled,--once or twice pitching dangerously, and shipping water enough to wet her brave young mariners to the skin, and call for vigorous baling afterward,--the "Swallow" battled gallantly with her danger for a few minutes, and then Dab Kinzer shouted:

"Hurrah, boys! We're out at sea!"

"Dat's so," said Dick.

"So it is," remarked Ford, a little gloomily; "but how will we ever get ashore again?"

"Well," replied Dab, "if it doesn't come on to blow too hard, we'll run right on down the coast. If the wind lulled, or whopped around a little, we'd find our way in, easy enough, long before night. We might have a tough time beating home across the bay. Anyhow, we're safe enough now."

"How about fishing?"

"Guess we wont bother 'em much, but you might try for a blue fish. Sometimes they're capital fun, right along here."