"Bolton's the name, all right," he grinned. "But that famous stuff is
the bunk."
Dorothy was herself again, and a little ashamed of her burst of feeling.
"But you _are_ the aviator!" She went on, more calmly. "My father told
me the other day that you and your father were coming to live across the
road from us. And I don't mind telling you we're simply thrilled! You
see, I've read about you in the papers--and I know all about the
wonderful things you've done!"
"I'm afraid you've got an exaggerated idea--it was all in the day's
work, you know," protested the blonde-headed young man, his eyebrows
slanting quizzically, "I'm Bill Bolton, but I didn't barge in on you to
talk about myself. You're starting out for a sail in that sloop that's
moored over there, I take it?"
"Why, yes, I am. Want to come along?"
"Thanks a lot. I've got a business matter to attend to down here in a
few minutes." He hesitated a moment, then--"I know it's none of my
affair, but don't you think it's rather risky to go for a sail just
now?"
Dorothy shrugged. "Oh, I don't know. There's a two reef breeze blowing
out beyond the Point, but that's nothing to worry about. I've sailed all
over Long Island Sound since I was a kid, and I've been out in worse
blows than this, lots of times."
"Maybe," countered Bill. "Storm warnings were broadcast about an hour
ago. We're in for a northeaster--"
She broke in scoffingly--"Oh! those weathermen! They're always wrong.
It's a perfectly scrumptious afternoon. The storm, if it comes, will
probably show up sometime tomorrow!"
"Well," he retorted, "you're your own boss, I suppose.--If you were my
sister," he added suddenly, "you wouldn't go sailing today."
"Then it's a good thing I'm _not_ your sister. Thanks for your
interest," she mocked. There was a hint of anger in her voice at the
suspicion that Bill Bolton was trying to patronize her. "Don't worry,"
she added, resuming her usual tone, "I can handle a boat--Good-bye!"
Their eyes met; Bill's gravely accusing, hers, full of defiant
determination.
"Good-bye--sorry I spoke." Bill turned away and walked up the beach
toward the club house.
Dorothy chuckled when she saw him throw a quick glance over his
shoulder. She waved her hand, but he kept on without appearing to notice
the friendly gesture.
"A temper goes with that blond hair," she said to herself, digging a
bare heel into the loose shingle. "I guess I was pretty rude, though.
But what right had he to talk like that? Bill Bolton may be a famous
aviator, but he's only a year older than I am."
She ran the skiff out through the shallows and sprang aboard. Standing
on the stern thwart she sculled the small craft forward with short,
strong strokes, and presently nosed alongside the _Scud_. As she boarded
the sloop and turned with the skiff's painter in her hand she caught
sight of Bill getting into an open roadster on the club driveway.
"I guess he meant well," she observed to the wavelets that lapped the
side of the _Scud_, "but just the same--well, that's that."
Making the painter secure to a cleat in the stern, she set about lacing
a couple of reefs into the mainsail. Having tied the last reef-point,
she loosened the skiff's painter, pulled the boat forward and skillfully
knotted the rope to the sloop's mooring. Then she cast off the mooring
altogether and ran aft to her place at the tiller.
The _Scud's_ head played off. Dorothy, as she had told Bill, was no
novice at the art of small boat sailing. With her back bracing the
tiller she ran up the jib and twisted the halyard to a cleat close at
hand.
Then as the sloop gained steerageway, she pulled on the peak and throat
halyards until the reefed-down mainsail was setting well. The _Scud_, a
fast twenty-footer, was rigged with a fore-staysail and gaff-topsail as
well, but Dorothy knew better than to break them out in a wind like
this.
As it was she carried all the canvas her little boat would stand, and
they ran out past the Point, which acted as a breakwater to the yacht
club inlet, with the starboard gunwale well awash. The wind out here
stiffened perceptibly and Dorothy wished she had tied in three reefs
instead of two before starting. Her better judgment told her to go about
and seek the quieter waters of the inlet. But here, pride took a hand.
If she turned back and gave up her afternoon sail, the next time she saw
Bill Bolton she must admit he had been right. No. That would never do.
Although the wind out here was stiffer than she had imagined, this was
no northeast gale; a good three-reef breeze, that was all. So lowering
the peak slightly she continued to head her little craft offshore.
The _Scud_ fought and bucked like a wild thing, deluging Dorothy with
spray. She gloried in the tug of the tiller, the sting of the salt
breeze, the dance of her craft over choppy seas. Glistening in the clear
summer sunlight, flecked with tiny whitecaps, the landlocked water
stretched out to where the low hills of Long Island banked the horizon
in a blur of purple and green.
Now and then as she luffed into a particularly strong gust, Dorothy had
her misgivings. But pride, confidence in her ability to handle her boat
and the thrill of danger kept her going.
She had been sailing for about an hour, beating her way eastward with
the Connecticut shore four or five miles off her port quarter, when all
at once, somehow, she felt a change. The sunshine seemed less brilliant,
the shadows less solid, less sharply outlined. It seemed as if a very
thin gauze had been drawn across the sun dimming without obscuring it.
Dorothy searched the sky in vain to discover the smallest shred of
cloud.
At the same time the breeze slackened and the air, which had been
stimulant and quick with oxygen seemed to become thick, sluggish,
suffocating. Presently, the _Scud_ was lying becalmed, while the ground
swell, long and perfectly smooth, set sagging jib and mainsail flapping.
Except for the rattling of the blocks and the creaking of the boom, the
silence, after the whistling wind of a few minutes before, was
tremendously oppressive.
Then in the distance there was a low growl of thunder. In a moment came
a louder, angrier growl--as if the first were a menace which had not
been heeded. But the first growl was quite enough for Dorothy. She knew
what was coming and let go her halyards, bringing down her sails with a
run. Now fully alive to the danger, she raced to her work of making the
little craft secure to meet the oncoming storm.
She was gathering in the mainsail, preparatory to furling it when there
was a violent gust of wind, cold, smelling of the forests from which it
came, corrugating the steely surface of the Sound. Two or three big
raindrops fell--and then, the deluge.
Dorothy rushed to a locker, pulled out a slicker and sou'wester and
donned them. Returning to her place by the tiller, she watched the rain.
Rain had never rained so hard, she thought. Already both the Connecticut
and Long Island shores were completely blotted out, hidden behind walls
of water. The big drops pelted the Sound like bullets, sending up
splashes bigger than themselves.
Then suddenly the wind came tearing across the inland sea from out the
northeast. Thunder crashed, roared, reverberated. Lightning slashed
through the black cloud-canopy in long, blinding zigzags. The wind
moaned, howled, shrieked, immense in its wild force, immense in its
reckless fury.
A capsized sloop wallowed in the trough of heavy seas rearing a dripping
keel skyward--and to this perilous perch clung Dorothy.
_Chapter II_