THE RACE
The sloop that was to represent the Halsted Camp Fire in the race
arrived in the cove late in the morning, and from the shore there seemed
to be no difference in size between the two little craft. They were
different, and one might prove swifter than the other, for no two boats
of that sort were ever exactly alike. But so far as could be judged, the
race was likely to be a test rather of how the boats were sailed than of
their speed, boat for boat.
"I think you can sail on even terms, Dolly," said Eleanor. "I don't
believe there'll be any need for either of you to give away any time to
the other."
"I'm glad of that, Miss Eleanor," said Dolly. "It seems much nicer when
you're exactly even at the start."
"Here's Miss Turner now," said Bessie. "I guess they must be about ready
to start. I hope I'll do the right thing when you tell me, Dolly, but
I'm dreadfully afraid I won't."
"Don't worry about it, and you'll be much more likely to get along
well," said Margery Burton, calmly. "And remember that this race isn't
the most important thing in the world, even if Dolly thinks it is."
"Oh, it's all right for you to talk that way now," said Dolly. "But wait
till we're racing, Bessie, You'll find she's just as much worked up
about it then as I am--and probably more so."
"Well, all ready, Nell?" asked Mary Turner, coming up to them then.
"Gladys seems to think she's about ready to start, so I thought I'd walk
over and arrange about the details."
"I think the best way to fix up the start will be for the two sloops to
reach the opening in the bar together," said Eleanor. "They can start
there and finish there, you see, and that will save the need of having
someone to take the time. We really haven't anyone who can do that
properly. If we're close together at the start you and I can call to one
another and agree upon the moment when the race has actually begun."
"All right," said Miss Turner. "I'd thought of that myself." She lowered
her voice. "I didn't like to oppose this race, Nell," she said, speaking
so that only Eleanor could hear her, "but I'm not at all sure that it's
going to be a good thing."
"Why not? I thought it would be good sport."
"It ought to be, but I don't know how good a sportsman Gladys is. If she
wins, it will probably make her feel a lot better. But if she loses--!"
"I hadn't thought of that side of it," said Eleanor. "But--oh, well,
even so, I think it will probably be a good thing. Gladys has got a lot
of hard lessons to learn, and if this is one of them, the sooner she
learns it, the better. You and I will be along to see fair play. That
will keep her from having anything to say if she does lose, you see."
"We're in for it, anyhow, so I didn't mean to have you worry about it. I
think anything that I might have done to stop the race would have done
more harm than the race itself can possibly do, in any case."
"I'm quite sure of that, Mary. Well, we'll get aboard our yacht and
you'd better do the same. They're probably waiting impatiently for you."
The flat-bottomed skiff that Bessie had despised proved handy for
carrying the _Eleanor's_ crew out to her. While the others climbed
aboard, Dolly, who insisted upon attending to everything herself when
she possibly could, arranged a floating anchor that would keep the boat
in place against their return, and a few moments later the
_Eleanor's_ snowy sails rose, flapping idly in the faint breeze.
"Get up that anchor!" directed Dolly. "Bessie, you help Margery. She'll
show you what to do."
Then a shiver shook the little craft, the wind filled the sails, and in
a few moments they were creeping slowly toward the opening in the bar.
Seated at the helm, Dolly looked over toward the other camp and saw that
the other yacht was also under way.
"What do they call their boat?" she asked.
"The _Defiance_," said Eleanor.
Dolly laughed at the answer.
"I bet I know who named her!" she said, merrily. "If that isn't just
like Gladys Cooper! Well, I want a good race, and I can have just as
much fun if we're beaten, as long as I can feel that I haven't made any
mistakes in sailing the _Eleanor_. But--well, I guess I would like
to beat Gladys. I bet she's awfully sure of winning!"
"She's had more experience in sailing boats like these than you have,
Dolly," said Eleanor.
"She's welcome to it," said Dolly. "I shan't make any excuses if I lose.
I'll be ready to admit that she's better than I am."
The two boats converged together upon the opening in the bar, and soon
those on one could see everything aboard the other. Gladys Cooper, like
Dolly, sat at the helm, steering her boat, and a look of grim
determination was in her eyes and on her unsmiling face.
"She certainly does want to win," said Margery. "She's taking this too
seriously--score one for Dolly."
"You think she'd do better if she weren't so worked up, Margery?"
"Of course she would! There are just two ways to take a race or a
sporting contest of any sort--as a game or as a bit of serious work. If
you do the very best you can and forget about winning, you'll win a good
deal oftener than you lose, if your best is any good at all. It's that
way in football. I've heard boys say that when they have played against
certain teams, they've known right after the start that they were going
to win, because the other team's players would lose their tempers the
first time anything went wrong."
"We seem to be on even terms now," said Eleanor, and, cupping her hands,
she hailed Mary Turner. "All right? We might as well call this a start."
"All right," said Mary. "Shall I give the word!"
"Go ahead!" said Eleanor.
Instantly Dolly, with a quick look at her sails, which were hanging limp
again, since she had altered the course a trifle, became all attention.
"One--two--three--go!" called Miss Turner, clapping her hands at the
word "go."
And instantly Dolly shifted her helm once more, so that the wind filled
the sails, and the _Eleanor_ shot for the opening in the bar. Quick
as she had been, however, she was no quicker than Gladys, and the
_Defiance_ and the _Eleanor_ passed through the bar and out
into the open sea together. Here there was more motion, since the short,
choppy waves outside the bar were never wholly still, no matter how calm
the sea might seem to be. But Bessie, who had been rather nervous as to
the effect of this motion, which she had been warned to dread, found it
by no means unpleasant.
For a few moments Dolly's orders flew sharply. Although the wind was
very light, there was enough of it to give fair speed, and the sails had
to be trimmed to get the utmost possible out of it while it lasted. Both
boats tacked to starboard, sailing along a slanting line that seemed
likely to carry them far to one side of the lighthouse that was their
destination, and Bessie wondered at this.
"We're not sailing straight for the lighthouse," she said. "Isn't that
supposed to be where we turn? Don't we have to sail around it?"
"Yes, but we can't go straight there, because the wind isn't right,"
explained Dolly. "We'll keep on this way for a spell; then we'll come
about and tack to port, and then to starboard again. In that way we can
beat the wind, you see, and make it work for us, even if it doesn't want
to."
Half way to the lighthouse there was less than a hundred feet between
the boats. The _Defiance_ seemed to be a little ahead, but the
advantage, if she really had one at all, was not enough to have any real
effect on the race.
"Going out isn't going to give either of us much chance to gain, I
guess," said Dolly. "The real race will be when we're going back, with
what wind there is behind us."
But soon it seemed that Dolly had made a rash prediction, for when she
came about and started to beat up to port, the _Defiance_ held to
her course.
"Well, she can do that if she wants to," said Dolly. "Just the same, I
think she's going too far."
"It looks to me as if she were pretty sure of what she's doing, though,
Dolly," said Margery, anxiously. "Don't you think you tacked a little
too soon?"
"If I thought that I wouldn't have done it, Margery," said Dolly. "Don't
bother me with silly questions now; I've got to figure on tacking again
so as to make that turn with the least possible waste of time."
"Don't talk to the 'man' at the wheel," advised Eleanor, with a laugh.
"She's irritable."
A good many of the nautical terms used so freely by the others might
have been so much Greek for all Bessie could understand of them, but the
race itself had awakened her interest and now held it as scarcely
anything she had ever done had been able to do.
She kept her eyes fixed on the other boat, and at last she gave a cry.
"Look! They're going to turn now."
"Score one for Gladys, Margery," said Dolly, quietly. "She's certainly
stolen a march on me. Do you see that? She's going to make her turn on
the next tack, and I believe she'll gain nearly five minutes on us. That
was clever, and it was good work."
"Never mind, Dolly," said Margery. "You've still got a chance to catch
her going home before the wind. I know how fast the _Eleanor_ is at
that sort of work. If the _Defiance_ is any better, she ought to be
racing for some real cups."
"Oh, don't try to cheer me up! I made an awful mess of that, Margery,
and I know it. Gladys had more nerve than I, that's all. She deserves
the lead she's got. It isn't a question of the boats, at all. The
_Defiance_ is being sailed better than the _Eleanor_."
"Margery's right, though, Dolly," said Eleanor. "The race isn't over
yet. You haven't given up hope, have you?"
"Given up?" cried Dolly, scornfully, through set teeth. "Just you watch,
that's all! I'm going to get home ahead if I have to swamp us all."
"That's more like her," Margery whispered to Bessie.
And now even Bessie could see that the _Defiance_ had gained a big
advantage. Before her eyes, not so well trained as those of the others
to weigh every consideration in such a contest, had not seen what was
really happening. But it was plain enough now. Even while the
_Defiance_ was holding on for the lighthouse, on a straight course,
the _Eleanor_ had to come about and start beating up toward it, and
the _Defiance_ made the turn, and, with spinnaker set, was skimming
gaily for home a full five minutes before the _Eleanor_ circled
lighthouse.
In fact, the _Defiance_, homeward bound, passed them, and Mary
Turner laughed gaily as she hailed Eleanor.
"This is pretty bad," she called. "Better luck next time, Nell!"
Marcia Bates waved her hand gaily to them, but Gladys Cooper, her eyes
straight ahead, her hand on the tiller, paid no attention to them. There
was no mistaking the look of triumph on her face, however. She was sure
she was going to win, and she was glorying in her victory already.
"I'll make her smile on the other side of her face yet," said Dolly,
viciously. "She might have waved her hand, at least. If we're good
enough to race with, we're good enough for her to be decently polite to
us, I should think."
"Easy, Dolly!" said Margery. "It won't help any for you to lose your
temper, you know. Remember you've still got to sail your boat."
The _Defiance_ was far ahead when, at last, after a wait that
seemed to those on board interminable, the _Eleanor_ rounded the
lighthouse in her turn.
"Lively now!" commanded Dolly. "Shake out the spinnaker! We're going to
need all the sail we've got. There isn't enough wind now to make a flag
stand out properly."
"And they got the best of it, too," lamented Margery. "You see, Bessie,
the good wind there was when they started back carried them well along.
We won't get that, and we'll keep falling further and further behind,
because they've probably still got more wind than we have. It'll die out
here before it does where they are."
Dolly stood up now, and cast her eyes behind her on the horizon, and all
about. And suddenly, without warning, she put the helm over, and the
_Eleanor_ stood off to port, heading, as it seemed, far from the
opening in the bar that was the finishing, line.
"Dolly, are you crazy?" exclaimed Margery. "This is a straight run
before the wind!"
"Suppose there isn't any wind?" asked Dolly. The strained, anxious look
had left her eyes, and she seemed calm now, almost elated. "Margery,
you're a fine cook, but you've got a lot to learn yet about sailing a
boat!"
Bessie was completely mystified, and a look at Margery showed her that
she, too, although silenced, was far from being satisfied. But now
Margery suddenly looked off on the surface of the water, and gave a glad
cry.
"Oh, fine, Dolly!" she exclaimed. "I see what you're up to--and I bet
Gladys thinks you're perfectly insane, too!"
"She'll soon know I'm not," said Dolly, grimly. "I only hope she doesn't
know enough to do the same thing. I don't see how she can miss, though,
unless she can't see in time."
Still Bessie was mystified, and she did not like to ask for an
explanation, especially since she felt certain that one would be
forthcoming anyhow in a few moments. And, sure enough, it was. For
suddenly she felt a breath of wind, and, at the same instant Dolly
brought the _Eleanor_ up before the wind again, and for the first
time Bessie understood what the little sloop's real speed was.
"You see, Bessie," said Margery, "Dolly knew that the wind was dying.
It's a puffy, uncertain sort of wind, and very often, on a day like
this, there'll be plenty of breeze in one spot, and none at all in
another."
"Oh, so we came over here to find this breeze!" said Bessie.
"Yes. It was the only chance. If we had stayed on the other course we
might have found enough breeze to carry us home, but we would have gone
at a snail's pace, just as we were doing, and there was no chance at all
to catch Gladys and the _Defiance_ that way."
"We haven't caught them yet, you know," said Dolly.
"But we're catching them," said Bessie, exultingly. "Even I can see
that. Look! They're just crawling along."
"Still, even at the rate they're going, ten minutes more will bring them
to the finish," said Margery, anxiously. "Do you think she can make it,
Dolly?"
"I don't know," said Dolly. "I've done all I can, anyhow. There isn't a
thing to do now but hold her steady and trust to this shift of the wind
to last long enough to carry us home."
Now the _Eleanor_ was catching the _Defiance_ fast, and nearing her more
and more rapidly. It was a strange and mysterious thing to Bessie to see
that of two yachts so close together--there was less than a quarter of a
mile between them now--one could have her sails filled with a good
breeze while the other seemed to have none at all. But it was so. The
_Defiance_ was barely moving; she seemed as far from the finish now as
she had been when Margery spoke.
"They're stuck--they're becalmed," said Margery, finally, when five
minutes of steady gazing hadn't shown the slightest apparent advance by
the _Defiance_. "Oh, Dolly, we're going to beat them!"
"I guess we are," said Dolly, with a sigh of satisfaction. "It was about
the most hopeless looking race I ever saw twenty minutes ago, but you
never can tell."
And now every minute seemed to make the issue more and more certain.
Sometimes a little puff of wind would strike the _Defiance_, fill
her sails, and push her a little nearer her goal, but the hopes that
those puffs must have raised in Dolly's rival and her crew were false,
for each died away before the _Defiance_ really got moving again.
And at last, passing within a hundred yards, so that they could see poor
Gladys, her eyes filled with tears, the _Eleanor_ slipped by the
_Defiance_ and took the lead. And then, by some strange irony of
fate, the wind came to the _Defiance_--but it came too late. For
the _Eleanor_, slipping through the water as if some invisible
force had been dragging her, passed through the opening and into the
still waters of the cove fully two hundred feet in the lead.
"That certainly was your victory, Dolly," said Eleanor. "If you hadn't
found that wind, we'd still be floundering around somewhere near the
lighthouse."
"I do feel sorry for Gladys, though," said Dolly. "It must have been
hard--when she was so sure that she had won."