"Haul on the line. Bring her right under the Quinn's stern
and then cut, quick!"
Hand over hand hauled Captain Barney and the rowboat came under the
stern with a jump. Then he cut the line. Dan dug his oars into the
water and the slim boat shot for the ladder, while the great tug came
down, more slowly, on the side. Ten, twenty strokes; and then, as Dan
with a great sigh unshipped his oars, Captain Barney chuckled, seized
the sides of the ladder, and hauling himself on the bottom rung,
skipped up with the agility of a monkey.
With a swish and a splash up pounded the _Quinn_.
"Look out!" roared Dan, "there's a boat here!"
It saved him; for a bell clanged in the engine-room, and the tug began
to make sternway. It saved him for but a minute, though.
Thoughtless, selfish, and for once an utter fool, the exultant skipper
of the _Three Sisters_ sought to gloat over his rival.
"On board the _Quinn_," yelled Barney. "Say, Jim Skelly, this is
Barney Hodge talkin'. You didn't know he had friends in the rowboat
business, did you?"
A curse rang from the Quinn's pilot-house, and Dan did not wait for
anything else. Well he knew what would happen next, and he bent all
his strength to his oars. He heard the jingle of a bell, and the tug
started right for him.
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