Daily Arizona silver belt., 1909-06-30
CHAPTER XVI.

treacherous deck, Kirkwood clung
 A-A to tiller and mainsheet and peer
 ed ahead with anxious eyes. pucker
 of daring graven deep between his brows
 X mile to westward. three or more l ahead. he could see the brigantine standing close in under the Essex | shore At times she was invisible | Again he could catch merely the glint of her canvas. white against the dark i gloom of the lttoral toned by mist | of flying spindrift. He strained his eyes. watching for the chance which would take place in the rake of her masts and sails when she should come l about
 For the longer that maneuver was deferred the better was his chance of | attaining his object. It was n for | lOrn hope. But In time the brigan- tine. to escape Maplin sands. would
 the lishtship, the wind of her pert bows. 1nen their courses would r. | tersect It remained to be demon. strated whether the catbOat was | speedy enough to arrive at this point of contact in advance of or simu-
 taneousiy with the larger vessel | He watched the catboat anxlously. quick to approve her merits as she displayed them. He had sailed small | craft beforc-frall centerboard cat I boats. handy and swift. built to serve in summer winds and protected wa | ters. never such one as this. Yet he
 liked her
 OffshOre. too, the wind stormed with added strength or possibly had fresh ened. For minutes on end the lee
 ward gunwales would run green, and
 now and again the screaming. pelting | squalls that secured the estuary
 would heel her over until the water cascaded in over the lee combing. aud the rudder lifted clear would hang idle until. smitien by some racing bill low. the tiller would be all but torn | from Kirkwocd's. hands. Again and | again this happened, and those were | times of trembling. But always the cathoat ri%hted shaking the clinglng
 waters from her and swinging her stem into the wind again. and there
 would follow an abbreviated breath 1 ing spell. during which Kirkwood was at liberty to dash the salt spray from his eyes and search the wind harrled waste for the brigantlne. Sometimes he found her. sometimes not. Long after he had expected her to she went about. and they began to close in upon each other. He could see that even with shortened canvas she was staggering drnnkenly under the fierce impacts of the wind. For himself, it was nip and tuck now. and no man in his normal sense would have risked a sixpence on the boats chance to live until she crossed the brigantine's bows
 Time out of reckoning he was forced to kneel In the swimming cockpit
 steering with one hand, using the bail
 ing dish with the other and keeping his eyes religiously turned to the belly ing patch of sail It was heartbreak- ing toll He began reluctantly to con cede that it could net last much longer
 And if he missed the brigantine he
 would be lost
 Long since he had become numb
 with cold from incessant drenchings
 of icy spray that piled In over the
 windward counter. keeping the bottom ankle deep regardless of his laborious but intermittent efforts with the bail ing dish. And the two, brigantine and cockleshell were drawing together
 with appalling dcliberation.
 But that his voice stuck in his parched throat he could have shouted In his elation when eventually he gained the point of intersection an eighth of a mile ahead of the brigan- tine and got sight of her windward freeboard as most slowly the cathoat forged across her course.
 For all that. the moment of his ac- tual triumph was not yet. He had still to carry of successfully a scheme that for sheer audacity of conception and NchtVhpt ici oubScN HIuiiSStiiueu dlI that had gone before.
 Holding the catboat on for time. he brought her about handsomely a little way beyond the brigantine's course and hung In the eye of the wind, the leach Tapping and tighten ing with reports like rife shots and the water sloshing about his calves.
 bailing dish now altogether out of mind-while he watched the oncoming vessel. his eyes glistening with antici-
 patton.
 She was footing 1t smartly, the brig antine, lying down to it and snoring Into the wind. Beneath her stem
 waves broke In snow white showers
 whlter than the canvas of her bulging jlb-broke and. gnashing their teeth in impotent fury. swirled and eddied down her sleek dark Hanks, Bobbing. courtesying, she plunged onward. shortening the interval with mighty.
 leaping bounds. On her bows with each instant tie golden letters of her name grew larger and more Iegibe until-Aletbea- he could read it plain
 beyond dispute.