He turned away and began to revile his mates and his sailors, his voice rising higher each time the rampaging boom crashed from side to side. One or two of the backstays had parted, and it was plain that before long the mast would go by the board. “If that mast comes out it's apt to smash us clear to the water-line,” lamented the captain. “If you can make your herd of sheep give me a hand at the right time, I'll show you that a tin-kettle sailor is as good as a wind-jammer swab,” said Mayo, retaliating with some of the same sort of rancor that Captain Downs had been expending. In that crisis he was bold enough to presume on his identity as a master mariner. “I'd hate to find this kind of a bunch on any steamboat I've ever had experience with.” Then he ran away before the captain had time to retort. He made a slide across the danger zone on his back, like a runner in a ball game. This move brought him into a safe place between the mainmast and the mizzen. There was a coil of extra cable here, and he grabbed the loose end and deftly made a running bowline knot. He set the noose firmly upon his shoulders, leaped up, and caught at the hoops on the mizzenmast. “See to it that the line runs free from that coil, and stand by for orders!” he shouted, and though his dyed skin was dark and he wore the garb of the common sailor, he spoke with the unmistakable tone of the master mariner. The second mate ran to the line and took charge. “This is a bucking bronco, all right!” muttered Mayo. “But it's for the honor of the steamboat men! I'll show this gang!” He poised himself for a few moments on the crotch of the boom, clinging to the cringles of the luff--the short ropes with which the sail is reefed. As he stood there, gathering himself for his desperate undertaking, waiting for opportunity, taking the measure of the lashing and insensate monster whom he had resolved to subdue, he heard Captain Downs bawl an impatient command: “Passengers go below!” Mayo looked aft and saw Alma Marston clinging to the spike-rack of the spanker mast. The coach-house lantern shone upon her white face. “Go below!” repeated the master. She shook her head. “This is no place for a woman.” “The vessel is going to sink!” she quavered. “The schooner is all right. You go below!” How bitter her fear was Mayo could not determine. But even at his distance he could see stubborn resolution on her countenance. “If I've got to die, I'll not die down there in a box,” she cried. “I'm going to stay right here.” Captain Downs swore and turned his back on her. Apparently he did not care to come to a real clinch with this feminine mutineer.