For the poet, on arriving at Old Point Comfort and learning that the _Shark_ had sailed for Marblehead, Mass., took a careful survey of the weather, and decided to "go up inside." It was apparent that there was an easterly gale brewing, and the storm signal was already flying from the station at Old Point. Applebo knew that, under these conditions, it would be a waste of time to go to sea, and determined to outflank his "host" by taking the inland route as far as New York, then, if the weather was still contrary, to keep on east through the sounds: Long Island, Block Island, The Vineyard, and Nantucket. This route would ensure still water the whole distance from Hampton Roads to Cape Cod, while the northeastern, then blowing outside, would enable him to make one "long leg" of it, close-hauled, up the Chesapeake. He was therefore nearly to the Raritan Canal before Bell had even laid Cape May abeam. Propelled by a four-mule breeze through the canal, and the ebbing tide in the Raritan River, the _Daffodil_ was skimming around the end of Staten Island while the _Shark_ was walloping about off Atlantic City, slatting and slamming in the calm which followed the blow. The _Daffodil_ caught a tow up the East River behind a blue-stone barge, and cast off at Randall's Island to catch the first of the ebb at Whitestone. Here, in company with a hundred or more coasting schooners known as "the ebb-tide fleet," she was favoured by a roaring nor'wester which boomed her the whole length of the Sound, from Execution to Fisher's Island. Holding on eastward through the sounds, she encountered fog and baffling breezes, in spite of which she rounded Cape Cod, crossed Massachusetts Bay, and dropped anchor off the Eastern Yacht Club at Marblehead, some thirty-six hours before the _Shark_ was sighted. A fresh southeast breeze brought Bell careening around the Cape and across the Bay, thereby doing much to eliminate his disgust with the weather encountered earlier in the run. "Who wants to bet that we find the Pilot-fish at Marblehead?" he asked, jocosely. "I do," replied Hermione. "Huh?" "I'll bet you that he's beat us out, in spite of the weather. Come now...!" "You're crazy ... huh ... h'm..." "Perhaps. But here's a chance for you to get square for that month's allowance that you are going to be stung for." The others laughed, thinking that Hermione was having a little fun at her father's expense. As a matter of fact, she was having more than they realised. Offshore sailors that they all were, Hermione was the only one who had thought of the "mud-hole" route, but once having thought of it, she was certain that Applebo would avail himself of it. In this case, it needed but a glance at the charts to show Hermione, herself a good practical sailor, how tremendous an advantage it would give him.