"Oh, he'll come pretty near making it, though he stands a good chance to scrape the paint off our seine-boat going by. No, don't touch the seine-boat--let her be as she is. We'll fool 'em if they think they c'n jar anybody here coming on like that. There's room enough if nothing slips, and if they hit it's their lookout." It looked like a narrow space for a vessel of her beam to go through, but she hopped along, and the eyes of all the harbor followed her to the point where she must turn tail or make the passage. She held on--her chance to go back was gone. "Watch her, boys. Now she's whooping--look at her come!" And she was coming. Her windward side was lifted so high that her bottom planks could be seen. Her oil-skinned crew were crowded forward. There were men at the fore-halyards, at jib-halyards, at the down-hauls, and a group were standing by the anchor. Two men were at the wheel. She bit into it. There was froth at her mouth. She was so near now that we could read the faces of her crew; and wide awake to this fine seamanship we all leaned over the rail, the better to see how she'd make out. The crews of half the vessels inside the Breakwater were watching her. She was a length away and jumping to it. It was yet in doubt, but she was certainly rushing to some sort of a finish. She rushed on, and w-r-r-rp! her weather bow came down on the Johnnie's seine-boat. But it didn't quite hit it. Her quarter to leeward just cut under the Adams' bowsprit and the leech of her mainsail seemed to flatten past. For a moment we were not certain, but no jolt or lurch came and our seine-boat seemed all right. Another jump and she was clear by. And then we felt like cheering her, and her skipper Wesley Marrs, too, as he stood to the wheel and sung out, "Couldn't scare you, could I, Maurice. I thought you'd haul your seine-boat in. I've got your extra seine," and swept by. From our deck and from the deck of the Adams, and from the decks of half a dozen others, could be heard murmurs, and there was a general pointing out of the redoubtable skipper himself to the green hands that knew him only by reputation. "That's him, Wesley himself--the stocky little man of the two at the wheel." If the stocky little man heard the hails that were sent after him, he made no sign, unless a faint dipping of his sou'wester back over his windward shoulder was his way of showing it.