We did not have to. We soon had her in trim. For weeks the skipper and Clancy had been marking the Johnnie's sheets so that in an emergency they could whip her into her best sailing in no time. With that, and with the shifting of some barrels of salt that we had on deck, we soon had her going. It is surprising what a lot of difference the shifting of a few barrels of salt will make in the trim of a vessel. We had not had a try with anything for two weeks or so and had become careless. The last thing we did was to take some barrels of fresh water that happened to be standing forward of the windlass and shift them aft, and then the Johnnie began to go along for fair. Coming up to Block Island Light things were pretty even. Then it came a question of who was to go to windward. The yacht hauled her mainsheet in to two blocks. So did we, and, further, ran a line from the cringle in her foresail to the weather rigging. She could not make it--we had her. "Mind the time," said the skipper, when at last we had her under our quarter--"mind the time, Tommie, when we used to do so much racing down on the Cape shore? There's where we had plenty of time for racing and all sorts of foolishness. I was pretty young then, but I mind it well. A string of men on the rigging from the shear poles clear up to the mast-head--yes, and a man astraddle the main gaff once or twice, passing buckets of water to wet down the mains'l." "Yes, and barrels of water out toward the end of the main-boom keep the sail stretched. Man, but those were the days we paid attention to racing." "Those were the days," asserted the skipper. "But we can do a little of it now, too." By that you will understand we were walking away from our yacht. We were to anchor in the harbor while she was still coming, and we had towed our seine-boat all the way. "Lord," said Clancy, as we were tying up our foresail, "but I'd like to see this one in an ocean race with plenty of wind stirring--not a flat breeze and a short drag like we had to-day." XIX MINNIE ARKELL AGAIN Coming on to dark that night a gig put off from the schooner-yacht and rowed over to us. On the way she was hailed and passed a few words with a steam-yacht anchored in between. The man in the stern of the gig was not satisfied until he had been rowed three times around the Johnnie. When he had looked his fill he came alongside. He mistook Clancy for the skipper. I suppose he couldn't imagine a man of Clancy's figure and bearing to be an ordinary hand on a fisherman. So to Clancy he said, "Captain, you've got a wonderful vessel here. Put a single stick in her and she'll beat the world." "Yes," said Clancy, "and she'd be a hell of a fine fisherman then, wouldn't she?"