The cutter went after him, her captain singing out as he went, "You wait here till I come back." "Wait like hell!" said O'Donnell, "and this breeze making," and continued to purse up. Pursed up, the fish aboard--there were forty or fifty barrels--he started off. One of those sudden breezes were springing up and it promised to be wind enough to suit anybody. We made out the Johnnie Duncan bearing down, intending no doubt to take off Clancy and me. But the cutter was coming toward us then, and O'Donnell said we had better stay aboard or we would be picked up on the way by the cutter's people and maybe get the Duncan and our skipper into trouble. That last--the thought that our skipper or the vessel might get mixed up in it--kept us aboard the Colleen Bawn. The Lynx could steam as fast as any cutter they had on the Cape shore at that time, but the Colleen was a witch and O'Donnell a wonder at sailing her. So we stayed with O'Donnell and watched him and the cutter have it out. They had it, the cutter letting drive a shot every once in a while. The first shot, I remember, went whistling by the ear of one of O'Donnell's crew who was standing back-to in the waist, and so astonished him, he not expecting it, that he fell into the forehold. He raised a great racket among a lot of empty barrels. The fall never hurt him, but the things he said when he came on deck again! O'Donnell made him lie flat--and then all of us but Clancy, who refused to lie down but compromised by leaning over the house and watching the cutter and making comments on her actions for the benefit of the rest of us. Through it all O'Donnell stood to the wheel and the nearest he came to honoring the cutter by a compliment was when he'd half turn his head, spit over the rail and swear at her. The wind and sea-way together were too much for the cutter. The Colleen left her behind, and she at last drew off after bunching a few farewell shots. O'Donnell then hove-to and took his seine-boat on deck. He had been towing it the wrong end foremost for the whole forty miles, and he was worried over it. "It's strained her maybe--and she almost a new boat," he lamented. "For the rest I don't care. That lad had it in for me all along. The other one though, he's decent--never bothers a man without a little reason. I was going home anyway for the race, and so it don't matter. I suppose Maurice will be along soon, Tommie? Did you see him coming after the cutter--he held her fine and he in no trim. What's it they say about Hollis beating the Johnnie yesterday? If he did, be sure he was specially prepared, and the Johnnie had an off-day. But I suppose he'll be holding on now for Gloucester?" Clancy said maybe, but no telling, and explained how it had been--the skipper's discouragement after Hollis had beaten him.