ith 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.

The great spar crashed out to the extent of its arc, and the sail
volleyed with it, ballooning under the weight of the wind. The
reef-points were no longer within Mayo's reach. He ran along the boom,
arms outspread to steady himself, and was half-way to its end before the
telltale surge under him g