an be the only possible reason.
What else--but now wait a moment while I think."

He went below into his room, secured the old log of the _M.C. Burns_
and the artificial horizon. Together they read the entries that
Michael Burns had made.

"Now, Elsa," said Code by way of explanation, "it was a dead-sure
thing that Nat could never have beaten me in his schooner, and for two
reasons: First, the _May_ was a naturally faster boat than the old
_M.C._, although Nat would never admit it. That is what really started
our racing. Secondly, I am only telling the truth when I say that I
can outsail Nat Burns in any wind from a zephyr to a typhoon.

"He is the kind of chap, in regard to sailing, who doesn't seem to
have the 'feel' of the thing. There is a certain instinct of forces
and balance that is either natural or acquired. Nat's is acquired.
Why, I can remember just as well when I was eight years old my father
used to let me take a short trick at the wheel in good weather, and I
took to it naturally. Once on the Banks in a gale, when I was only
eighteen, the men below said that my trick at the wheel was the only
one when they got any sleep.

"Now, those two things being the case, Elsa, how did Nat Burns expect
to win the second race from the _May_?"

"I don't know. It doesn't seem possible that he _could_ win."

"Of course it doesn't, and yet his father writes here that Nat 'swears
he can't lose.' Well, now, you know, a man that swears he can't lose
is pretty positive."

"Did he try to bet with you for the second race?" asked Elsa.

"Did he? I had five hundred dollars at the bank and he tried to bet me
that. I never bet, because I've never had enough money to throw it
around. A good deal changed hands on the first race, but none of it
was mine. I raced for sport and not for money, and I told Nat so when
he tried to bet with me. If I had raced for money I couldn't have
withdrawn that day and gone to St. John for cargo the way I did."

"Then it seems to me that he must have _known_ he couldn't lose or he
would not have tried to bet."

"Exactly."

"But how _could_ he know it?"

"That is what I would like to find out."

Code absently thrust his hand into his coat pocket and encountered the
mirror he had found aboard the _Nettie B._ He drew it out and polished
its bright surface with his handkerchief.

Elsa was immediately interested and Code told her of its unexpected
discovery.

"And he had it!" she cried, la