, the wind
becoming a trifle easterly, so as to allow us to "start our sheets"
and at the same time steadily increase our offing, getting such a
weatherly position for Canso that the moment the expected change of
direction began we promptly "tacked ship" and at the worst had a
leading wind across.

For three days we hobnobbed with the little "Minnie Mac" across the
Gulf. The first thing we did in the morning was to hunt her up with
the glasses from aloft, if not in sight from the deck, and the last
thing in order at night were speculations as to where we should next
see her. The difference in the build of the two vessels, the one being
shoal and centerboard, the other deep and heavily laden, made the race
a zigzag. When the wind favored a little and the sheets could be
"eased" then the shoal model would push ahead, but when the wind came
more nearly ahead, and we had to plunge squarely into a head sea, then
the deeper draught and heavier lading told to advantage.

During this time we were not idle on board. The Grand River men were
beginning to feel vigorous again, and their notes and data had to be
worked up. The collections, too, though largely packed away securely
for the rough voyage, yet gave plenty of occupation to those not
otherwise employed, while the few really industriously inclined used
their superfluous energy in seeing to it that the lazy were given no
opportunity to enjoy their idleness.

The morning of the fourth day the coasts of Cape Breton were in sight,
but the wind came straight out of the Gut of Canso in half a gale, and
then our rival, owing to her greater weight, forged ahead, and it
seemed that we were to be beaten. However, much to our amusement, when
we got a few miles off the mouth of the Gut, we found a calm, into
which the "Minnie Mac" had run and where she stayed till we came up.
With us also came a breeze, and we forged ahead of her into the
anchorage at Port Hawksbury just as we had said we would do when we
left Red Bay. Here we spent the rest of the day, laying in a stock of
much needed fresh provisions, and sending nine of our college
base-ballists, at the invitation of the Port Hawkesbury nine, to give
them some points on the game. About the fifth inning the game closed
on account of darkness, with score in Bowdoin's favor something about
30-0.

A short run brought us into Little Canso, where we had to turn to the
west to go along the Nova Scotia coast to Halifax, but fog shut do