d was
now like blue velvet, and the rain pelting. The Maria was heeling to the
squall by the time the Celebrity appeared at the cabin door, enveloped in
an ample waterproof, a rubber cover on his yachting cap. A fool despises
a danger he has never experienced, and our author, with a remark about a
spanking breeze, made a motion to take the wheel. But Farrar, the
flannel of his shirt clinging to the muscular outline of his shoulders,
gave him a push which sent him sprawling against the lee refrigerator.
Well Miss Thorn was not there to see.

"You will have to answer for this," he cried, as he scrambled to his feet
and clutched the weather wash-board with one hand, while he shook the
other in Farrar's face.

"Crocker," said Farrar to me, coolly, "keep that idiot out of the way for
a while, or we'll all be drowned. Tie him up, if necessary."

I was relieved from this somewhat unpleasant task. Mr. Cooke, with his
back to the rain, sat an amused witness to the mutiny, as blissfully
ignorant as the Celebrity of the character of a lake squall.

"I appeal to you, as the owner of this yacht, Mr. Cooke," the Celebrity
shouted, "whether, as the person delegated by you to take charge of it,
I am to suffer indignity and insult. I have sailed larger yachts than
this time and again on the coast, at--" here he swallowed a portion of a
wave and was mercifully prevented from being specific.

But Mr. Cooke was looking a trifle bewildered. It was hardly possible
for him to cling to the refrigerator, much less quell a mutiny. One who
has sailed the lakes well knows how rapidly they can be lashed to fury by
a storm, and the wind was now spinning the tops of the waves into a
blinding spray. Although the Maria proved a stiff boat and a seaworthy,
she was not altogether without motion; and the set expression on Farrar's
face would have told me, had I not known it, that our situation at that
moment was no joke. Repeatedly, as she was held up to it, a precocious
roller would sweep from bow to stern, until we without coats were wet and
shivering.

The close and crowded cabin of a small yacht is not an attractive place
in rough weather; and one by one the Four emerged and distributed
themselves about the deck, wherever they could obtain a hold. Some of
them began to act peculiarly. Upon Mr. Cooke's unwillingness or
inability to interfere in his behalf, the Celebrity had assumed an
aggrieved demeanor, but soon the motion of the Maria became mo