Pagina 355 de 416

The course was almost exactly southwest, and that first day the

Lass roared down the Atlantic, passing the wide mouth of Cabot

Strait that leads between Newfoundland and Nova Scotia into the

Gulf of St. Lawrence. They passed one of the Quebec and Montreal

liners, and took pleasure shooting the schooner under her flaring

bows.

The next morning at seven, twenty-four hours out, found them

three hundred and fifty miles on their course, but what was

better than all, showed three sails ahead. Then did the crew of

the Charming Lass rejoice, climbing into the spray-lashed

rigging, and yelling wildly against the tumult of the waters.

Nor did the wind subside. It had gone to forty-five miles an hour

over night, and in landlocked harbors the skippers of big steel

passenger vessels shook their heads and refused to venture out

into the gale.