Three miles before her, with all sails set, including staysail and balloon-job, raced a fishing schooner. There was a fresh ten-knot wind blowing a little south of west--a wind that favored the schooner, and she was putting her best foot forward, taking the green water over her bows in a smother of foam.
The exclamation was one of pure delight in the speed.
"Maybe she's an American that's been caught inside the three-mile limit, and is pullin' away from the gunboat," remarked Pete.
That she was pulling away there was little doubt. In the fifteen minutes that elapsed after her discovery she had widened the gap between herself and her pursuer. She was now within a mile of the _Lass_.
As Code spoke a puff of white smoke thrust out from the blunt bows of the cutter, and the ball ricochetted from wave-top to wave-top to fall half a mile astern of the schooner.
"Out of range now, an' if the wind holds she'll be out of sight by nightfall," said Pete, who was moved to great excitement and enthusiasm by the contest. "Wonder who she is?"
He plunged down the companionway to the cabin and emerged a moment later with Code's powerful glasses.
But Code did not need any glasses to tell him who she was. His eye had picked out her points before this, and the only thing that interested him was the fact that her wireless was down.
He had never seen her equal for traveling, and he knew that she must be making a good fourteen knots, for the cutter was capable of twelve.
She had reached her closest point of contact with Code's vessel and had begun to bear away when Pete leveled his glasses. It was on Schofield's tongue to reveal the identity of the pursued when Ellinwood yelled:
"Good Heavens! Skipper! She has _Charming Lass_ printed in new gold letters under her counter!"
"As I live, Code. _Charming Lass_, as plain as day! What's happening here to-day? What is this?" Code snatched the glasses from Pete's hand and then leveled them, trembling, at the flying schooner.
For a time the foam and whirl of her wake obscured matters, but all at once, as she plunged down into a great hollow between waves, her stern came clear and pointed to heaven. There, in bright letters that glinted in the sun and were easily visible at a much greater distance, was printed the name: