“Sure. Play is always easy. But let me tell you, young man, if you had command of a big three-legged windjammer, with a deckload of heavy green lumber fresh from the saws, and ran into a stiff sou'-easter such as we have out on the Pacific coast, you'd know what real sailoring is like.”
“Joey could handle her like that,” old Gurney declared with pride, and snapped his fingers.
“Could you, Joey?” Cappy Ricks demanded. “I have my doubts.”
“Why, I think so, Mr. Ricks. I might be a little cautious at first--”
“Well, I don't think you could,” Cappy interrupted.
“Well, I do,” old Gurney declared with some warmth. “I've been out with Joey on his yacht and I know what the boy can do.”
“Bah! You're a doddering old softy, Joe. Yachting is one thing and sailoring is another. I have an old lumber hooker on Gray's Harbor now, loading for a port in Peru, and I'd certainly love to see Joey with her on his hands. I'll bet fifty thousand dollars he couldn't sail her down to Sobre Vista, discharge her and sail back inside of six months.” The old schemer chuckled. “Lordy me,” he continued, “I'd like to see Joey trying to make her point up into the wind! She'd break his heart.”
“Look here, Alden,” Old Joe Gurney commenced to bristle. “Are you serious about that or are you just making conversation bets? Because if you're serious I'm just shipping man enough to call you for the sheer sporting joy of it.”
“By the Holy Pink-Toed Prophet, you're on!” Cappy Ricks almost yelled. “Put up or shut up--that is, provided Joey is as big a sport as his father and will undertake to sail my schooner _Tyee_ to Sobre Vista and back.”
“Oh, she's a schooner!” There was relief in Joey's voice. “Why, I'll sail any vessel with a fore-and-aft rig. I thought perhaps you were trying to ring in a square-rigger on me, and I'm not familiar with them. But a schooner--pooh! Pie for little Joey!”
“She's got three legs, and with a deck-load of lumber she's cranky and topheavy. I'm warning you, Joey. Remember he is a poor ship owner who doesn't know his own ship.”
Joey got up and went to a map laid out on a table, with a piece of plate glass over it, to compute the sailing distance from Gray's Harbor to Sobre Vista. He could not find Sobre Vista on the map.