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“Yes, she is; but she’s got to last this season,” replied Jack. “Take the
tiller, Hunk, while I ‘sweat up’ the peak;” and the boat, under the influence of
the light southerly breeze which fanned her tattered sail, glided silently into
the darkness.

Slowly she rounded Brant Point, looking dim and ghostly in the gloom, and
then away to the “ noth’ard” and “ west’ard,” just skirting the Koskata flats, and
heading as near as might be for the glimmering light on Great Point.

They were now out upon the sound; the inner harbor lay behind them, and
with a free sheet and a steady breeze the little boat bounded merrily over the
short seas.

Barely visible to windward stretched the low shore of the island, curving like
a big horseshoe, with Great Point at the extreme northern end, upon which
stood the lighthouse for which the boys were steering. Following the line of
the coast and jutting some three miles into the ocean from the point, was the
dangerous reef known as Point Rip. Its outer extremity was marked by a buoy,
but well in near the shore there was a passageway of deep water —a slue, the
fishermen called it.

Far away over the land, they could once in a while catch a glimpse of the
light on Sankaty Head, on the south shore of the island, flashing its warning to
any mariner who might be so unlucky as to be in the vicinity ; for beyond that lay
the shoals — the dreaded Nantucket Shoals, stretching to the south’ard and east-
ard twenty miles or more to the lightship on Great South Shoal which marked
the limit of the danger space. Woe to the stranger who ever found himself
within that space of shifting sands, tide rips and cross currents; only a local
pilot, and a good one at that, could ever get him out. He might as well throw
his chart overboard ; it was useless in that neighborhood.

“ Are you going to try the slue, Jack?” asked Hunk, as Jack moved aft,
having finished coiling up the “ gear.”

“Yes,” answered Jack. “Ithink it will be daylight when we get there; all
that I want is just light enough to see the water, and I’m all right. Let her go
straight for the point, Hunk.”

As Jack predicted, when Great Point was abeam the dawn began to break.
To an unpracticed eye the water looked alike everywhere, but not so to Jack.
The slight difference in the color and appearance of the deep water was his
guide, and under his direction the boat shot through the narrow channel. The
next moment she was rolling lazily on the long ground swell of the Atlantic.
The sound was passed, the boys were on the ocean.

“ All plain sailing now,” cheerfully remarked Hunk.

“JT don’t know, Hunk. I don’t much like this long swell; and the sky looks
nasty, too.”

Hunk glanced to the east’ard, and sure enough the dawn did look red and
threatening.