child remarked. “She ain’t such a big boat, you know. Seems like any sort of a boat would pull us off. I’ve seen little launches hauling bigger boats than this around. And a river tug can haul six or eight of these steel barges, upstream, too.”
Mrs. Maurier returned hopefully. “It really doesn’t seem necessary to have a tug to move this yacht, does it? You’d think that sailors could think of some way, something with ropes and things,” she added, also vaguely.
“What would they stand on while they pulled the ropes?” Mark Frost wanted to know. “They couldn’t pull from the shore. That isn’t the way we want to go.”
“They might row out in the tender and anchor,” the Semitic man offered as his mite.
“Why, yes,” Mrs. Maurier agreed, brightening. “If they could just anchor the tender securely, they might . . . if there were something to pull the rope with. The men themselves. . . . Do you suppose the sailors themselves could move a boat like this by hand?”
“I’ve seen a single river tug not much bigger than a Ford hauling a whole string of loaded steel barges up the river,” Fairchild repeated. He sat and stared from one to another of his companions and a strange light came into his eyes. “Say,” he said suddenly, “I bet that if all of us were to . . .”
The Semitic man and Mark Frost groaned in simultaneous alarm, and Pete sitting on the outskirt of the group rose hastily and unostentatiously and headed for the companionway. He ducked into his room and stood listening.
Yes, they were really going to try it. He could hear Fairchild’s burly voice calling for all the men, and also one or two voices raised in protest; and above all of them the voice of the old woman in an indistinguishable senseless excitement. Jesus Christ, he whispered, clutching his hat.
People descending the stairs alarmed him and he sprang
