Behind us came Schwartz. We ran near a
mile, and then fell among some tules in an inlet at the farther
point.
"What is it?" I gasped.
"Our only chance--to get him-- said Denton. "He's got to go
around this point--big wind--perhaps his mast will bust--then
he'll come ashore--" He opened and shut his big brown hands.
So there we two fools lay, like panthers in the tules, taking our
only one-in-a-million chance to lay hands on Anderson. Any
sailor could have told us that the mast wouldn't break, but we
had winded Schwartz a quarter of a mile back. And so we waited,
our eyes fixed on the boat's sail, grudging her every inch, just
burning to fix things to suit us a little better. And naturally
she made the point in what I now know was only a fresh breeze,
squared away, and dropped down before the wind toward Guaymas.
We walked back slowly to our camp, swallowing the copper taste of
too hard a run. Schwartz we picked up from a boulder, just
recovering. We were all of us crazy mad. Schwartz half wept,
and blamed and cussed. Denton glowered away in silence. I
ground my feet into the sand in a help less sort of anger, not
only at the man himself, but also at the whole way things had
turned out.
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