"I think it's the Ramona--I'm not sure," was the lieutenant's next
remark.
"What are you going to do about it?" Jack wanted to know.
"Hang on as long as I can," was the grim reply. "She doesn't look as
though she were good for much more, and we are."
"Yes, we seem to be making it pretty well," Jack answered.
Indeed the staunch little Tartar was more than living up to her name.
She was buoyant, and there was a power and thrust to her screw that
kept her head on to the heavy seas, which allowed her to ride them.
The chase was now on, and a chase it was, for soon after sighting the
steamer ahead of them, Lieutenant Walling, by means of powerful
glasses, had made sure that she was the Ramona, and, without doubt,
in charge of the mutineers, unless, indeed, the half of the crew
opposed to them, had risen, and taken matters into their own hands.
"But we'll soon find out," said the lieutenant, grimly.
"How?"' asked Cora, for, the officer had come down into the cabin.
"Can you board her now?"
"Hardly, in this blow, Miss Kimball. But we can hang on, and get
them as soon as it lets up a little."
"Won't they get away from us?" Bess wanted to know. She, as well as
her more fragile sister, had thoroughly entered into the spirit of
the chase now.
"I think we can more than hold our own with them," answered the
lieutenant. "You have a very fast craft here, and owing to the fact
that they haven't much coal, and that they have probably suffered some
damage, we won't let them get away very easily.
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