Paddling under Palmettos — page 193: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

186 Paddling Under Palmettos. They worked like Trojans, but in their excitement seemed to move like snails. The air began to thicken, as though flying mist had descended. With this there sprang up a breeze, but it was northwest. | At the same time the low-lying clouds along the horizon began to come up. The storm was ap- proaching. It now became intensely interesting, for between the two possible results it seemed nip and _ tuck. Would they make the inlet or be swamped? Archie thought their chances were very small. He would have been willing to have tossed up a penny and abide by the result, for with the rising wind the sea became rough and the little craft were washed about like corks in a gale. In spite of this they hoisted sail, reefed of course, and moved on, with constantly increasing momen- tum, until presently it seemed to promise a race for life; for the boats were half under part of the time, and their skippers hanging out well to windward. At times they even lost sight of each other, and the sharpie had long since passed beyond their range of vision. Gomicbooks: co