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Updated: June 5, 2025
The fourth stone caught him in the side after glancing off the wall to his left. He groaned aloud, but gripped more fiercely than ever at his slender support. For a few seconds he could not move. Then he reached up and felt for the next "cleat." He found it but, like many others he had encountered, it was filled with sand and dirt. That meant delay.
Then, catching a turn of the main-sheet round a cleat, I jumped forward again to where the two seamen were dragging desperately at the halliard which hoisted the heavy sail. "Put your backs into it, men," I cried, as I tailed on to the fall of the tackle; "there is a large boat close aboard of us! It will be `touch and go' with us, even if we are able to scrape clear at all."
The husky ex-Marine threw a hitch over the dock cleat and jumped to the pier, waving excitedly as he saw Rick. "Hey! Wait until you see what I have!" Rick let his long legs carry him swiftly to meet the other boy. When Scotty got excited, something unusual was up. He called, "What is it?" Scotty yelled, "We're going ghost hunting!" Rick stopped in his tracks.
Every rope and shroud was thrumming and screeching in resistance to the fierce weight of the squall. "Stand by main halyards! Jump!" he could hear Skipper shouting loudly; also he heard the high note of the mainsheet screaming across the sheaves as Van Horn, bending braces in the dark, was swiftly slacking the sheet through his scorching palms with a single turn on the cleat.
He unloosed the half hitches that held it to the cleat, threw off all but one figure-eight turn, and let the anchor line run out slowly. When he estimated about fifty feet had run through, he put on more figure eights around the cleat, then dropped half hitches over to secure the line. Once more he reached out and held the taut line. It didn't seem to be slipping.
When the shelf is made in this way, cover the top with birch bark or other bark to give a flat surface. Hang your mirror on a nail in the tree at convenient distance above the shelf, and your tooth-brush on another nail. The towel may hang over the extending end of the cleat, and you can make a small bark dish for the soap.
Charley had barely time to luff into the wind and run up to them. I ran forward and tossed them a line with orders to make it fast. One of the Italians took a turn with it over a cleat, while I hastened to lower our big spritsail. This accomplished, the salmon boat dropped astern, dragging heavily on the skiff.
A deafening, crashing noise split the mournful howl of the wind, and far underneath him Vandover heard a rapid series of blows, a dreadful rumbling and pounding that thrilled and quivered through all the vessel's framework up to her very mast-tips. On all fours upon the deck, holding to a cleat with one hand, he braced himself, watching and listening, his senses all alive, his muscles tense.
The floating light being very buoyant, was so quick in her motions that when those who were about to step from her gunwale into a boat, placed themselves upon a cleat or step on the ship's side, with the man or rail ropes in their hands, they had often to wait for some time till a favourable opportunity occurred for stepping into the boat.
That makes it more dangerous for vessels of any draught, for they're apt to go aground. Fasten the cable to that cleat, Bluff. Make it secure, for we don't want to lose the whole outfit overboard," remarked Frank. "That feels a whole heap better," remarked Bluff, settling down again. "Yes, for we're not moving out further all the time, anyway. Hang this old fog!
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