It was ticklish work for a greenhorn.  Joe threw off all the turns save the last, which he held with one hand, while with the other he attempted to bring in on the painter.  But at that instant it tightened with a tremendous jerk, the boat sheering sharply into the crest of a heavy sea.  The rope slipped from his hands and began to fly out over the stern.  He clutched it frantically, and was dragged after it over the sloping deck.

“Let her go!  Let her go!” ’Frisco Kid shouted.

Joe let go just as he was on the verge of going overboard, and the skiff dropped rapidly astern.  He glanced in a shamefaced way at his companion, expecting to be sharply reprimanded for his awkwardness.  But ’Frisco Kid smiled good-naturedly.

“That ’s all right,” he said.  “No bones broke and nobody overboard.  Better to lose a boat than a man any day; that ’s what I say.  Besides, I should n’t have sent you out there.  And there ’s no harm done.  We can pick it up all right.  Go in and drop some more centerboard,—­a couple of feet,—­and then come out and do what I tell you.  But don’t be in a hurry.  Take it easy and sure.”

Joe dropped the centerboard and returned, to be stationed at the jib-sheet.

“Hard a-lee!” ’Frisco Kid cried, throwing the tiller down, and following it with his body.  “Cast off!  That ’s right.  Now lend a hand on the main-sheet!”

Together, hand over hand, they came in on the reefed mainsail.  Joe began to warm up with the work.  The Dazzler turned on her heel like a race-horse, and swept into the wind, her canvas snarling and her sheets slatting like hail.

“Draw down the jib-sheet!”

Joe obeyed, and, the head-sail filling, forced her off on the other tack.  This manoeuver had turned French Pete’s bunk from the lee to the weather side, and rolled him out on the cabin floor, where he lay in a drunken stupor.

’Frisco Kid, with his back against the tiller and holding the sloop off that it might cover their previous course, looked at him with an expression of disgust, and muttered:  “The dog!  We could well go to the bottom, for all he ’d care or do!”

Twice they tacked, trying to go over the same ground; and then Joe discovered the skiff bobbing to windward in the star-lit darkness.

“Plenty of time,” ’Frisco Kid cautioned, shooting the Dazzler into the wind toward it and gradually losing headway.  “Now!”

Joe leaned over the side, grasped the trailing painter, and made it fast to the bitt.  Then they tacked ship again and started on their way.  Joe still felt ashamed for the trouble he had caused; but ’Frisco Kid quickly put him at ease.

“Oh, that ’s nothing,” he said.  “Everybody does that when they ’re beginning.  Now some men forget all about the trouble they had in learning, and get mad when a greeny makes a mistake.  I never do.  Why, I remember—­”

And then he told Joe of many of the mishaps which fell to him when, as a little lad, he first went on the water, and of some of the severe punishments for the same which were measured out to him.  He had passed the running end of a lanyard over the tiller-neck, and as they talked they sat side by side and close against each other in the shelter of the cockpit.