The Red Un, like the assistants, was becoming a bear on the speed market.  He had learned that, just when the engines get heated enough to work like demons, and there is a chance to break a record and get a letter from the management, some current or other will show up—­or a fog, which takes the very tripe out of the cylinders and sends the bridge yapping for caution.

The Red Un was thirteen; and he made the Chief’s bed by pulling the counterpane neatly and smoothly over the chaos underneath—­and got away with it, the Chief being weary at night.  Also, in odd moments he made life miserable for the crew.  Up to shortly before, he had had to use much energy and all his wits to keep life in his starved little body; and even keeping an eye on the log and the Chief’s hair, and slipping down into the engine room, where he had no manner of business, hardly used up his activities.  However, he did not lie and he looked the Chief square in the eye, as man to man.

The Chief had salvaged him out of the Hudson, when what he had taken for a bobbing red tomato had suddenly revealed a blue face and two set and desperate eyes.  After that the big Scot had forgotten all about him, except the next day when he put on his shoes, which had shrunk in the drying.  The liner finished coaling about that time, took on passengers, luggage, steamer baskets and a pilot, and, having stowed the first two, examined the cards on the third and dropped the last, was pointed, nose to the east wind, for the race.

The arrow on the twin dials pointed to Stand By! for the long voyage—­three thousand miles or so without a stop.  The gong, and then Half Ahead!—­great elbows thrust up and down, up and down; the grunt of power overcoming inertia, followed by the easy swing of limitless strength.  Full Ahead!—­and so off again for the great struggle—­man’s wits and the engines and the mercy of God against the upreaching of the sea.

The Chief, who sometimes dreamed his greatness, but who ignored it waking, snapped his watch shut.

“Eleven-eleven!” he said to the Senior Second.  “Well, here’s luck!” That is what he said aloud; to himself he always said a bit of a prayer, realising perhaps even more than the bridge how little man’s wits count in the great equation.  He generally said something to the effect that “After all, it’s up to Thee, O Lord!”

He shook hands with the Senior Second, which also was his habit; and he smiled too, but rather grimly.  They were playing a bit of a game, you see; and so far the Chief had won all the tricks—­just an amusing little game and nothing whatever to do with a woman; the Second was married, but the Chief had put all such things out of his head years before, when he was a youngster and sailing to the Plate.  Out of his head, quite certainly; but who dreams of greatness for himself alone?  So the Chief, having glanced about and run his hand caressingly over various fearful and pounding steel creatures, had climbed up the blistering metal staircase to his room at the top and was proceeding to put down eleven-eleven and various other things that the first cabin never even heard of, when he felt that he was being stared at from behind.