The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Whip Hand: A Tale of the Pine Country

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A THICK, wet night on the southwest coast of Lake Michigan a dozen
years ago; a wind that sweeps over the pitching lake and on over the
dim white beach with a rush that whirls the sand up and away. Trees are
bending up there on the bluff. The sand and the rain are in the air--or
do we feel the spray from yonder line of breakers, a hundred yards away?

And deep in a mudhole on the lonely road that skirts the bluff--the four
horses, fetlock-deep in the sticky clay, straining forward like heroes,
the members of the student crew in their oilskins throwing their weight
on the wheels of the truck--is the Evanston surf-boat.

The driver has pulled his sou'wester hat down on his neck behind and
swung the U. S. L. S. S. lantern on his arm; he stands beside the
forward wheel, cracks his long whip and swears vigorously.

“Hold on a minute, boys,” he calls over his shoulder; and he must shout
it twice before he is heard. “Whoa, there! Stand back! Now, boys, get
your breath and try it together. When I call------ Now. All ready! Let
her go!”

The men throw themselves on the spokes, the horses plunge forward under
the lash of the whip. A moment of straining--an uncertain moment--then
the wheels turn slowly forward, the horses' feet draw out with a sucking
sound, and the boat rolls ahead. The driver unbuttons his oilskins at the
waist and reaches beneath an under coat for his watch. They have
been out two hours; distance covered, two miles. Before him is darkness,
save where the lantern throws a yellow circle on the ground; behind
him is darkness, save for the white boat, the little group of panting,
grunting men, and, a long mile to the southward, the gleaming eye of
the Grosse Pointe lighthouse, now red, now white. But somewhere 

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