By this time they were within a hundred yards of
the derelict, and, with engines just moving, they tossed about on the
long swells and had a better look at the schooner. She was about eighty
feet long, with a beam of probably twenty-two, and displaced
approximately a hundred tons. She was square-sterned and blunt-nosed,
evidently built for capacity rather than speed. Her name, in gold
letters on the bow, was quite distinct: _Catspaw_. Later, when they
rounded her stern, they saw that her home port was Norfolk. Her cargo,
or at least so much of it as was above deck, consisted of rough pine
boards, and every available foot of space was occupied with it. The
deck-house was all but hidden. The mainmast dragged by a tangle of ropes
aft of the starboard beam and was acting as a sort of sea-anchor. For
the rest, her lumber-piled deck was swept clean save for a splintered
gaff that had become wedged in the boards. Her hull had been painted
black, but not very recently, and a dingy white streak led along the
side.
The two cruisers worked cautiously around to the leeward side of the
_Catspaw_, the _Adventurer's_ tender was dropped over and Steve, Joe and
Han climbed in. Boarding in that sea was no child's work, for the big
swells, which slammed into and sometimes over the schooner without much
effect, tossed the dingey high in air.
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