e to. I
kept looking up, looking up, searching for the north star, and pretty
soon I made it out, or thought I did, through a rift in the blackness.

"'Hold on!' said I to the captain, 'something's the matter with your
compass. There's the north star ahead of us, and it ought to be abaft
the bridge.'

"'North star nothing,' said the captain. 'You're tired, man; you need a
rest. Now, you just turn in for an hour, and I'll run her.'

"'You'll run her on the rocks,' said I, 'inside of fifteen minutes
unless you pull her out of here. I tell you that compass is crazy.'

"Well, sir, he began to get scared when he saw me so positive, and a
little later he pulled her out--just in time, too, for we were right on
the breakers of Long Island, thanks to that lying compass. I've heard
it's the magnetic sand at Shinnecock that devils compasses. You know
there's acres and acres of it along there."

This led to a discussion of magnetic sand, and it was edifying to see
how well informed these pilots are in the latest advances of science.

They set forth, for example, the clear advantage of literally pouring
oil upon furious waters, and were all agreed that the foam of a spent
wave, spreading around a life-boat, will often protect her against a
succeeding wave. The foam seems to act like oil in preventing a driving
wind from tossing up the surface--getting a hold on it, one might say.

"Taking it altogether," I asked, "do you men regard a pilot's life as
very dangerous?"

It was Breed who answered: "Taking it altogether," said he, "I regard a
pilot's life as about the most dangerous going. Here's a little thing to
show you how fast they go, these lives of pilots. When I was received as
apprentice there were eighteen other apprentices ahead of me, and the
only way we could get to be pilots was through somebody dropping out,
for there were never more than just so many licenses issued. Well, when
I had been an apprentice for three years the whole eighteen had been
received as pilots, and there were seven vacancies besides. That makes
twenty-five dead pilots in three years, and most of 'em killed. Why, in
the blizzard of 1888 alone ten of our boats were wrecked."

At this there was a solemn shaking of heads, then stories of the taking
off of this or that gallant fellow. There was Van Pelt, one of the
strongest men in the service--a pilot from a family of pilots--killed by
the stroke of a tow-line--a big hawser that snapped across hi