e was no compass and no chart aboard.
They sighted what they thought was a fishing smack on the horizon,
showing dimly in the early dawn. The man at the rudder steered toward
it, and the women bent to their oars again. They covered several miles
in this way--but the smack faded into the distance. They could not see
it any longer. And the coward said that everything was over.

They rowed back nine weary miles. Then the coward thought they must stop
rowing, and lie in the trough of the waves until the Carpathia should
appear. The women tried it for a few moments, and felt the cold creeping
into their bodies. Though exhausted from the hard physical labor they
thought work was better than freezing.

"Row again!" commanded Mrs. Brown.

"No, no, don't," said the coward.

"We shall freeze," cried several of the women together. "We must row. We
have rowed all this time. We must keep on or freeze."

When the coward still demurred, they told him plainly and once for all
that if he persisted in wanting them to stop rowing, they were going to
throw him overboard and be done with him for good. Something about the
look in the eye of that Mississippi-bred oarswoman, who seemed such a
force among her fellows, told him that he had better capitulate. And he
did.

COUNTESS ROTHES AN EXPERT OARSWOMAN

Miss Alice Farnam Leader, a New York physician, escaped from the Titanic
on the same boat which carried the Countess Rothes. "The countess is an
expert oarswoman," said Doctor Leader, "and thoroughly at home on the
water. She practically took command of our boat when it was found that
the seaman who had been placed at the oars could not row skilfully.
Several of the women took their place with the countess at the oars and
rowed in turns, while the weak and unskilled stewards sat quietly in one
end of the boat."

MEN COULD NOT ROW

"With nothing on but a nightgown I helped row one of the boats for three
hours," said Mrs. Florence Ware, of Bristol, England.

"In our boat there were a lot of women, a steward and a fireman. None of
the men knew anything about managing a small boat, so some of the women
who were used to boats took charge.

"It was cold and I worked as hard as I could at an oar until we were
picked up. There was nothing to eat or drink on our boat."

DEATHS ON THE LIFE-BOATS

"The temperature must have been below freezing," testified another
survivor, "and neither men nor women in my boat were warmly clothed.