llo there the boat!" hailed the captain.

"All right," the seine-master called back. "A couple o' hundred
barrels."

"Net holding?"

"Looks like it."

"Better get on board soon's you can," the captain advised; "we may have
a bit of a blow."

Colin thought to himself that there was a great deal more than a "bit of
a blow" at the time, but he said nothing. The worst of it was the way
the rain came pelting down, for it was as thick as a fog, and
dispiriting. It was a cold rain, too, and although it was September, the
northeast gale was chill. Colin shivered in his oilskins. The pursing in
done, the seine-master waved a torch, but it could not be seen in the
rain.

"It's a good thing we've got a cap'n like Jerry on board, boys," said
the seine-master. "He'll have to smell us out, because he can't see
anythin'."

But it was a longer wait than any one expected, for the schooner had
faded into the rain and could not be seen. Suddenly a hail was heard,
and the _Shiner_ passed to leeward of the boats, dimly visible. Every
one shouted, and an answering cry came back.

"He'll beat up to wind'ard a bit an' then pick us up," said the
seine-master cheerfully.

Colin wondered how any man could run a schooner about in a gale of wind
and come back to a certain spot, but he need not have been incredulous,
for in about five minutes' time the _Shiner_ came sliding down as though
to run over the boats, being thrown up into the wind in the nick of
time. As the schooner settled beside the boat, all the men but two
streamed aboard her, one remaining at the bow, to shackle the seine-boat
to the iron that hung from the hook at the fore-rigging on the port
side, while the other, grabbing hold of the long steering-oar, did his
best to fend off the stern. The seine, thus being between the boat and
the schooner, was held by Roote and the seine-master. Colin climbed
aboard with the rest of the men, and within two minutes' time, the big
dip-net--which would hold a barrel at a time--was scooped in among the
fish.

Ten or eleven times the dip-net had descended and come up full of fish,
and the work was proceeding rapidly in spite of the pitching and heaving
of the vessel, when suddenly every one was stopped by the long wail of a
foghorn near by. Not a sound of one had been heard before, and all hands
were so busy that the direction from which the sound came had not been
noted. Exactly half a minute elapsed.

Then mournfully and very clos