sing leeway,
fighting, fighting, while every foot of timber, every fathom of rope,
groaned and creaked perpetually, but endured.

To Rainey, this persistent struggle--as he himself controlled the
schooner, legs far astride, his oilskins dripping, his feet awash to the
ankles, spume drenching and whipping him, the wind a lash--brought
exultation and a sense of mastery and confidence such as he had never
before held suggestion of. To guide the ship, constantly to baffle the
sea and wind, the turbulence, buffeting bows and run and counter,
smashing at the rudder, leaping always like a pack of yapping
hounds--this was a thing that left the days of his water-front detail
far behind.

And then he had thought himself in the whirl of things! Even as Simms
seemed to be declining, so Rainey felt that he was coming into the
fulness of strength and health.

Lund was ever with him. Sometimes the girl would come up on deck in her
own waterproofs and stand against the rail to watch the storm, silent as
far as the pair were concerned. And presently Carlsen would come from
below or forward and stand to talk with her until she was tired of the
deck.

They did not seem much like lovers, Rainey fancied. They lacked the
little intimacies that he, though he made himself somewhat of an
automaton at the wheel, could not have failed to see. If the girl
slipped, Carlsen's hand would catch and steady her by the arm; never go
about her waist. And there was no especial look of welcome in her face
when the doctor came to her.

Carlsen seldom took over the wheel. Rainey did more than his share from
sheer love of feeling the control. But one day, at a word from the
girl, Carlsen and she came up to Rainey as he handled the spokes.

"I'll take the wheel a while, Rainey," said the doctor.

Rainey gave it up and went amidships. Out of the tail of his eye he
could see that the girl was pleading to handle the ship, and that
Carlsen was going to let her do so.

Rainey shrugged his shoulders. It was Carlsen's risk. It was no child's
play in that weather to steer properly. The _Karluk_, with her narrow
beam, was lithe and active as a great cat in those waves. It took not
only strength, but watchfulness and experience to hold the course in the
welter of cross-seas.

Lund, whose recognition of voices was perfect, moved amidships as soon
as Carlsen and Peggy Simms came aft. There was no attempt at disguising
the fact that the schooner's afterward was