ve sent
all the channel buoys adrift" (you know the ship channel is lighted with
electric lamps like Fifth Avenue), "so her pilot will anchor outside."

Away went the tug at full speed. The yellow mast-head light kept growing
higher, like a meteor going backward. Soon we could distinguish the dim
white shape of a giant steamship. As she came nearer we saw that she was
ice-coated from the water-line to one hundred feet above the deck. The
lights glowed and twinkled out of the cabin ports like the candles
shining out of the white churches we used to have when we were little
boys. The big ship anchored not far from the Sandy Hook Lightship (six
miles out on the Atlantic). Our Captain knew her for the _Teutonic_ as
readily as you would know your father in the street. On account of the
high waves we dared not go within one hundred feet, for fear of being
dashed against the steamship's side. Our tug's bow swung up in the wind,
and we began a conversation with the officer on the _Teutonic_'s bridge,
our words shooting back and forth across fifty yards of icy wind that
sped between us at the rate of fifty-six miles an hour. The _Teutonic_
had no news of _La Gascogne_.

On that Monday afternoon when the telegraph-operator in Fire Island
tower reported the missing _Gascogne_ approaching his station, our tug
started out again. The many weary and fruitless nights of watching and
cruising were all forgotten. The searchers hurried through dinner in the
galley, and drank big mugs of coffee in gulps. Every one was too happy
to stay long at anything. I never knew the distance between the Battery
and the outer light-ship to be so long. From here, at last, we spied a
glimmer of red on the sky-line. If enthusiasm burned, there wouldn't
have been a lens left in one of those glasses. Men perched on the top of
the pilot-house to see better.

"That's the _Gascogne_--three red lights at the mast-head--going under
repairs," cried the mate, from the loftiest perch.

Every minute dragged outrageously until we got alongside of the
steamship. Nothing in her appearance except the three red lights
indicated that anything was wrong. She was moving slowly--only eight
miles an hour. We ran under her stern, and got alongside her lee bow.
Groups of passengers gathered along the rails, although it was now very
near midnight. They cheered the men who came so far to welcome them. An
officer on the bridge told of the accident in a dozen words. Through one