ed to destruction. There was a chance that by taking these
risks he might save both. All that is best in the soul-impulse of the
soldier was his inspiration. He would do his duty--though that duty was
in no wise his except as he had made it his--and let consequences look
out for themselves.

This young fellow had often sniffed the breath of battle in his
nostrils. He had many times done and dared things that only a brave and
self-regardless man could have done and dared. To-night the old
enthusiasm of war came back to his soul, but with a difference. He had
often fought to destroy. He was facing danger now with saving and the
rescue of imperiled human lives for his purpose.

As the tug quitted her moorings and began her voyage up the river,
Duncan caught a glimpse of Captain Hallam's form hurrying toward the
landing. Almost immediately the tug began to plunge in perilous fashion,
thrusting her head under the waves, and shipping water enough to dampen
the fires and diminish steam pressure in a way that threatened failure
to the enterprise.

Failure in the work of rescue was the only thing that Guilford Duncan
feared.

He had already had the hatches securely battened down so that no water
could find its way into the hold. But when he saw that water was rapidly
rushing with every sea into the furnace room, threatening with
extinction the fires that could alone give power to the vessel, he
called one of the deck hands to the wheel, and instructing him as to the
course to be laid, himself hurriedly inspected ship. With the aid of the
other deck hand he quickly removed from bow to stern everything that had
weight. Then he and the deck hand and the fireman, with some aid from
the engineer, proceeded to shovel the coal supply from its bunkers
forward of the fire room into the captain's cabin aft of the furnaces.

This done, the tug no longer ran her prow into and under the tremendous
seas, but rode over them instead, shipping no further water.

Then Duncan returned to the pilot house, and a few minutes later reached
the imperiled fleet of coal barges.

There havoc had already begun. Three barges had gone down and two men
had been drowned. The rest of the barges were riding so uneasily that
their seams were opening, and the water that must presently swamp them
was finding its insidious way through their sides and bottoms.

When the tug appeared, all the men on board the coal barges clamored
piteously to be taken off at