so we can attach the
heavier one, we can rig up a breeches-buoy with the boatswain's chair,
and the women and children could ride safely, for we could lash them to
it."

Captain Smith leaned down and took Jan's head between trembling hands.
The dog and he looked into each other's eyes, and those who watched the
two, felt a little thrill of hope. The animal seemed struggling to grasp
the meaning of the old man's words. A bit of rope was in the captain's
hand, he held it to Jan, who sniffed, then looked back at his master.

Still holding the piece of rope, Captain Smith led the dog to the side
of the boat and pointed at the tangled coils that washed on the surface
of the waves a short distance away.

"Go get it, Jan!" called the old man sharply.

The people on the deck crowded more closely, and the dog braced himself
to spring, but just then a huge wave rose high over the vessel, the
white-crested tip hissing like an angry snake, and Jan looked down,
down, down into a dark hole and below it gleamed the jagged peaks of the
reef, like threatening teeth of a hidden monster. He knew the danger.
Drawing back he turned pleading eyes on his master.

"Go, Jan," said the voice he loved, but this time it did not command, it
begged.

The big wave slipped back, others rose behind it, each one tipped with
white foam, and between those waves were deep, dark hollows. Jan looked
at them, and as he looked, something changed those white-capped things
into snowy peaks of the mountains around the Hospice, while the dark
places between were changed to chasms and crevasses, where Barry, Pluto,
Pallas, Rex and all the dogs of the Hospice had travelled year after
year for ten centuries past. He heard their voices calling him. Jan's
ears cocked up, his body quivered, his muscles stiffened, his nose
pointed high in the air and the cry he sent back to the calls of his kin
was clear and strong like the music of a wonderful, deep-toned bell.
Then he braced himself and leaped far out into the water that caught him
like many strong arms and dragged him under the waves.

With all his great strength Jan fought his way to the surface and as he
rose, something struck against him. He turned quickly to see what new
danger threatened, and then he saw the rope and remembered what he had
been told.

"Go get it, Jan!" his master had said.

[Illustration: _"Then the roaring in his ears turned to the voices of
the Hospice dogs--'The duty of a St. Bernar