rat."

"Bail, you moke! Don't you give me more o' your lip! Bail, you little
devil! Don't you see--he-oh--Godsakes! Lookout! Bail, all you
fellers! Other side! Quick! It's no good! Hang on! All you
fellers."

The boat is turning. Hands grasp the gunwale. The gunwale sinks.
Hands rise. The back of the boat rolls toward them. The hands
scramble and pat the back of the boat. The gunwale comes over. The
boat is right side up. She still leaps. She still struggles to be
free. Hand after hand lets go. Six hands remain. The boat rises and
ends about. Then the bow rises; next the stern. The yawl strives
persistently to shake free from the daring creatures who have so far
escaped the Africa and the storm. The boy turns on the gunwale, as it
were a trapeze. He opens the locker. He finds a tin pie-plate. He
bails.

Corkey gets in.

"Lord of heavens!" he ejaculates, "that was a close call. Them
wood-choppers! They was no earthly use."

Two hands are yet on the gunwale.

"Suppose we can git him in?"

"Yessah!" stammers the boy.

The unknown man is evidently wounded, but is more active than when he
was first picked up.

Every wood-chopper is gone. There are no sounds in Georgian Bay other
than the noises of the boat, the wind and the great waves. There were
117 souls on the Africa. Now 114 are drowned. They perished like rats
in a trap.

What moment will the boat overturn again?

"Bail, my son!"

"Yessah!" stammers the boy.

The boat is riding southward and backward at a fast rate. Three hours
have passed--three hours of increasing effort and nerve-straining
suspense.

The wounded survivor lies in the stern of the boat. The boy bails
incessantly. The water is thrown in at the stern in passing over the
boat from the prow.

"It's bad on that rooster!" says Corkey, as he hears the water dashing
on the prostrate form. "Wonder if his head is out of the drink?"

"Yessah!" stammers the boy, feeling slowly in the stern.

The work and the fear settle into a sodden, unbroken period of three
hours more. Growing familiarity with the seas aids Corkey in holding
the craft to the wind. But how long can he last? How long can he defy
the wind?

"Bail, my son!" he begs.

"Yessah," stammers the boy.

The gray light begins to touch the east. Corkey has lived an age since
he saw that light. He is afraid of it now.

A cloud moves by and the morning bursts on the group.

Busy as he i