s, Corkey is eager to see the man in the stern.

"Holy smoke!" says the oarsman.

"Yessah!" stammers the obedient lad.

The face on the stern seat startles Corkey. The nose is broken, the
lips are cut, some of the front teeth are gone and the face has been
bloody. It is like a wound poulticed white. It has been wet and cold
all night.

"Lockwin, isn't it you?" asks Corkey, greatly moved at a sight so
affecting.

"It is," signals Lockwin. The voice is inaudible to Corkey.

The head rises and Corkey strains his ear.

"I'm dying, Corkey. God bless you. I wanted to thank you."

"God bless you, Lockwin. We're all in the same boat. I'm glad we
caught you!"

The mascot moves toward the sinking man.

The head falls again on the stern seat. The body is in ten inches of
water.

The boat is moving rapidly.

"Want to send any word home, Lockwin?"

There is a pause. There is an effort to speak of money. There is
another effort.

"He s-a-ays put a st-st-stone at Davy's-s-s-s-s grave," interprets the
stammerer.

"Who's Davy?" asks the oarsman. "What else did he say?"

"H-h-h-he's dead!" says the lad.

"Bail! bail!" answers the man. "Let's g-g-get 'im out!" suggests the
boy in a half-hour. Corkey has been sobbing.

"I thought a heap of Lockwin," he answers.

"I d-d-don't like a d-d-dead man in the boat!"

"Bail, you moke! I'll throw you in!"

But Corkey's voice is far from menacing. Corkey is weak. Now he sees
the boy's face in dreadful contortions. The lad is trying to speak
quickly, and can make no noise at all.

He rises and points. He is frantic.

"He's crazy!" thinks Corkey, in alarm.

"L-l-land!" screams the lad.

"That is what it is, unless it's sucking us in." Corkey has heard of
mirages in shipwreck.

"It's land!" he says, a moment later, as he sees a tamarack scrub.

It is, in reality, a long, narrow spit of sand that pushes out above
Colpoy's Bay. Beyond that point is the black and open Georgian Bay for
thirty miles.

The boat will ride by, and at least three hundred yards outside.
Unless Corkey can get inside, what will become of him?

If he turn away from the wind he will capsize.

On comes the point. It is the abyss of death beyond.

"We never will get it!" cries the man.

The boy's face is all contortions. He is trying to say something.

"Bail, you moke!" commands the man. But his eyes look imploringly on
the peninsula of sand.

The black face grows h