Orde, stooping, offered him.

"I'll try to bring her back all right, sir," said he.

"To hell with the tug!" cried Orde, impatient at this insistence on the
mere property aspect. "Bring yourself back."

Captain Marsh deliberately lit another cigar and entered the pilot-house
with the other men.

"Cast off!" he cried; and the silent crowd heard clearly the single
sharp bell ringing for attention, and then the "jangler" that called for
full speed ahead. Awed, they watched the tiny sturdy craft move out into
the stream and point to the fury of the open lake.

"Brave chaps! Brave chaps!" said Dr. McMullen to Carroll as they turned
away. The physician drew his tall slender figure to its height. "Brave
chaps, every one of them. But, do you know, to my mind, the bravest of
them all are that nigger--and his fireman--nailed down in the hold where
they can't see nor know what's going on, and if--if--" the good doctor
blew his nose vigorously five or six times--"well, it's just like a rat
in a hole." He shook his head vigorously and looked out to sea. "I read
last evening, sir," said he to Bradford, "in a blasted fool medical
journal I take, that the race is degenerating. Good God!"

The tug had rounded the end of the pier. The first of her thousand
enemies, sweeping in from the open, had struck her fair. A great sheet
of white water, slanting back and up, shot with terrific impact against
the house and beyond. For an instant the little craft seemed buried;
but almost immediately the gleam of her black hull showed her plunging
forward dauntlessly.

"That's nothin'!" said the tug captain who had first spoken. "Wait 'til
she gets outside!" The watchers streamed down from the pier for a better
view. Carroll and Miss Heinzman followed. They saw the staunch little
craft drive into three big seas, each of which appeared to bury her
completely, save for her upper works. She managed, however, to keep her
headway.

"She can stand that, all right," said one of the life-saving crew who
had been watching her critically. "The trouble will come when she drops
down to the vessels."

In spite of the heavy smashing of head-on seas the SPRITE held her
course straight out.

"Where's she going, anyway?" marvelled little Mr. Smith, the stationer.
"She's away beyond the wrecks already."

"Probably Marsh has found the seas heavier than he thought and is afraid
to turn her broadside," guessed his companion.

"Afraid, hell!" snorted a rive