rman who overheard.

Nevertheless the SPRITE was now so distant that the loom of the great
seas on the horizon swallowed her from view, save when she rose on the
crest of some mighty billow.

"Well, what is he doing 'way out there then?" challenged Mr. Smith's
friend with some asperity.

"Do'no," replied the riverman, "but whatever it is, it's all right as
long as Buck Marsh is at the wheel."

"There, she's turned now," Mr. Smith interposed.

Beneath the trail of black smoke she had shifted direction. And then
with startling swiftness the SPRITE darted out of the horizon into full
view. For the first time the spectators realised the size and weight of
the seas. Not even the sullen pounding to pieces of the vessels on the
bar had so impressed them as the sight of the tug coasting with railroad
speed down the rush of a comber like a child's toy-boat in the surf. One
moment the whole of her deck was visible as she was borne with the wave;
the next her bow alone showed high as the back suction caught her and
dragged her from the crest into the hollow. A sea rose behind. Nothing
of the tug was to be seen. It seemed that no power or skill could
prevent her feeling overwhelmed. Yet somehow always she staggered out
of the gulf until she caught the force of the billow and was again cast
forward like a chip.

"Maybe they ain't catchin' p'ticular hell at that wheel to hold her from
yawing!" muttered the tug captain to his neighbour, who happened to be
Mr. Duncan, the minister.

Almost before Carroll had time to see that the little craft was coming
in, she had arrived at the outer line of breakers. Here the combers,
dragged by the bar underneath, crested, curled over, and fell with a
roar, just as in milder weather the surf breaks on the beach. When the
SPRITE rushed at this outer line of white-water, a woman in the crowd
screamed.

But at the edge of destruction the SPRITE came to a shuddering stop. Her
powerful propellers had been set to the reverse. They could not hold
her against the forward fling of the water, but what she lost thus she
regained on the seaward slopes of the waves and in their hollows. Thus
she hovered on the edge of the breakers, awaiting her chance.

As long as the seas rolled in steadily, and nothing broke, she was safe.
But if one of the waves should happen to crest and break, as many of
them did, the weight of water catching the tug on her flat, broad stern
deck would indubitably bury her. The s