There were people who called Clancy a fool for ordering out his vessel
and risking his crew that day--men in that very harbor--and maybe he
was. But for myself, I want that kind of a fool for my skipper. The
man that will take a chance for a stranger will take a bigger chance
for his own by and by.

We saw her while we were yet miles away, down to the west'ard--near
Whitehead and with the cruel stretch of rocks under her lee quarter.
Even with plenty of sea-room she could not have lasted long, and here
with these ledges to catch her she looked to be in for a short shrift.
We had a good chance to get a look at her as we bore down. Everything
was gone from her deck, even the house and rail. There was not as much
loose wood on deck as would make a tooth-pick. Afterwards we learned
that two seas hove her down so that they had to cut the spars away to
right her, and then just as she was coming up another monster had
caught her and swept her clean--not only swept clean, but stove in her
planks and started some of her beams so that she began to leak in a
fashion that four men to the pumps could just manage to keep up with.

We could just see them--the men to the pumps working desperately--with
the others lashed to the stumps of the masts and the stanchions which
were left when the rail went. Her big hawser had parted and her chain
was only serving to slightly check her way toward the rocks.

With spars and deck gear gone and her hull deep in the water, a vessel
is not so easily distinguished. But there was something familiar in
this one. We had seen her before. All at once it flashed on half a
dozen of us--"the Flamingo!" we said. "God! that's luck!" said
Clancy.

She lay in a sort of inlet that was wide open to the gale, rocks on
the better part of three sides of her, north, south and west. She was
then within all but striking distance of the rocks, and the seas, high
and wicked, were sweeping over her. It looked like a bad place to work
out of if we should get close in, but Clancy held on.

"Not much lee-room, but plenty of water under her keel anyway," and
himself to the wheel, sailed the Johnnie around the Flamingo. He
hailed Maurice as he went by, waved his hand to the others, and hove a
line aboard. They took the line, hauled in the hawser at the end of
it, made that fast to the windlass, and then we started off with her
in tow.

We were doing pretty well, what with plenty of wind and the Johnnie
buckling down t