unded in the engine room--the signal for full
speed ahead. The efficient McGuffey promptly kicked her wide
open, and the Fates decreed that, having done so, Mr. McGuffey
should forthwith climb the ladder and thrust his head out on
deck for a breath of fresh air. Instantly a chorus of shrieks up
on the fo'castle head attracted his attention to such a degree
that he failed to hear the engine room howler as Mr. Gibney blew
frantically into it.

Presently, out of the hubbub forward, Mr. McGuffey heard Captain
Scraggs wail frantically: "Stop her! For the love of heaven, stop
her!" Instantly the engineer dropped back into the engine room
and set the _Maggie_ full speed astern; then he grasped the
howler and held it to his ear.

"Stop her!" he heard Gibney shriek. "Why in blazes don't you stop
her?"

"She's set astern, Gib. She'll ease up in a minute."

"You know it," Gibney answered significantly.

The _Maggie_ climbed lazily to the crest of a long oily roller,
slid recklessly down the other side, and took the following sea
over her taffrail. She still had some head on, but very
little--not quite sufficient to give her decent steerage way, as
Mr. Gibney discovered when, having at length communicated his
desires to McGuffey, he spun the wheel frantically in a belated
effort to swing the _Maggie's_ dirty nose out to sea.

"Nothin' doin'," he snarled. "She'll have to come to a complete
stop before she begins to walk backward and get steerage way on
again. She'll bump as sure as death an' taxes."

She did--with a crack that shook the rigging and caused it to
rattle like buckshot in a pan. A terrible cry--such a cry,
indeed, as might burst from the lips of a mother seeing her only
child run down by the Limited--burst from poor Captain Scraggs.
"My ship! my ship!" he howled. "My darling little _Maggie_!
They've killed you, they've killed you! The dirty lubbers!"

The succeeding wave lifted the _Maggie_ off the beach, carried
her in some fifty feet further, and deposited her gently on the
sand. She heeled over to port a little and rested there as if she
was very, very weary, nor could all the threshing of her screw in
reverse haul her off again. The surf, dashing in under her
fantail, had more power than McGuffey's engines, and, foot by
foot, the _Maggie_ proceeded to dig herself in. Mr. Gibney
listened for five minutes to the uproar that rose from the bowels
of the little steamer before he whistled up Mr. McGuffey.

"