ir best by man.

The dog happened to be down at the shore, forlornly searching for
sculpins and caplin. There was still open water between the shore and
the ship. Reuben Decker pointed to the rocks across which the rope had
fallen. At his word of command, the dog jumped into the sea, swam to
the rocks, and seized the rope in his mouth. Then, with the cries from
the ship and the shore ringing in his ears, he turned and began to
swim with it to the shore. It was not a heavy line. It was meant to be
used to haul a thicker rope. But it was wet, of course, and partly
frozen, and the miracle is how the animal managed to pull it through a
sea where men did not dare to go.

The watchers ashore, standing waist and shoulder deep in the waves,
anxious to launch a boat as soon as the heavy swell would let them,
watched the dog and clapped their hands and yelled to him to come on.

"Look at un!"

"Swimmin' like a swile!"

"Kim alang, b'y, kim alang!"

[Illustration: LET'S GO!]

"Man dear! My, my, my! Ain't dat wunnerful, now!"

"Dat 'm de b'y!"

"By de powers!--Git y'r gaff, b'y! Help un in!"

"We'll have 'm all sove, soon's us lays han's on dat rope. Lord bless
dat dog!"

At one moment his little brown head would rise on the crest of a
streaked, yeasty wave, the rope still in the white teeth--and then as
the wave curled and broke he would be plunged to the bottom of the
trough and they would lose sight of him. Would he come up again?

"Yes--dere he be! My, my, my! Look at him a-comin' and a-comin'! I
never did see a dog the beat o' un! By the livin' Jarge, he's got more
sense 'n any o' us humans! I tell ye, thet's a miracle, thet's what it
is. Nothin' short o' a gospel miracle!"

So the comment ran--for those who said anything. But many were too
surprised and thrilled to speak--and if they cried out it was when
they all cheered mightily together as the dog, hauled through the surf
by as many as could get their eager hands on him, scrambled out on
the beach and dropped the fag-end of the rope as if it were a stick,
thrown into the water in sport, for him to retrieve.

Now that communication was established, the next thing to do was to
haul a heavier rope to the beach. On this a breeches-buoy was rigged
without delay. In that breeches-buoy the ninety-two were hauled
ashore. One of them was a baby, eighteen months old, who traveled in a
mail-bag, "pleasantly sleeping and unaware." The last to leave was the
capta