he
rescued men, already nearly perishing with exhaustion, to have to get a
ducking, but there was still a greater danger. This was that the tackle
might not stand the strain of dragging the breeches-buoy, with a man in
it, through the mush-ice. The increased resistance might break the line
and risk anew the perishing of every life on board.

The keeper saw the difficulty and decided promptly.

"Jefferson and Harris," he shouted, "you're the tallest. Get out into
that mush-ice and see how deep it is. Wade out as far as you can go.
Follow the line and stand ready to catch the breeches-buoy."

The two men chosen waded out, battling almost for their lives with big
pieces of ice. Fortunately the bottom sloped gradually and they were
able to walk out a considerable distance. Shouting to them through his
trumpet to wait there, the keeper ordered the rest of the crew to haul
in the first man. As the keeper had expected, the rope sagged terribly,
but, by drawing up his legs, the rescued man did not actually sink into
the mush-ice until nearly up to the spot where Jefferson and Harris
stood. The two men grasped the buoy and started pulling it ashore, one
man holding the survivor's head above the water and ice, while the other
made a path in the ice by forcing his way ahead of the buoy.

Half-way in, Harris collapsed. It afterwards developed that he had been
quite badly hurt on the ice-barrier but had not said a word about it. As
four men were needed on shore and there should be three to help in the
ice, the crew was a man short.

"I wish we had a third man!" said the keeper irritably. "Confoundedly
annoying that Harris should have got hurt now."

"You have a third," said a quiet voice, and Edith Abend stepped
forward.

"But, Miss!"

"Your orders, keeper?" the girl put in quietly.

The keeper looked at her sharply. He was a man of judgment and
accustomed to read faces. Without another word, and in the tone he would
have used in speaking to another man he said,

"Get right out there and hold the man's head above water as he comes in.
Jefferson and you, Eric, will break the way for the buoy."

And so it was, that with a light-keeper's daughter, a girl seventeen
years old, as the seventh in the crew, the life-savers of Point Au Sable
saved from the _City of Nipigon_ every soul on board.

CHAPTER VI

A BLAZON OF FLAME AT SEA

Three weeks after the rescue of the crew of the _City of Nipigon_,
navigation on Lak