rubbing his hands as though the victory were already won. "I declare,
I never thought of you! You can't row back."

Dan raised his head angrily and started to utter a sneering reply, when
the first good swell caught the boat--a great lazy, greasy fellow. The
_Quinn_ went up and then down, and after her shot the rowboat, like a
young colt frisking at the end of her tether, then careening down the
incline on her side as though to ram the stern of the tug ahead, which,
fortunately, was climbing another hill.

What the rowboat had been through before was child's play to this, and
Dan's face grew very stern. Reaching down with one hand, he seized the
other oar and shoved it along to Captain Barney. "Put that down on the
port side. Hang on for your life and keep her steady!" he cried.

Then he gave his attention to his side of the boat while Captain Barney
struggled in the bow. It was a fight that would have thrilled the soul
of whoever could have seen it. But that is always the way in the
bravest, most hopeless fights--no one ever sees them. They are fought
alone, in the dark, on the sea; and sometimes the lion-hearted live to
make a modest tale of it around a winter's fire; but more often the
sequel is, "Found drowned"--if even that.

Captain Barney, frightened into desperate courage, and Dan, in grim
realization that the measure of his good deed this night was the
measure of the soul he was getting to know, fought sternly. They were
on the open sea with all its mystery and lurking fate, and the dark was
all about. There was not even the impression of distance; the swells
arose as though at their elbows, tossed them with great, slimy ease,
let them down again, plucked them this way and that, while the humming