CHAPTER IV

DAN STAKES HIS LIFE, AND WINS

Before the Winter passed, Dan had taken his master's examination with
flying colors and was made Captain of the _Fledgling_, owned by the
Phoenix Towboat Company. She was a new boat, rugged, powerful, one
hundred and twenty-five feet water line, designed and built to go
anywhere and do anything.

The Phoenix Company was known as a venturesome organization, as willing
to send its fleet ramping out through the fog to the assistance of a
distressed liner as to transport arms to West Indian or Central
American revolutionists. Before Dan had commanded the _Fledgling_ many
months he had done both, and was beginning to be known up and down the
coast as a captain to be called upon in emergencies verging upon the
extraordinary, not to say extra-hazardous.

All of which he accepted joyously, as the portion of youth in search of
experience that life has to offer. He was sufficiently introspective
to rate the temper of his spirit at something approaching its real
value, and he knew it was to be cherished, guarded, lest the fine edge
be lost. As the world reckons things it was a humble calling upon
which he had entered, a calling hardly qualified to enlist the pride of
the family whose name he bore.