Then he felt the boat, as though suddenly endowed with life, start
forward, and, glancing at the _Fledgling_, saw that she had made a
tangent course to the wreck in order that the boat could be pulled
outward from it and away. Dan knew in an instant that they had lashed
the line to the stern bitts and had taken the desperate chance, the
only chance, of making the tug pull her lifeboat from danger. Could
the little line stand the strain? That was the question. It was so
tight that it vibrated like thin wire, and it was humming musically,
monotonously. It held--the boat was moving! But the lumber was moving
too. On it came. Ten feet--a plank wrenched clear of the mass and
shot on ahead, ramming out the lifeboat's stern-board, above the water
line. Another plank, as though hurled by some sinister force, sailed
clear over Dan's head. Ten feet--the line was fraying out at the ring
bolts. Just a second now--five feet. With one bound the lumber swept
down, and past the stern of the boat, and Captain Ephraim fell to his
knees and thanked his God.


The fight off Jones Island Inlet came at a time when it meant much to
Dan. It was the deep sea, and he had measured his might with it. And
as a man is dignified by the prowess of his opponent, so was Dan
dignified by the prowess of the sea. Perhaps that was why the sea had
always called Dan--faintly, dimly; far away sometimes, but always
unmistakably. It came in every wind that blew; a voice that involved
not the sea alone, but the things it stood for--a broader, deeper life
and bigger things; more to do, a final and definite place to make. He
had never met or been influenced by the big men--the men who think and
teach and sing and do the world's work. His environment in these, his
early years of manhood, had been far from them. He could touch them
only in books, which were not entirely satisfactory. And so he learned