him to the hospital, and, as gangrene had set in, a portion of each foot
was amputated. He was "queer" for several weeks, but, with returning
physical health, gradually recovered his mental equilibrium. After a few
days in Halifax, I was sent on by steamer to Boston, bringing the first
news of either our loss or our rescue.

On reaching my home town I did not go to a boarding house; there was
plenty of room for me in the home and I was contented to stay there for
a while. The old salts received me as a long-lost brother, and while the
official notice was never handed me, I was made to feel that somewhere
in their inner consciousness I had been elected a regular member of the
Amalgamated Society of Sea Dogs, and was entitled to an inside seat, if
I could find one, about the stove of any shoemaker's shop in the Cove.
The Banks were revisited in memory, and all the old fog experiences were
brought out, amplified and elongated as far as possible, but it was
conceded that we had established a new record in the nautical traditions
of the Cove. It took several years for me to inch my way back to
physical solvency from the effects of my exposure, and this delayed the
carrying out of my plans, to which my fishing trips had been a prelude.

The strange thing that I now have to record is that I soon forgot, or
willfully ignored, my whole experience of God, prayer and deliverance,
and became apparently more skeptical and indifferent than before. The
only way I can explain this is that I had not become a Christian, and my
dominant mental attitude reasserted itself when danger was past. I
practically never attended church. My position and influence, however,
were not merely negative; I was positively antagonistic to Christianity,
and this attitude continued up to the April following.

[Illustration: Dave Lived in a Beautiful Old Place Near the Shore and I