wind or harbor seals playing in their element.
Like these the man was adapted to his life, not because he possessed
wonderful intelligence but owing to the brine which, since childhood, had
entered his blood. The vast ice-pans had revealed their secrets to him
and the North Atlantic gales had become the breath of his nostrils.

I can remember a time when I had an idea that I could handle a boat
fairly well, but now I was compelled to recognize my limitations, while I
really enjoyed the exhibition of Sammy's skill.

"We'd ought ter be gettin' handy," roared the latter to Frenchy, who
nodded back, turning towards us his dripping, bearded face, for an
instant.

Suddenly he extended his arm.

"Me see. To port!" he shouted.

Dimly, veiled by the fog curtain, of ghostly outline, a jutting cliff
appeared and Sammy luffed slightly. On both sides of us the seas were
dashing up some tremendous rocks, but directly ahead there was an opening
between the combers that hurled themselves aloft, roaring and impotent,
to fall back into seething masses of spume. There was a suggestion of
tremendous walls over which voices were shrieking in the battle of
unending centuries between the moving turmoil and the stolid cliffs,
defying the battering waves.

Our little boat flew on, and suddenly the rolling and pitching ceased as
if some magic had oiled the waters. Within the land-locked cove the wind
no longer howled and the surface was smooth. It was like awaking from the
unrest of a nightmare to the peace of one's bed. We glided on, losing
headway, for Frenchy had let the sheets run. With movements apparently
slow, yet with the deftness which brings quick results, the sails were
gathered about the masts and made fast, and presently we drifted against
the small forest of poles supporting the flakes and fishhouses. These
were black and glistening with the rain and from them came an odor, acrid
and penetrating, of decaying fish in ill-emptied gurry-butts and of
putrefying livers oozing out a black oil in open casks.

We made our way over the precarious footing of unstable planks and shook
ourselves like wet dogs, while Sammy stopped for a moment to hunt beneath
his oilskins for a sodden plug of tobacco, from which he managed to gnaw
off a satisfactory portion.

"Well, we's here, anyways," he observed, quietly.

"Sammy, you're a wonderful man!" I exclaimed, earnestly.

The old fellow looked at me, but his seamed face appeared devoid of