quite such a stentorian tone as he would have liked, while his hand
trembled on the gunwale. Tom Peters, it must be acknowledged, was much
more of a buccaneer when it was a question of deeds, for he planted
himself in the way of the belligerent chief of the head-hunters (who
spoke with a decided brogue).

"Get out of the way!" said Tom, with a little squeak in his voice. Yet
there he was, and he deserves a tribute.

An unlooked-for diversion saved us from annihilation, in the shape of
one who had a talent for creating them. We were bewilderingly aware of a
girlish figure amongst us.

"You cowards!" she cried. "You cowards!"

Lithe, and fairly quivering with passion, it was Nancy who showed us
how to face the head-hunters. They gave back. They would have been brave
indeed if they had not retreated before such an intense little nucleus
of energy and indignation!...

"Ah, give 'em a chanst," said their chief, after a moment.... He even
helped to push the boat towards the water. But he did not volunteer to
be one of those to man the Petrel on her maiden voyage. Nor did
Logan's pond, that wild March day, greatly resemble the South Seas.
Nevertheless, my eye on Nancy, I stepped proudly aboard and seized
an "oar." Grits and Tom followed,--when suddenly the Petrel sank
considerably below the water-line as her builders had estimated it. Ere
we fully realized this, the now friendly head-hunters had given us
a shove, and we were off! The Captain, who should have been waving
good-bye to his lady love from the poop, sat down abruptly,--the crew
likewise; not, however, before she had heeled to the scuppers, and
a half-bucket of iced water had run it. Head-hunters were mere daily
episodes in Grits's existence, but water... He muttered something in
cockney that sounded like a prayer.... The wind was rapidly driving
us toward the middle of the pond, and something cold and ticklish was
seeping through the seats of our trousers. We sat like statues....

The bright scene etched itself in my memory--the bare brown slopes with
which the pond was bordered, the Irish shanties, the clothes-lines with
red flannel shirts snapping in the biting wind; Nancy motionless on the
bank; the group behind her, silent now, impressed in spite of itself at
the sight of our intrepidity.

The Petrel was sailing stern first.... Would any of us, indeed, ever see
home again? I thought of my father's wrath turned to sorrow because he
had refused to gratify