ecome
perceptibly narrower. The light was now fading rapidly, and Wyllard took
the wheel when Dampier sent forward the man who had held it.

"Get the cover off the second boat, and see everything clear for
hoisting out," commanded the skipper, and then called to Wyllard, "We're
close enough. You'd better heave her round."

The schooner came around with a thrashing of canvas, stretched out
seawards, and came back again with her deck sharply slanted and little
puffs of spray blowing over her weather-rail, for there was no doubt
that the breeze was freshening fast. Dampier now sent a man up into the
foremast shrouds, and looked at Wyllard afterward.

"I'd heave a couple of reefs down if I wasn't so anxious about that
blamed boat," he said. "As it is, I want to be ready to pick her up just
as soon as we see her, and it's quite likely she'd turn up when we'd got
way off the schooner, and the peak eased down."

Wyllard realized that Dampier was right as he glanced over the rail at
the dimness that was creeping in on them. It was blowing almost fresh by
this time, and the _Selache_ was driving very fast through the swell,
which began to froth here and there. It is, as he knew from experience,
always hard work, and often impossible, to pull a boat to windward in
any weight of breeze, which rendered it advisable to keep the schooner
under way. If the boat drove by them while they were reefing it might be
difficult to pick her up afterwards in the dark. He was now distinctly
anxious about her. Just as the light was dying out, the man in the
shrouds sent down a cry.

"I see them, sir!" he said.

Dampier turned to Wyllard with a gesture of relief. "That's a weight off
my mind. I wish we had a reef in, but"--he glanced up at the
canvas--"she'll have to stand it. Anyway, I'll leave you there. We want
to get that second boat lashed down again."

This, as Wyllard recognized, was necessary, though he would rather have
had somebody by him and the rest of them ready to let the mainsheet run,
inasmuch as he was a little to windward of the opening, and surmised
that he would have to run the schooner down upon the boat. It was a few
moments later when he saw the boat emerge from the ice, and the men in
her appeared to be pulling strenuously. They were, perhaps, half a mile
off, and the schooner, heading for the ice, was sailing very fast.
Wyllard lost sight of the boat again, for a thin shower of whirling snow
suddenly obscured the l