it!" And Arthur went, grumbling and sighing that a man's stomach
should govern his temper.

"Take the wheel a while, Cap'n?" said the mate; and as Dan nodded he
stepped in close, braced his feet, and took the strain as Dan's hands
left the spokes.

"We'll both be on the wheel together before long," remarked Dan,
sitting heavily on the chart locker and opening and shutting his
stiffened fingers.

"Where is she and what's ashore?" asked Mulhatton. "You jumped us out
in such a hurry this morning, I ain't had time to ask you."

"It's an old lumber hooker, and she's ashore on Jones Inlet bar;
stranded just before midnight last night. Lord knows how much there is
left of her by this time. But I took it a good salvage job to go
after. Cripes!" The _Fledgling_ on her altered course had topped a
wave forward, which wave, travelling swiftly aft, had withdrawn from
the bow the support of its mighty shoulder. Down went the bow with a
great slap and up went the stern, screw racing and racking the engines,
sending Mulhatton crashing to the floor. But bruised as he was and
dazed, he was on his feet with the quickness of a cat, and seizing the
spokes, assisted Dan in bringing up the tug's head to where it ought to
be.

"It's a-goin' to be lively work salvin' any hooker to-day," said the
mate.

"It is," replied Dan, "but I'll tell you this, Mul; we'll land her if
anybody can. For I've a tug under me built under my very eyes. I know
every beam and bolt in her. And I've a crew of rustlers," he added,
gazing proudly at Mulhatton's broad back--Mulhatton, with round, red,
bristly, laughing face and eyes like raw onions.

The next minute Dan, in all the delight of the struggle, was making his
way along the lower deck to the engine-room door. The water was racing
past the rail like a wet blur and the deck sloshed ankle deep. High up
a wave climbed the _Fledgling_, and as she paused on the top for a
downward glide, Dan hastily opened the door and clambered down the iron
ladder.

"Well, Sam, how are they working?" he shouted to Crampton, the chief,
bending over a fizzing valve bonnet.

Sam rose, pushed back his oily peaked cap until the straight raven hair
flowed out from under like a cataract, and gave his thin, waterfall
moustache a twist, while his swarthy, parchment face cracked into a
hundred smiles.

"Workin'," he said, "as sweet as a babe breathin'."

Up reared the stern, lifting the propeller clear of the wate