re with her elbow
toward the storm-lashed raceway over the bows. Griswold winked the spray
out of his eyes and looked. At first he saw nothing but the wild waste
of whitecaps, but at the next attempt he made out the hotel steam
launch, half-way to the entrance of the southern bay and a little to
leeward of the _Clytie's_ course. The small steamer was evidently no
sea-boat, and with more courage than seamanship, its steersman was
driving straight for the Inn bay without regard for the direction of the
wind and the seas.

"That's Ole Halverson!" cried the tiller maiden with scorn in her voice.
"He thinks because he happens to have a steam engine he needn't look to
see which way the wind is blowing."

"She's pitching pretty badly," Griswold called back. "If he only had
sense enough to ease off a little...." Suddenly he became aware of the
finer heroism of his companion. He knew now why she had refused to take
shelter under the lee of the island, and why she was holding the catboat
down to the edge of peril to keep the windward advantage of the laboring
steamer. "Margery, girl, you're a darling!" he shouted. "Take all the
chances you want to and I'm with you, if we go to the bottom!"

She nodded complete intelligence and took in another inch of the
straining main-sheet.

"If Halverson loses his nerve they're going to need help, and need it
before the _Osprey_ can get out to them," she prophesied.

Griswold looked again, this time over the catboat's counter, and saw a
big schooner, close-reefed, hauling out from a little bay on the north
shore. The launch's plight had evidently impressed others with the
necessity of doing something. The need was sufficiently urgent. Once
again the Swedish man of machinery in charge of the craft in peril was
inching his helm up in a vain endeavor to hold the course, and the
little steamer was rolling almost funnel under. Griswold forgot that his
companion was a woman and swore rabidly.

"Look at the fool!" he yelled. "He's trying to come about! If he gets
into the trough----"

The thing was done almost as he spoke. A wilder squall than any of the
preceding ones caught the upper works of the launch and heeled her
spitefully. At the critical instant the steersman lost his head and
spun the wheel, and it was all over. With a heaving plunge and a muffled
explosion the launch was gone.

Once again Griswold was given to see the stuff Margery Grierson was made
of in the finer warp and woof