of her.

"That's for us," she said calmly; and then: "Help me get another inch or
two on this sheet. We don't want to let those people on the _Osprey_ do
all of the heroic things."

Together they held the catboat down to its work, sending it ripping
through the crested waves and fighting sturdily for every foot of the
precious windward advantage. None the less, it was the big schooner,
thrashing down the wind with every square yard of its reefed canvas
drawing, which was first at the scene of disaster. Through the rain and
spume they could see the schooner's crew picking up the shipwrecked
passengers, who were clinging to life-belts, broken bulkheads, and
anything that would float. So swiftly was the rescue effected that the
rescuer had luffed and filled and was tearing on its way down the lake
again when the close-hauled _Clytie_ came up with the first of the
floating wreckage. The tiller maiden's dark eyes were shining again, but
this time their brightness was of tears.

"Oh, boy, boy!" she cried, with a little heart-broken catch in her
voice; "some of them must have gone down with her! Can you believe that
the _Osprey_ got them all?" And then, with the sweet lips trembling: "I
did my best, Kenneth; my very best: and--it wasn't--good enough!"

She was putting the catboat up into the wind, and Griswold stumbled
forward to get the broader outlook. Suddenly he called back to her.

"Port!--port your helm hard! there's a man in a life-belt--he's just out
of reach. Hold her there--steady--steady!" He had thrown himself flat,
face down, on the half-deck forward and was clutching at something in
the heaving seas. "I've got him!" he cried, and a moment later he was
working his way aft, holding the man's face out of water.

It asked for their united strength to get the gray-haired, heavy-bodied
victim of the capsize over the _Clytie's_ rail. They had to bring the
life-belt too; the old man's fingers were sunk into it with a dying grip
that could not be broken. At first Griswold was too much preoccupied and
shocked to recognize the drawn face with its hard-lined mouth and long
upper lip. When he did recognize it the gripping fear was at his
heart--the fear that makes a cruel coward of the hunted thing in all
nature.

What might have happened if he had been alone; if Margery, taking her
place at the tiller and busying herself swiftly in getting the catboat
under way again, had not been looking on; he dared not think. And