ll of
the terrible experience told it to his own wife, and she told
it--well, anyhow, the skipper's wife had heard of it before the
Leading Light once more lay at anchor at her owner's wharf. Courage in
a moment of danger, or to preserve life, is one thing. The courage
that faces odds when the circumstances are prosaic and the decision
deferred is a rarer quality. It was a real piece of courage which gave
the little schooner another chance that fall to retrieve her
reputation. She was permitted to deliver the goods against all odds,
and what is more the captain's wife kissed him good-bye with a brave
face when once again he let the foresail draw, and the Leading Light
stood out to sea on her second and successful venture.

There is no doubt that when she went to bed in the ice that winter,
she carried with her the good wishes and grateful thanks of many poor
and lonely souls; and some have said that when they were walking round
the head of the cove in which it was the habit of the little craft to
hibernate, strange sounds like that of a purring cat were ofttimes
wafted shoreward. "It is only the wind in her rigging," the skeptical
explained; but a suspicion still lurks in some of our minds that the
Eskimo are not so far from the truth in conceding souls to inanimate
objects.

THE RED ISLAND SHOALS

The house was fairly shaking in the gale, and any one but Uncle Rube,
who had lived in it since he put it there forty years before, would
have been expecting things to happen. But the old man sat dozing in
his chair beside the crackling stove, and the circling rings of smoke
rising over his snow-white head were the only signs of life about him.
The only other occupant of the house was a little girl whom Uncle Rube
had taken for "company," the year that his wife left him. The coast
knew that his only lad had been lost aboard some sealer many years
ago. The little girl was lying stretched out on the wooden settle
close beside him. Twice already in the dim light of the tiny window,
now well covered with snow outside and frost within, I had mistaken
her towsly golden curls for a hearth-brush, she lay so still.

At length, as the cottage gave a more violent lurch than usual, even
my book failed to keep my mind at rest.

"Aren't you afraid the house is going to blow away, Uncle Rube? You
remember that our church blew into the harbor, pews and floor as well
as walls and roof. You could see the pews at low water till th