girl found drunk on the hillside
brought home to me the cost of this man's right to "do as he liked."
We promptly declared war, and I thanked God who had made "my hands to
war, and my fingers to fight"--when that is the only way to resist the
Devil successfully and to hasten the kingdom of peace.

This man and I had had several disagreements, and I had been warned
not to land on the premises on pain of being "chucked into the sea."
But when I tested the matter out by landing quite alone from a
row-boat, after a "few wor-r-r-ds" his coast-born hospitality overcame
him, and as his bell sounded the dinner call, he promptly invited me
to dine with him. I knew that he would not poison the food, and soon
we were glowering at one another over his own table--where his painful
efforts to convince me that he was right absolutely demonstrated the
exact opposite.

My chance came that summer. We were steaming to our Northern hospital
from the deep bay which runs in a hundred and fifty miles. About
twenty miles from the mouth a boat hailed us out of the darkness, and
we stopped and took aboard a wrecked crew of three men. They had
struck our friend's well-insured old steam launch on a shoal and she
had sunk under them. We took them aboard, boat and all, wrote down
carefully their tale of woe, and then put the steamer about, pushed as
near the wreck as we dared and anchored. Her skipper came forward and
asked me what I intended doing, and I told him I was going to survey
the wreck. A little later he again came to ask permission to go aboard
the wreck to look for something he had forgotten. I told him certainly
not. Just before sunrise the watch called me and said that the wrecked
crew had launched their boat, and were rowing toward the steamer.
"Launch ours at once, and drive them back" was an order which our boys
obeyed with alacrity and zest. It was a very uneasy three men who
faced me when they returned. They were full of bluff at what they
would do for having their liberties thus interfered with, but
obviously uneasy at heart.

With some labour we discovered that the water only entered the wreck
at low tide and forward; so by buoying her with casks, tearing up her
ballast deck, and using our own pumps as well as buckets--at which all
hands of my crew worked with a good will, we at last found the hole.
It was round. There were no splinters on the inside. We made a huge
bung from a stick of wood, plugged the opening, finished pu