"No, no," Nelson would shake his head, and after he had had time to
think it over, he would smile at Bowen's fears. On nights like these,
when he couldn't have his little game because he couldn't keep the
checkers from hopping off the board, Nelson liked to lie in his bunk,
within range of the big, square, sawdust-filled box which set just
forward of the cheerful stove. With eyes mostly on the oil-clothed
floor, the light-keeper would smoke and yarn unhurriedly. "No, no,"
Nelson would repeat. "For nineteen year now she ban here, yoost like you
see now. No drift for ol' 67. She ban too well trained."

But the chafed-out chains gave way at last. Christmas Eve it was, the
night when Bowen had hoped to be through with his work. It was also the
third and worst night of the gale, and Bowen, restless, homesick, was on
deck to see it. She leaped and strained as she had leaped and strained
ten thousand times before--and then they writhed, those chains, like a
stricken rattlesnake, for perhaps three seconds, and S-s-t!--quick as
that--they went whistling into the boiling sea. Off she sprang
then--Bowen could no more than have snapped his fingers ere she was
off--foolishly, wildly, and then, almost as suddenly as she had leaped,
she fetched up. It was as if she didn't know just what to do in her new
freedom. And while she paused, the sea swept down and caught her one
under the ear. Broadside she broached and aboard her foamed the
ceaseless sea, and the wind took her. And whing! and bing! and
Kr-r-r-k!--that was the life-boat splintered and torn loose. And sea,
and wind, and tide, all working together on old 67, away she went before
it.

Inshore, they knew, the high surf was booming; and they made sail then,
and for a while thought they could weather it; but when the whistling