forefoot and the rocks and ground into pulp concerned
him as little as did the fact that Baxter and his men
had crawled along the bowsprit over his head and had
dropped to the island without wetting their shoes.
That his diving suit was full of water and he soaking
wet to the skin, made not the slightest difference
to him--no more than it would to a Newfoundland
dog saving a child. His thoughts were on other
things,--on the rescuing yawl speeding toward the
spar buoy, on the stout hands and knowing ones who
were pulling for all they were worth to that anchor
of safety;--on two of his own men who, seeing Baxter's
cowardly desertion, had sprung like cats at the
bowsprit of the sloop in one of her dives, and were
then on the stern ready to pay out a line to the yawl
when she reached the goal. No,--he'd hold on "till
hell froze over."

A hawser now ripped itself clear from out the crest
of a roller. This meant that the two cats, despite the
increasing gale and thrash of the onrushing sea had
succeeded in paying out a stern line to the men in
the yawl, who had slipped it through the snatch block
fastened in the buoy. It meant, too, that this line
had been connected with the line they had brought
with them from the island, its far end being around
the drum of our hoister.

A shrill cry now came from one of the crew in the
yawl alongside the spar buoy, followed instantly by