As the boat bounced from the top of each wave, the wind tore through the hair of the hatless men, and as the craft plopped her stern down again the spray past them. The of each of these waves was a hill, from the top of which the men surveyed, for a moment, a broad tumultuous expanse, shining and wind-riven. It was probably splendid. It was probably glorious, this play of the free sea, wild with lights of emerald and white and .  
" good thing it's an on-shore wind," said the cook. "If not, where would we be? Wouldn't have a show."
 
"That's right," said the correspondent.
 
The busy oiler nodded his .
 
Then the captain, in the bow, in a way that expressed humour, contempt, tragedy, all in one. "Do you think we've got much of a show now, boys?" said he.
 
Whereupon the three were silent, save for a trifle of and hawing. To express any particular optimism at this time they felt to be childish and stupid, but they all doubtless this sense of the situation in their mind. A young man thinks at such times. On the other hand, the of their condition was decidedly against any open suggestion of hopelessness. So they were silent.
 
"Oh, well," said the captain, his children, "we'll get all right."
 
 
But there was that in his tone which made them think, so the oiler quoth: "Yes! If this wind holds!"
 
The cook was : "Yes! If we don't catch hell in the surf."
 
Canton flew near and far. Sometimes they sat down on the sea, near patches of brown sea-weed that rolled over the waves with a movement like carpets on a line in a . The birds sat comfortably in groups, and they were envied by some in the dingey, for the of the sea was no more to them than it was to a covey of prairie chickens a thousand miles inland. Often they came very close and stared at the men with black bead-like eyes. At these times they were uncanny and in their unblinking , and the men angrily at them, telling them to be gone. One came, and evidently to alight on the top of the captain's head. The bird flew parallel to the boat and did not circle, but made short sidelong jumps in the air in chicken-fashion. His black eyes were wistfully upon the captain's head. "Ugly brute," said the oiler to the bird. "You look as if you were made with a jack-knife." The cook and the correspondent swore darkly at the creature. The captain naturally wished to knock it away with the end of the heavy painter; but he did not dare do it, because anything resembling an gesture would have capsized this freighted boat, and so with his open hand, the captain gently and carefully waved the away. After it had been discouraged from the pursuit the captain breathed easier on account of his hair, and others breathed easier because the bird struck their minds at this time as being somehow grewsome and .
 
In the meantime the oiler and the correspondent rowed. And also they rowed.
 
They sat together in the same seat, and each rowed an . Then the oiler took both ; then the correspondent took both oars; then the oiler; then the correspondent. They rowed and they rowed. The very part of the business was when the time came for the reclining one in the stern to take his turn at the oars. By the very last star of truth, it is easier to steal eggs from under a hen than it was to change seats in the dingey. First the man in the stern slid his hand along the and moved with care, as if he were of Sèvres. Then the man in the rowing seat slid his hand along the other thwart. It was all done with the most extraordinary care. As the two sidled past each other, the whole party kept eyes on the coming wave, and the captain cried: "Look out now! Steady there!"
 
The brown mats of sea-weed that appeared from time to time were like islands, bits of earth. They were travelling, , neither one way nor the other. They were, to all intents, . They informed the men in the boat that it was making progress slowly toward the land.
 
The captain, rearing cautiously in the bow, after the dingey soared on a great , said that he had seen the lighthouse at Mosquito Inlet. Presently the cook remarked that he had seen it. The correspondent was at the oars then, and for some reason he too wished to look at the lighthouse, but his back was toward the far shore and the waves were important, and for some time he could not seize an opportunity to turn his head. But at last there came a wave more gentle than the others, and when at the crest of it he swiftly the western horizon.
 
"See it?" said the captain.
 
"No," said the correspondent slowly, "I didn't see anything."
 
"Look again," said the captain. He . "It's exactly in that direction."
 
At the top of another wave, the correspondent did as he was bid, and this time his eyes chanced on a small still thing on the edge of the swaying horizon. It was like the point of a pin. It took an anxious eye to find a lighthouse so tiny.
 
"Think we'll make it, captain?"
 
"If this wind holds and the boat don't swamp, we can't do much else," said the captain.
 
The little boat, lifted by each towering sea, and splashed viciously by the , made progress that in the absence of sea-weed was not apparent to those in her. She seemed just a wee thing wallowing, top-up, at the mercy of five oceans. Occasionally, a great spread of water, like white flames, into her.
 
" her, cook," said the captain .
 
"All right, captain," said the cheerful cook.