Nevertheless, he remained standing and peered under his hand, resolved to be alert till the last, determined to grasp any opportunity. All at once he beheld certain black lines in perpendicular silhouette against the foam. At first he was not certain just what they could be, and he observed them narrowly as the boat tossed on its way. At last their identity was revealed. They were weir-stakes. The weir itself was evidently dismantled. Such stakes as remained were set some distance from one another, like fence-posts located irregularly. He made hasty observation of bearings as the boat drifted, and was certain that the sea would carry them down past the stakes. How near they would pass depended on the vagary of the waves and the tide. He realized that three men, even if they were able seamen, could do little in the way of rowing or guiding the longboat in the welter of that sea, now surging madly over the shoals. He knew that there was not much water under the keel, for the ocean was turbid with swirling sand, and the waves were more mountainous, heaped high by the friction of the water on the bottom. Every now and then the crest of a roller flaunted a banner of bursting spray, showing breakers near at hand. Mayo hurried to the bow of the boat and pulled free a long stretch of cable. He made a bowline slip-knot, opened a noose as large as he could handle, coiled the rest of the cable carefully, and poised himself on a thwart. “What now?” asked the cook. “No matter,” returned Mayo. His project was such a gamble that he did not care to canvass it in advance. The nearer they drove to the stakes the more unattainable those objects seemed. They projected high above the water. The cook perceived them and got up on his knees and squinted. “Huh!” he sniffed. “You'll never make it. It can't be done!” In his fierce anxiety Mayo heaved his noose too soon, and it fell short. He dragged in the cable with all his quickness and strength and threw the noose again. The rope hit the stake three-quarters of the way up and fell into the sea. “It needs a cowboy for that work,” muttered the cook. Mayo recovered his noose and poised himself again. In the shallows where they were the boat which bore him became a veritable bucking bronco. It was flung high, it swooped down into the hollows. He made a desperate try for the next stake in line. The noose caught, and he snubbed quickly. The top of the stake came away with a dull crack of rotten wood when the next wave lifted the boat.