But the line fell short, across an ugly reef of jagged rocks half-way to the land. Then volunteers were asked to swim ashore with the rope. But none of the sailors knew how to swim. It is a rare accomplishment among sailors, especially in those bitter northern waters. So that plan was surrendered. A boat was launched. Before it had fairly hit the tremendous waves, it was dashed to pieces against the _Ethie's_ side. The company on shipboard seemed at the end of their resources. But the people ashore had not been idle. There was a fisherman of Martin's Point named Reuben Decker, who had a dog whom he had not taken the trouble to name at all. It was one of the young dogs in process of being broken to the sled, and in the meantime it was kicked and stoned and starved--not by the owner, but by strangers afraid of it, as is the general lot of dogs in this part of the world, after they have done their best by man. The dog happened to be down at the shore, forlornly searching for sculpins and caplin. There was still open water between the shore and the ship. Reuben Decker pointed to the rocks across which the rope had fallen. At his word of command, the dog jumped into the sea, swam to the rocks, and seized the rope in his mouth. Then, with the cries from the ship and the shore ringing in his ears, he turned and began to swim with it to the shore. It was not a heavy line. It was meant to be used to haul a thicker rope. But it was wet, of course, and partly frozen, and the miracle is how the animal managed to pull it through a sea where men did not dare to go. The watchers ashore, standing waist and shoulder deep in the waves, anxious to launch a boat as soon as the heavy swell would let them, watched the dog and clapped their hands and yelled to him to come on. "Look at un!" "Swimmin' like a swile!" "Kim alang, b'y, kim alang!" [Illustration: LET'S GO!] "Man dear! My, my, my! Ain't dat wunnerful, now!" "Dat 'm de b'y!" "By de powers!--Git y'r gaff, b'y! Help un in!" "We'll have 'm all sove, soon's us lays han's on dat rope. Lord bless dat dog!" At one moment his little brown head would rise on the crest of a streaked, yeasty wave, the rope still in the white teeth--and then as the wave curled and broke he would be plunged to the bottom of the trough and they would lose sight of him. Would he come up again? "Yes--dere he be! My, my, my! Look at him a-comin' and a-comin'! I never did see a dog the beat o' un! By the livin' Jarge, he's got more sense 'n any o' us humans! I tell ye, thet's a miracle, thet's what it is. Nothin' short o' a gospel miracle!"