During the following May, late one afternoon, Lieutenant Beal, the commander of Fort Bowyer, near Mobile, saw in the distance, a vessel wrestling with a gale which was sweeping that quarter of the sea. Through his glass, the commander could see the direction in which the vessel was bearing, while sorely tossed by the wind, which was blowing at a fearful velocity. The captain of the McDonough had a chart which was out of date, and Beal saw that the vessel was heading rapidly toward danger. He fired a cannon as an alarm gun, hoping thereby to arrest the erroneous course of the vessel. The day was now far advanced, and darkness settled over the face of the sea. Beal took the precaution to erect lights along the shore, and some time after night, he heard the signals of distress from the unfortunate McDonough. While the wind was still very high and fierce, Beal did not think that the vessel should be left to its fate, and called for those who would volunteer to go with him in as large boat as they had at command, to the rescue of those on the vessel. The McDonough had struck, and was lying in the thick gloom at the mercy of the waves, in the sand into which an obsolete chart had directed the captain. Accompanied by five brave men, Beal plunged into the darkness with the boat, and guided by the dim lights of the vessel, he was enabled to reach it somewhat after midnight. Everything on board the vessel was in commotion, as every fresh wave threatened to engulf it, but Beal coolly proposed to save, if he could, the women and children, whom he crowded into his boat and set out on his return toward the fort through the dense gloom. After much struggle the boat was safely brought to the fort, and the women and children were saved. Luckily the vessel was later released by the waves from its perilous condition in the sand, and in the early morning was washed into deeper water, and though crippled by the accident, was saved, and in due time pulled into port at Fort Bowyer. There was great glee and sport among the French after it was all over, as they would joke each other with that which happened. They soon forgot the seriousness of the situation to which they were only a few hours before exposed, and gave themselves again to jollity and song. In expression of their just gratitude to the brave lieutenant who had been the occasion of so much timely aid, they proposed to take him with them to Mobile, and give him a banquet. This was accordingly done, vivacity ran high amidst sparkling wines and merriment unconfined, and the gay throng in the banquet hall little resembled a colony driven by disaster from their native land, and so recently exposed to death. At Mobile, the McDonough was dismissed, and plans were at once adopted to provide flatboats and barges to convey the company up the winding Tombigbee to their future home among the wilds of Western Alabama. Of their future experiences we shall hear later. THE TRIP AND SETTLEMENT