Francie stopped screaming. All the while the throbbing of the little engine had been steady, incessant. But now Martha noticed that, at intervals, it missed a beat. She waited to see if it would right itself. A minute, and it had ceased altogether. "Sammy!" It only needed that to send the boy crawling, on his hands and knees, to start it up afresh, if he could—working, as his father had taught him to work. _The Moth_ spun around and around, in the trough of the waves. Martha "knew what she knew," but her hands never left the wheel for an instant. What if the engine could not be made to go? What could she say to Mr. Frank if——? No, there was this comfort, if the worst came to the worst _she_ would be the last to have a chance to say anything, to any of those waiting on the shore.... She heard the steady heart-beat start afresh.... The boy was back in his place. Martha, with new courage, strained her vision to pierce through the curtain of mist and rain, could see nothing, but clung to her wheel. At length she realized she was steering toward something that she, alone of all the little group, could see—a faint adumbration, showing dark through the pall of enveloping gray. But now the wind and the water were so high it was impossible to steer straight for the home-shore—she could only make it by slow degrees. The storm had whipped her thick hair out of its customary coils. It blew about her face and shoulders in long, wet strands, buffeting her, blinding her. She never lifted a hand to save herself the stinging strokes. Little by little the dark line widened, the way was made plain. Little by little Martha wheedled _The Moth_ shoreward. "I see somepn’," shouted Francie, at last. "I see our dock!" After an interval: "I see folks on our dock!" Later still: "I see father, ’n’ Mr. Ronald, ’n’ Ma, ’n’—oh! lots o’ folks!" _The Moth_ fluttered forward. The waves beat her back. She seemed to submit with meekness, but a second later, seeing her chance, she dodged neatly, and sped on again, so, at last, gaining the quiet water of the little bay. Mr. Ronald and Sam Slawson, in silence, made her fast to her moorings. In silence, Martha gave Claire into her husband’s arms. He wrapped the shaking little figure about, in warm dry coverings, and carried her home, as he would a child. The second they were out of sight and hearing, a babel of voices rose, Ma’s shrill, high treble piping loud above the rest: "When we saw the tempest gatherin’, an’ youse out in it, on the deep, an’ not a boat could make to get to youse, the fear was in me heart, I didn’t have a limb to move." A burly form shoved her unceremoniously aside, Joe Harding approached Martha, implanted a sounding kiss on her cheek. "By gum, you’re a cracker-jack, Mrs. Slawson, and no mistake!" he announced.