"I 'll bet she did n't drag a hundred feet all night," he said. "Must 've struck good holding-ground." "Mud," was French Pete's verdict. "Just one vaire small patch of mud right there. If she get t'rough it she 's a sure-enough goner, I tell you dat. Her anchors vaire light, only good for mud. I tell ze boys get more heavy anchors, but dey laugh. Some day be sorry, for sure." One of the sloops to leeward raised a patch of sail and began the terrible struggle out of the jaws of destruction and death. They watched her for a space, rolling and plunging fearfully, and making very little headway. French Pete put a stop to their gazing. "Come on!" he shouted. "Put two reef in ze mainsail! We get out queeck!" While occupied with this a shout aroused them. Looking up, they saw the _Ghost_ dead ahead and right on top of them, and dragging down upon them at a furious rate. French Pete scrambled forward like a cat, at the same time drawing his knife, with one stroke of which he severed the rope that held them to the spare anchor. This threw the whole weight of the _Dazzler_ on the chain-anchor. In consequence she swung off to the left, and just in time; for the next instant, drifting stern foremost, the _Ghost_ passed over the spot she had vacated. "Why, she 's got four anchors out!" Joe exclaimed, at sight of four taut ropes entering the water almost horizontally from her bow. "Two of 'em 's dredges," 'Frisco Kid grinned; "and there goes the stove." As he spoke, two young fellows appeared on deck and dropped the cooking-stove overside with a line attached. "Phew!" 'Frisco Kid cried. "Look at Nelson. He 's got one reef in, and you can just bet that 's a sign she 's howlin'!" The _Reindeer_ came foaming toward them, breasting the storm like some magnificent sea-animal. Red Nelson waved to them as he passed astern, and fifteen minutes later, when they were breaking out the one anchor that remained to them, he passed well to windward on the other tack. French Pete followed her admiringly, though he said ominously: "Some day, pouf! he go just like dat, I tell you, sure." A moment later the _Dazzler's_ reefed jib was flung out, and she was straining and struggling in the thick of the fight. It was slow work, and hard and dangerous, clawing off that lee shore, and Joe found himself marveling often that so small a craft could possibly endure a minute in such elemental fury. But little by little she worked off the shore and out of the ground-swell into the deeper waters of the bay, where the main-sheet was slacked away a bit, and she ran for shelter behind the rock wall of the Alameda Mole a few miles away. Here they found the _Reindeer_ calmly at anchor; and here, during the next several hours, straggled in the remainder of the fleet, with the exception of the _Ghost_, which had evidently gone ashore to keep the _Go Ask Her_ company. By afternoon the wind had dropped away with surprising suddenness, and the weather had turned almost summer-like.