It was again night, and still no signs of a rescuing tug. Another private glance at the telegram revealed nothing new. “We’re altogether too near the shoals for Wiley,” muttered the captain of the _Fuller_, “and even if we weren’t, I guess he’s having all he wants to look after himself in this gale. I wonder is she drifting fast? The lead there, fellows--give her the lead, and see what’s under us.” One man had life enough to take a sounding. “Forty-five fathom,” he called. “Forty-five! God, but we’re going into it! Cut that drag adrift and let’s get out of here. Get together, men, and make sail of some kind till we’re by this place.” “What place is it just, Captain?” “It’s Georges North Shoal to looard of us.” They asked no more, but worked with desperation. Frost-bitten, wet, hungry, they made sail of it in some fashion. Anywhere for them now but Georges North Shoal and sure death. “And once by here, let her go where she will-- I’m done with her,” announced the tired captain of the _Henry Fuller_. IV A schemer of fame was Dixey of the _Ice King_. He stayed by the _Durlich_ till the gale drove her to harbor, and then to harbor he ran with her. He proposed to stay by her, too, till further orders. A proposition to tow a used-up tramp steamer to Portland he waved off impatiently. He was playing for bigger game. However, when after forty-eight hours in Provincetown Harbor the _Durlich_ showed no signs of moving out, Dixey began to squirm. He instituted inquiries. Between the firemen of the two towboats existed an amity of feeling that might be turned to profit. So to the hold of the _Durlich_ a begrimed party with a quart of the right stuff in his overcoat pocket found his way; and returned after an unconscionably long visit, somewhat befuddled, but able to report that the gentleman in the fur coat didn’t calculate to expose his precious life in such weather again off Cape Cod. Dixey considered the situation again in this new light. A long contemplation from all angles, and he went ashore to telephone. He came back again and drew out his charts. “H’m! She’s left Chatham and she’s not been reported yet in Boston. She must be out here somewhere. But where, just?” A further thoughtful whirl of a pair of dividers on the chart. “He may’ve beat up by the Cape, but I don’t think so. It’s a good chance he went into the North Shoal, and if he did, of course he’s lost. But in case he did get by--in case he did--” Dixey whistled down the tube to his engineer. “Warm her up and we’ll get out of here.” And so it came to pass that Dixey in time sighted the leaking bark, to every appearance a sinking bark, with a crew of imploring, frost-bitten men to her iced-up rail. The master of the bark told a story of extreme hardship, of just escaping being lost on the shoals of Georges. “The North Shoal?”