After a short time Uncle Zenas proposed that the strangers be left alone, lest their rest be disturbed by the conversation, and the crew of Carys' Ledge light went into the watch-room, where Mr. Peters had already built a fire in the small stove. The storm raged as severely as at any other time during the day; but to Sidney there was no longer any menace in the howling of the wind, while the beating of the snow against the windows only served to remind him how cosy and comfortable it was inside the tower, for with the return of the two keepers from their perilous voyage he had forgotten his fears. "It doesn't seem possible that you could have kept the boat right side up in those terrible waves," the lad said at length, and Mr. Peters replied: "There's a good deal of difference between a dory and a boat with a keel, Sonny. In almost any other kind of a craft I'll allow that it mightn't have been possible; but it was a mighty tough pull at the best." "All it needed was a clear head an' plenty of grit, Sonny," Captain Eph added. "We were stripped down to it till we had to work or freeze, an' so we kept her goin', but more'n once I made up my mind that we'd have to turn back in spite of the hankerin' to give them poor fellows a lift. Sammy ain't overly fond of laborin', as a general thing; but I must say he pulled away this forenoon as if he was a glutton at it, an' time an' time again it seemed as if he reg'larly lifted the dory out'er the water with his oars." "That's when I was tryin' to keep myself warm," Mr. Peters said with a laugh. "The hardest part of it for me was keepin' the snow out'er my eyes; twice they got froze up, what with the sleet an' spray, an' I had all I could do to pry 'em open without losin' stroke." "Was the vessel where you believed, sir?" Sidney asked. "Ah, Sonny. She'd struck the shoal jest as I allowed, an' had driven up on the rocks till the fo'c'sle deck was well out'er water, else never one of the crew would have lived to talk about it. She was a big barkentine--nigh to a thousand tons, I should say--breakin' up mighty fast when we got there, with only four men left on deck, an' they so covered with ice an' snow that you wouldn't have taken 'em for human beings. They had a small gun, sich as is used for signalin', lashed to the capstan; but were past firin' it when we hove in sight." "How was it possible to get on board?" Sidney asked. "That was what we couldn't do, Sonny. The cap'n of the vessel was the only one able to give us any help, an' all we could do was to run down under the lee of the wreck, trustin' to their jumpin' aboard as we passed, for it stands to reason we couldn't hold the dory in any one place many seconds, except at the cost of havin' her stove."