"No more ducks to-day, Cal," Stuart said briskly, returning to his tone of friendly comradeship. "We've got to get away from here. It's getting colder every minute. It will be freezing before night." "Well, let it freeze," Bivens cried, peevishly. "What do we care? It's just ten minutes' run when the tender comes." To Stuart's joy he saw the men start the tender. "It's all right, they're coming now!" he exclaimed. "We'll have another crack or two before they get here." He crouched low in the blind for five minutes without getting a shot, rose and looked for the tender. To his horror he saw her drifting helpless before the wind, her engine stopped and both men waving frantically their signals of distress. "My God!" he exclaimed. "The tender's engine is broken down." Bivens rose and looked in the direction Stuart pointed. "Why don't the fools use the oars?" "They can't move her against this wind!" "Will they go to sea?" Bivens asked, with some anxiety. "No, they'll bring up somewhere on a mud flat or marsh in the bay on this low water, but God help them if they can't fight their way back before flood tide." "Why?" Bivens asked, incredulously. "They'd freeze to death in an open boat to-night." "Norwegian sailors? Bosh! Not on your life! They were born on icebergs." Stuart rose and looked anxiously at the receding tide. He determined to try to reach the yacht at once. He put the guns into their cases, snapped the lids of the ammunition boxes, stowed the ducks he had killed under the stern of the boat, and stepped out into the shallow, swiftly moving water. He decided to ignore Bivens and regard him as so much junk. He pulled the boat out of the blind, shoved it among the decoys, and took them up quickly while the little financier sat muttering peevish, foolish complaints. "Now if you will lie down on the stern deck, I'll see if I can shove her." "Why can't I sit up?" Bivens growled. "You can, of course, but I can't move this boat against the wind if you do." "All right, but it's a rotten position to be in and I'm getting cold." Stuart made no reply, but began to shove the little boat as rapidly as possible across the shallow water. The snow had ceased to fall and the cold was increasing every moment. He scanned the horizon anxiously, but could see no sign of the disabled tender. He had gone perhaps two hundred yards when the boat grounded on the flats. He saw at once that it was impossible to make the yacht until flood tide. The safest thing to do was to get out and push to the island marsh, two or three hundred yards away. There they could take exercise enough to keep warm until the tide came in again. It would be a wait of two hours in bitter cold and pitch darkness, but there was no help for it. Bivens sat up and growled: "What the devil's the matter? Can't you hurry up, I'm freezing to death!" "We can't make it on this tide. We'll have to go to the marsh." "Can't we walk over the flats and let the boat go?"