Should the answering signal be favorable, there follows a scene of great excitement on the deck of the pilot-boat. At first sight of the ship, the pilot due to take the prize dives down to the cabin, sheds his working clothes and dons a suit of sober black, and by the time it is known he is wanted, he is ready to be transferred to his charge. Taking on a pilot is not without its perils. The yawl nearly always pitches and tumbles in most uncomfortable fashion, while the ship is rarely if ever brought to a full stop, and the pilot, watching his chance, must grasp the rope ladder let down its side, and scramble aboard as best he can. Sometimes he gets a ducking, and if the weather is tempestuous he is pretty certain to be drenched, but for that he cares not a jot, and he is sure to show a smiling face to captain and passengers when finally he sets foot on deck. Dropping a pilot from an outgoing vessel is often more hazardous, especially in stormy weather, than his transfer the other way. Then he must descend the rope ladder and jump for the boat in the nick of time, for to miscalculate in the least the position of the little shell means a ducking almost certainly, and possibly a watery grave. [Illustration: PILOT SIGNALING A VESSEL] A peril, however, more feared by pilots than the one I have been describing, is the dreaded lee shore; and with reason, as a story told by a veteran ocean pathfinder will show. On a still afternoon in midsummer the crew of a pilot-boat sighted a ship off Fire Island, some five miles away. In the dead calm prevailing the only way to board her was to row over the distance. There would be little danger in doing this if the wind did not spring up and the ship sail away, so the yawl was lowered and headed for the distant merchantman. But as night was closing in, and ere the yawl had come within hailing distance of the ship, of a sudden the breeze sprang up, and the vessel making sail, glided slowly over the horizon line. The breeze grew into a gale, and in the gathering storm and gloom the men could no longer discern the whereabouts of the pilot-boat. Nor, there being no compass on board the yawl, could they determine the direction in which they were being blown. The nearest land was miles away and the only thing that could be done was to keep the boat's head to the wind and wait. Thus the minutes lengthened into hours. Toward dawn, when the night was darkest, they heard the thunder of surf on the reefs, and a little later felt the yawl lifted up on the crest of a mighty breaker rushing swiftly toward the land. There was a deafening roar, a crash, a whirl, and a torrent of foam. In a twinkling the boat was capsized and the poor fellows were struggling in the surf. One struck a rock and was killed. The others, freed from the receding wave, ran up the beach, and by digging their hands into the sand to escape the deadly undertow, finally got ashore, drenched and exhausted.