We could just see them--the men to the pumps working desperately--with the others lashed to the stumps of the masts and the stanchions which were left when the rail went. Her big hawser had parted and her chain was only serving to slightly check her way toward the rocks. With spars and deck gear gone and her hull deep in the water, a vessel is not so easily distinguished. But there was something familiar in this one. We had seen her before. All at once it flashed on half a dozen of us--"the Flamingo!" we said. "God! that's luck!" said Clancy. She lay in a sort of inlet that was wide open to the gale, rocks on the better part of three sides of her, north, south and west. She was then within all but striking distance of the rocks, and the seas, high and wicked, were sweeping over her. It looked like a bad place to work out of if we should get close in, but Clancy held on. "Not much lee-room, but plenty of water under her keel anyway," and himself to the wheel, sailed the Johnnie around the Flamingo. He hailed Maurice as he went by, waved his hand to the others, and hove a line aboard. They took the line, hauled in the hawser at the end of it, made that fast to the windlass, and then we started off with her in tow. We were doing pretty well, what with plenty of wind and the Johnnie buckling down to her work like she was a steamer, till the hawser parted and back toward the rocks went the Flamingo again. "No use," said Clancy, "sea's too much for any line we got. We'll try it with the seine-boat. Who'll go in the seine-boat and try to take them off? Think quick, but mind what it means." Every man of the crew of the Johnnie Duncan said, "Here!" The cook even came out of the forec's'le and put in his "And me, too, skipper." "You're good men," said Clancy,--"damn good men," and looked us up and down. We felt proud, he said it in such a way. "But you're taking your lives in your hands and some of you got wives and children--mothers or something. Who hasn't anybody depending on him? Which of you hasn't any woman somewhere, or little brothers or sisters?" About twelve of the sixteen men standing on the deck of the Johnnie Duncan said "Me!" "Three-quarters of you, at least," said Clancy, "are damn liars. Over with the seine-boat and be careful nobody gets hurt." Somebody did get hurt, though. Andie Howe got his foot smashed and was helped below. Clancy gave the rest of us a scolding in advance. "You're not hurt yet, but some of you will be--like Andie--if you don't watch out. You'd think that some of you were out on some little pond up in the country somewhere launching a canoe off one of those club-house floats. Keep an eye out for those seas when they board. And watch out for that deckload or some of you'll have a head cut off. A man killed or a man washed over the rail--what's the difference--it's a man lost. Look out now--watch, you Steve--damn you, watch out! Over with it!"