There were sixteen in the small boat, but it was staunch, and they felt comparatively safe. The waves were tremendous; at one moment the boat was riding the crest of a mountain, the next it was engulfed in the depths. While thus momentarily between two great seas they dimly saw the bow of a second boat from the Rhode Island hanging above them, which the next moment would come down athwartships and grind them to pulp. A shout of warning enabled each helmsman to throw his tiller over and sheer off to some extent, but what saved the situation from becoming a catastrophe to all was the Doctor’s quick wit. He tells the story very modestly himself. Springing up and bracing his feet he grasped the bow of the oncoming boat as firmly as possible and pushed it to one side and this, with the prompt action of the helmsman, just prevented the impending collision, but, as the one boat came down on the other, the Doctor’s arm was gripped between them and he was pulled down to the water, his arm was dragged from its socket and hung attached to his body by a few stretched muscles. The intense pain caused him to faint, and had it not been that the cold water revived him as his head went under he would have been pulled overboard. When the boat reached the Rhode Island they found a spar extended from which depended ropes up which the sailors scrambled as only a sailor can, and then the Doctor thought of death, and it was not pleasant in spite of the intense pain he was enduring. One sailor lost his grip and fell into the sea, never to be seen again. What could a man so maimed as the Doctor was do to save himself under such circumstances? Nothing. There seemed no hope for him, and he thought of descending into that watery grave and slowly disintegrating in the ooze at the bottom of the ocean; and the horror of it took hold on him, for he was a young man and wanted to live. Finally all were out of the boat but the men at bow and stern, the Doctor, and George W. Tichenor, when the latter shouted that they must do something to save the man who had saved them all. A rope was then thrown from the vessel and a bowline passed over the Doctor’s right shoulder and under his left arm, and the poor, maimed body was dragged on board as a bag of potatoes might have been, but he was saved. It was good to feel the wooden deck under foot once more. NOTES ON THE CRANE FAMILY.