i 62 
WILD WINGS 
There is no time to stop to grieve. The boat will be stove 
to pieces soon. Down comes the wire cable, with a rope to 
gird under the boat. A dash or two into the surf, and it is 
done. Now hoist away. Slip and crash ! The stern goes 
bumping over the rocks. “ Hold hard, there ! ” United yells 
convey the intelligence up above. The cable slackens. Again 
the rope is secure and the heavy boat goes sailing, as she 
never did before, uj) into the darkness, like a phantom-ship. 
They swing her in upon a ledge, and at last we all are safe. 
We release the rope, the cable goes up and returns with the 
crate, into which we put our baggage, and then we climb the 
ladder with Keeper Peter Bourque, who has come down to 
learn who has arrived and to welcome whomever it may 
prove to be. 
L'p in his loftv home, by his warm and welcome stove, this 
twenty-third of June, my hrst task is to throw out all my wet 
plates and set up the soaking holders to dry, while I renew 
my friendship, and introduce the others to the keeper, his 
nephew, and two young lady daughters. They are all radi¬ 
ant, for since the hfth of the previous November, when the 
government supply boat made her last call, they have seen 
no other human beings till now, save some fishermen who 
landed on the twenty-ninth of May. All that terrible winter 
they were frozen in. Navigation was closed. There was no 
need to light the torch for mariners, or to fire the bomb sig¬ 
nals in the fog. All thev could do was to maintain the strug¬ 
gle for existence. The ice enclosed them in November, and 
granted a possible release not until the middle of May. Even 
now they had received no letters or papers since November. 
With his glass the keejDcr had seen us before we had come 
a mile from Brvon, and all hands set to work at once to write 
letters, knowing that so small a craft could have no possible 
destination beyond Bird Rock. And so, with tales of the 
