But Scud gave me a long look. He stood quite silent. An expression of rare gravity was on his joyous face. He glanced apprehensively from the boat to the house.
"She can't, Scud; she's fainted. There isn't anybody but me. I've got to do something. The children have got to be saved, Scud!" The Western girl shook him by the arm. Her very ignorance gave a force to her appeal that intelligence could not have supplied. Had I understood what I asked I should not have said: "Scud, won't you go? They are drowning. See, Scud! Go!"
The doomed sail was beaten here and there in the fierce wind; the jib was blown to tatters. The boat took in water, righted, and careened with every riotous puff. A hundred times men turned their faces away and women shrieked, expecting it to go down. A hundred times repeated miracle protected the helpless boat.
Scud walked slowly down the heaving gangway that connected the rocks with the float. The man who came down to see the boat capsize followed with his hands in his pockets. He balanced himself on the railing with his elbows as the gangway jumped beneath him.
"What yer up ter, Scud?" he yelled above the tempest. "They're driftin' on yer trap. That'll fetch 'em."
Scud looked up. His feet were washed in the water that flooded the float at every surge. To strike the trap meant instant overturn. To become entangled in and driven on to the meshes of the broad, deep net meant inevitable death.
"I guess I'll go. Help me shove the dingy off." So spoke Scud, deliberately.
"You—" The rest of the expletive was lost in the gale. The breakers made sport of Scud, and spat at him with their white tongues. "Your childer! The twins! Betty!" thundered his friend.
Scud hurriedly put in the oar-locks. As he bent, the wind caught his cap and dashed it on the rocks. Scud shook his brown hair to the furies.
"Ye see!" yelled his companion significantly. "Now get in, will ye?"