"Praise God, not a soul! But it's lucky I stood by to watch the old tub go down, or we'd be mourning two. You'll be well by morning, for there's a cannery in the next inlet and I've sent a boat's crew for help. And now, my boy, lay yourself down again and take a sleep, won't you? It'll be doing you a lot of good."
But O'Neil shook his head and struggled to a sitting posture.
"Thanks, Johnny," said he, "but I couldn't. I can hear those horses screaming, and besides—I must make new plans."
III
THE IRISH PRINCE
As dawn broke the cannery tender from the station near by nosed her way up to the gravelly shore where the castaways were gathered and blew a cheering toot-toot on her whistle. She was a flat-bottomed, "wet-sterned" craft, and the passengers of the Nebraska trooped to her deck over a gang-plank. As Captain Brennan had predicted, not one of them had wet a foot, with the exception of the two who had been left aboard through their own carelessness.
By daylight Halibut Bay appeared an idyllic spot, quite innocent of the terrors with which the night had endowed it. A pebbled half-moon of beach was set in among rugged bluffs; the verdant forest crowded down to it from behind. Tiny crystal wavelets lapped along the shingle, swaying the brilliant sea mosses which clung to the larger rocks. Altogether the scene gave a strong impression of peace and security, yet just in the offing was one jarring contrast—the masts and funnel of the Nebraska slanting up out of the blue serenity, where she lay upon the sloping bottom in the edge of deep water.
The reaction following a sleepless night of anxiety had replaced the first feeling of thankfulness at deliverance, and it was not a happy cargo of humanity which the rescuing boat bore with her as the sun peeped over the hills. Many of the passengers were but half dressed, all were exhausted and hungry, each one had lost something in the catastrophe. The men were silent, the women hysterical, the children fretful.
Murray O'Neil had recovered sufficiently to go among them with the same warm smile which had made him friends from the first. In the depths of his cool gray eyes was a sparkle which showed his unquenchable Celtic spirit, and before long smiles answered his smiles, jokes rose to meet his pleasantries.
It was his turn now to comfort Captain Johnny Brennan, who had yielded to the blackest despair, once his responsibility was over.