"You can't sit down now. You've got to keep your body in motion or you'll freeze. Take hold of the stern of the boat and shove her."

Muttering incoherent curses the little man obeyed while his friend walked in front, pulling on the bow line.

In fifteen minutes they reached the marsh and began the dreary tramp of two hours until the tide should rise high enough to float their boat again.

"Why can't we walk along this marsh all the way to where the yacht lies?" Bivens asked, fretfully. "We can fire a gun and the doctor can help us on board."

"We can't go without the boat. The marsh is a string of islands cut by three creeks. The doctor has no way to get to us. Both tenders are gone."

Stuart kept Bivens moving just fast enough to maintain the warmth of his body without dangerous exhaustion.

The wait was shorter than expected. The tide suddenly ceased to run ebb and began to come in. The reason was an ominous one. The wind had hauled squarely into the north and increased its velocity to forty miles an hour and each moment the cold grew more terrible. Stuart found the little boat afloat on the flood tide, jumped in without delay and began his desperate battle against wind and tide.

It was absolutely necessary for Bivens to keep his body in motion, so Stuart gave him an oar, and ordered him to get on his knees and help shove her ahead. He knew it was impossible for him to keep his feet.

Bivens tried to do as he was told and made a mess of it. He merely succeeded in shoving the boat around in a circle, preventing Stuart from making any headway.

"What's the matter?" Bivens yelled above the howl of the wind. "You're pushing against me, just spinning around. Why don't you keep her straight?"

Stuart saw they could never make headway by that method, turned and shot back into the marsh.

"Get out!" he shouted sternly. "You can walk along the edge--I can shove her alone."

Bivens grumbled, but did as he was ordered.

"Don't you leave the edge of that marsh ten feet!" Stuart shouted, cheerfully. "I think we'll make it now."

"All right," was the sullen answer.

It was a question whether one man had the strength to shove the little boat through the icy, roaring waters and keep her off the shore. He did it successfully for a hundred yards and the wind and sea became so fierce he was driven in and could make no headway. He called Bivens, gave him an oar and made him walk in the edge of the water and hold the boat off while he placed his oar on the mud bottom and pushed with might and main to drive her ahead.

Again and again he was on the point of giving up the struggle. It seemed utterly hopeless.

It took two hours of desperate battling to make half a mile through the white, blinding, freezing, roaring waters.

The yacht now lay but three hundred feet away from the edge of the marsh. Stuart could see her snow-white side glistening in the phosphorescent waves as they swept by her. The lights were gleaming from her windows and he could see Nan's figure pass in the cabin.

As he stood resting a moment before he made the most difficult effort of all to row the last hundred yards dead to the windward, he caught the faint notes of the piano. She was playing, utterly unconscious of the tragic situation in which the two men stood but a hundred yards away. The little schooner was still aground resting easily on her flat bottom in the mud, where the tide had left her as it ebbed. Unless she went on deck, it was impossible for Nan to realize the pressure of the wind.

She was playing one of the dreamy waltzes to which she had danced amid the splendours of her great ball.

The music came over the icy waters accompanied by the moan and shriek of the wind through the rigging with unearthly weird effect.

"Say, why do we stop so much?" Bivens growled. "I'm freezing to death.

Let's get to that yacht!"

"We'll do our best," Stuart answered gravely, "and if you know how to pray now's your time."

"Oh, Tommyrot!" Bivens said, contemptuously, "I can throw a stone to her from here."

"Get in!" Stuart commanded, "And lie down again flat on your back."

Bivens obeyed and the desperate fight began.

He made the first few strokes with his oars successfully and cleared the shore, only to be driven back against it with a crash. A wave swept over the little craft dashing its freezing waters into their faces.

Stuart drew his hand across his forehead and found to his horror the water was freezing before he could wipe it off.

He grasped Bivens's hands and found a cake of ice on his wrist. He shoved the boat's nose again into the wind and pulled on his oars with a steady, desperate stroke, and she shot ahead. For five minutes he held her head into the sea and gained a few yards. He set his feet firmly against the oak timbers in the boat's side and began to lengthen his quick, powerful stroke. He found to his joy he was making headway.

He looked over his shoulder and saw that he was half way. He couldn't be more than a hundred and fifty feet and yet he didn't seem to be getting any nearer. It was now or never. He bent to his oars with the last ounce of reserve power in his tall sinewy frame, and the next moment an oar snapped, the boat spun round like a top and in a minute was hurled back helpless on the marsh.

As the sea dashed over her again Bivens looked up stupidly and growled:

"Why the devil don't you keep her straight?"

Stuart sprang out and pulled the numbed man to his feet, half dragged and lifted him ashore.

"Here, here, wake up!" he shouted in his ear. "Get a move on you, or you're a goner." He began to rub Bivens's ice-clad wrists and hands, and the little man snatched them away angrily.

"Stop it!" he snarled. "My hands are not cold now."

"No, they're freezing," he answered as he started across the marsh in a dog trot, pulling Bivens after him. The little man stood it for a hundred yards, suddenly tore himself loose and angrily faced his companion.

"Say, suppose you attend to your own hide--I can take care of myself."

"I tell you, you're freezing. You're getting numb. As soon as I can get your blood a little warm we've got to wade through that water for a hundred yards and make the yacht."

"I'll do nothing of the sort," Bivens said, with dogged determination.

"I'll stay here till the next tide and walk out when the water's ebbed off."

Stuart shook him violently and shouted above the shriek of the wind.

"Do you know when that will be, you fool?"

"No, and I don't care. I'm not going to plunge into that icy water now."

"The tide won't be out again before four o'clock to-morrow morning."

"All right we'll walk around here until four."

"You'll freeze to death, I tell you! Your hands and feet are half frozen now."

"I'm not half as cold as I was," Bivens whined, fretfully.

"You're losing the power to feel. You've got to plunge into that water with me now and we can fight our way to safety in five minutes. The water is only three feet deep, and I can lift you over the big waves.

We'll be there in a jiffy. Come on!"

He seized his arm again and dragged him to the edge of the water.