oil and machinery; and two young dredge-runners, on their way, like Rod, to the Breckenridge contract. Save the captain and Rod, they gobbled bashfully, and fled at the earliest possible moment. Rod and the captain were talking of the contract and of its prospects. Marian trifled with her massive hot biscuit, and listened indifferently.

"I hope your coming on the work may change its luck, Mr. Hallowell," observed the captain. "For that contract has struggled with mighty serious difficulties, so far. Breckenridge himself is a superb engineer; but of course he cannot stay on the ground. He has a dozen equally important contracts to oversee. His engineers are all well enough, but somehow they don't seem to make things go. Carlisle is the chief. He is a good engineer and a good fellow, but he is so nearly dead with malaria that he can't do two hours' work in a week. Burford, his aid, is a young Southerner, a fine chap, but—well, a bit hot-headed. You know our Northern labor won't stand for much of that. Then there is Marvin, who is third in charge. But as for Marvin"—he stopped, with a queer short laugh—"as for Marvin, the least said the soonest mended. He's a cub engineer, they call him; a grizzly cub at that. He may come out all right, with time. You can see for yourself that you haven't any soft job. With a force of two hundred laborers, marooned in a swamp seven miles from nowhere, not even a railroad in the county; with half the land-owners protesting against their assessments, and refusing to pay up; with your head engineer sick, and your coal shipments held up by high water—no, you won't find your place an easy one, mind that."

"I'm not doing any worrying." Rod's jaw set. His dark face glowed. Marian looked at him, a little jealously. His whole heart and thought were swinging away to this work, now opening before him. This was his man's share in labor, and he was eager to cope with its sternest demands.

"Well, it's a good thing you have the pluck to face it. You will need all the pluck you've got, and then some." The captain paced restlessly up and down the narrow room. "Wonder why we don't slow down. We must be running a full twelve miles an hour. Altogether too fast, when we're towing a barge. And it is pitch dark."

He stooped to the engine-room speaking-tube. "Hi, Smith! Why are you carrying so much steam? I want to put her inshore."

A muffled voice rose from the engine-room.

"All right, sir. But McCloskey, he just rung for full speed ahead."

"He did? That's McCloskey, all over. The old rascal! He has set his heart on making Grafton Landing to-night, instead of tying up alongshore. Hear that? He's making that old wheel jump. To be sure, he knows the river channel like a book. But, even with double search-lights, no man living can see ice-cakes and brush far enough ahead to dodge them."

"Let's take a look on deck," suggested Rod.

Once outside the warm, cheerful cabin, the night wind swept down on them, a driving, freezing blast. The little steamer fairly raced through the water. Her deck boards quivered; the boom of the heavy engine throbbed under their feet.

"Thickest night I've seen in a year," growled the captain. "I say, McCloskey! Slow down, and let's put her inshore. This is too dangerous to suit me."

No reply. The boat fled pitching on.

"McCloskey!"

At last there came a faint hail.

"Yes, captain! What's yer pleasure, sir?"

"The old rascal! He's trying to show off. He's put his deaf ear to the tube, I'll be bound. Best go inside, Miss Hallowell, this wind is full of sleet. McCloskey! Head her inshore, I say."

On rushed the Lucy. Her course did not change a hair's breadth.

"No wonder they call him Commodore McCloskey!" Rod whispered wickedly. "Even the captain has to yield to him."

"McCloskey!" The captain's voice was gruff with anger. "Head her inshore! Unless you're trying to kill the boat——"

Crash!

The captain's sentence was never finished.

CHAPTER III
ENTER MR. FINNEGAN

With that crash the floor shot from under their feet. Stumbling and clutching, the three, Marian, Rod, and the captain, pitched across the deck and landed in a heap against the rail. The lighted cabin seemed to rear straight up from the deck and lunge toward them. There was an uproar of shouts, a hideous pounding of machinery. Marian shut her eyes.

Then, with a second deafening crash, the steamer righted herself; and, thrown like three helpless ninepins, Marian, Rod, and the captain reeled back from the rail and found themselves, bumped and dizzy, tangled in a heap of freight and canvas. Rod was the first on his feet. He snatched Marian up, with a groan.

"Sister! Are you hurt? Tell me, quick."

"Nonsense, no." Marian struggled up, bruised and trembling. "I whacked my head on the rail, that's all. What has happened?"

"We've struck another bunch of runaway logs. They've fouled our wheel," shouted the captain. "Put this life-preserver on your sister. Swing out the yawl, boys!" For the deck crew was already scrambling up the stairs. "Here, where's Smith?"

"He's below, sir, stayin' by the boiler. The logs struck us for'ard the gangway. She's got a hole stove in her that you could drive an ice-wagon through," answered a fireman. "Smith says, head her inshore. Maybe you can beach her before she goes clean under."

The captain groaned.

"Her first trip for the year! The smartest little boat on the river! McCloskey!" he shouted angrily up the tube. "Head her inshore, before she's swamped. You hear that, I reckon?"

"Ay, ay, sir." It was a very meek voice down the tube.

Very slowly the Lucy swung about. Creaking and groaning, she headed through the darkness for the darker line of willows that masked the Illinois shore.

For a minute, Roderick and Marian stood together under the swaying lantern, too dazed by excitement to move. On Marian's forehead a cheerful blue bump had begun to rise; while Rod's cheek-bone displayed an ugly bruise. Suddenly Marian spoke.

"Rod! Where is Empress! She will be frightened to death. We must take her into the yawl with us."

The young fireman turned.

"That grand big cat of yours, ma'am? You'll never coax a cat into an open boat. They'll die first. But have no fear. We are not a hundred yards from shore, and in shallow water at that. 'Tis a pity the Lucy is hurt, but it's fortunate for us that she can limp ashore."

Marian felt a little foolish. She pulled off the cork jacket which Rod had tied over her shoulders.

"We aren't shipwrecked after all, Rod. We're worse frightened than hurt."

"I'm not so sure of that. Keep that life-preserver on, Sis."

The Lucy was blundering pluckily toward shore. But the deck jarred with the thud and rattle of thrashing machinery, and at every forward plunge the boat pitched until it seemed as if the next fling would surely capsize her.

Rod peered into the darkness.

"We'll make the shore, I do believe. Shall I leave you long enough to get our bags and Empress?"

"Oh, I'll go too. You'll need me to pacify Empress. She will be panic-stricken."

Poor Empress was panic-stricken, indeed. The little cabin was a chaos. The shock of the collision had overturned every piece of furniture. Even the wall cabinets were upset, and their shells and arrowheads were scattered far and wide. The beautiful old-time crystal chandeliers were in splinters. Worst, the big gilt mirror lay on the floor, smashed to