On the chart it was a mere dot—a nameless rock, the outermost of a group most happily called the Devil's Teeth. To the Labrador fishermen, bound north from Newfoundland in the spring, bound south, with their loads of green cod, in the fall, it was the Cocked Hat. This name, too, is aptly descriptive; many a schooner, caught in the breakers, had, as the old proverb hath it, been knocked into that condition, or worse. But to the folk of the immediate coast, and especially of Hulk's Harbour, which lies within sight on the mainland, it was for long known as Feather's Folly.

Old Bill Feather had once been wrecked on the Cocked Hat. The little Lucky Lass, bound to Hulk's Harbour from the Hen-and-Chickens, and sunk to the scupper-holes with green fish, had struck in a fog. Four minutes later she had gone down with all hands save Bill. An absentminded breaker had deposited him high and dry on a ledge of the northeast cliff; needless to say, it was much to Bill's surprise. For five days the castaway had shivered and starved on the barren rock. This was within sight of the chimney-smoke of home—of the harbour tickle, of the cottage roofs; even, in clear weather, of the flakes and stage of his own place.

"It won't happen again," vowed Bill, when they took his lean, sore hulk home.

What Bill did—what he planned and accomplished in the face of ridicule and adverse fortune—earned the rock the name of Feather's Folly in that neighbourhood.

"Anyhow," old Bill was in the habit of repeating, to defend himself, "I 'low it won't happen again. An' I'll see that it don't!"

But season followed season, without event; and the Cocked Hat was still known as Feather's Folly.

Billy Topsail was to learn this.

It was early in the spring of the year—too early by half, the old salts said, for Labrador craft to put out from the Newfoundland ports. Thick, vagrant fogs, drifting with the variable winds, were abroad on all the coast; and the Arctic current was spread with drift ice from the upper shores and with great bergs from the glaciers of the far north. But Skipper Libe Tussel, of the thirty-ton Fish Killer, hailing from Ruddy Cove, was a firm believer in the fortunes of the early bird; moreover, he was determined that the skipper of the Cod Trap, hailing from Fortune, should not this season preËmpt his trap-berth on the Thigh Bone fishing grounds. So the Fish Killer was underway for the north, early as it was; and she was cheerily game to face the chances of wind and ice, if only she might beat the Cod Trap to the favourable opportunities of the Thigh Bone grounds off Indian Harbour.

"It's thick," Robinson remarked to the skipper.

"'Tis thick."

Billy Topsail, now grown old enough for the adventurous voyage to the Labrador coast, was aboard; and he listened to this exchange with a deal of interest. It was his first fishing voyage; he had been north in the Rescue, to be sure, but that was no more than a cruise, undertaken to relieve the starving fishermen of the upper harbours. At last, he was fishing in earnest—really aboard the Fish Killer, bound north, there to fish the summer through, in all sorts of weather, with a share in the catch at the end of it! He was vastly delighted by this: for 'twas a man's work he was about, and 'twas a man's work he was wanting to do.

"Thick as mud," said Robinson, with a little shiver.

"'S mud," the skipper responded, in laconic agreement.

And it was thick! The fog had settled at mid-day. A fearsome array of icebergs had then been in sight, and the low coast, with the snow still upon it, had to leeward shone in the brilliant sunlight. But now, with the afternoon not yet on the wane, the day had turned murky and damp. A bank of black fog had drifted in from the open sea. Ice and shore had disappeared. The limit of vision approached, possibly, but did not attain, twenty-five yards. The weather was thick, indeed; the schooner seemed to be winging along through a boundless cloud; and there was a smart breeze blowing, and the circle of sea, in the exact centre of which the schooner floated, was choppy and black.

"Thick enough," Skipper Libe echoed, thoughtfully. "But," he added, "you wouldn't advise heavin' to, would you?"

"No, no!" Robinson exclaimed. "I'm too anxious to get to Indian Harbour."

"And I," muttered the skipper, with an anxious look ahead, "to make the Thigh Bone grounds. But——"

"Give her all the wind she'll carry," said Robinson. "It won't bother me."

"I thinks," the skipper continued, ignoring the interruption, "that I'll shorten sail. For," said he, "I'm thinkin' the old girl might bleed at the nose if she happened t' bump a berg."

While the crew reduced the canvas, Robinson went below. He was the Hudson's Bay Company's agent at Dog Arm of the Labrador, which is close to Indian Harbour. In January, with his invalid daughter in a dog-sled, he had journeyed from that far place to Desolate Bay of Newfoundland, and thence by train to St. John's. It had been a toilsome, dangerous, incredibly bitter experience. But he had forgotten that, nor had he ever complained of it; his happiness was that his child had survived the surgeons' operation, had profited in ease and hope, had already been restored near to her old sunny health. Early in the spring, word of the proposed sailing of the Fish Killer from Ruddy Cove had come to him at St. John's; and he had taken passage with Skipper Libe, no more, it must be said, because he wished Mary's mother to know the good news (she had had no word since his departure) than because he was breathlessly impatient once more to be serving the company's interests at Dog Arm.

To Mary and her father Skipper Libe had with seamanlike courtesy abandoned the tiny cabin. The child was lying in the skipper's own berth—warmly covered, comfortably tucked in, provided with a book to read by the light of the swinging lamp.

"Are you happy, dear?" her father asked.

"Oh, yes!"

The man took the child's hand. "I'm sometimes sorry," he said, "that we didn't wait for the mail-boat. The Fish Killer is a pretty tough craft for a little girl to be aboard."

"Sorry?" was the instant response, made with a little smile. "I'm not. I'm glad. Isn't Cape Grief close to leeward? Well, then, father, we're half way home. Think of it! We're—half—way—home!"

The father laughed.

"And we might have been waiting at St. John's," the child continued, her blue eyes shining. "Oh, father, I'd rather be aboard the Fish Killer off Grief Head than in the very best room of the Crosbie Hotel. Half way home!" she repeated. "Half way home!"

"Half way is a long way."

"But it's half way!"

"On this coast," the father sighed, "no man is home until he gets there."

"It's a fair wind."

"And the fog as thick as mud."

"But they've reefed the mains'l; they've stowed the stays'l; they've got the tops'l down. Haven't you heard them? I've been listening——"

"What's that!" Robinson cried.

It was a mere ejaculation of terror. He had no need to ask the question. Even Mary knew well enough what had happened. The Fish Killer had struck an iceberg bow on. The shock; the crash forward; the clatter of a falling topmast; the cries on deck: these things were alive with the fearful information.