THE SAMARITAN SKIPPER I clung to that heaven-sent bit of wreckage, exhausted and weary, until the light began to break in the east.

I was numbed and shivering with cold--but I was alive and safe.

That square yard of good and solid wood was as much to me as if it had been a floating island.

And as the light grew and grew, and the sun at last came up, a ball of fire out of the far horizon, I looked across the sea on all sides, hoping to catch sight of a sail, or of a wisp of smoke--of anything that would tell me of the near presence of human beings.

And one fact I realized at once--I was further away from land than when I had begun my battle with death.