Page:Ralph Paine--The praying skipper.djvu/218

192 wives of pilots and seamen pressed around him. When, as tenderly as possible, he was able to leave them, he went to the telegraph office and sent this message to the managing editor of the Standard:

"Just landed. Am sole survivor of pilot schooner Albatross run down and foundered a week ago. Will report with my story at noon."

On the train Wilson added to his "story" in the old log-book the facts of the last days of Pilot Seth Markle. His pencil quivered and balked when he recalled the words and face of his gentle old critic, and somehow, through his tears, he brought the narrative of the last cruise to its unadorned conclusion. Then he closed the book and leaned back with a great weariness. Now he was passing that bright vista of shore through which he had first seen the Bay, where he had chosen to advance rather than to retreat. Those intervening days seemed like years of life. He had gone away a boy, he was coming back a man.

When the young reporter walked into the Standard office, the first man to greet