[Illustration: “_Strong hands were laid on the whip_” (p. 320).]
“Here she comes!” sung out Slim Tarleton.
“Here _he_ comes, I guess,” suggested Woodbury Elliott.
Come, he did, nearer, nearer, the surfmen steadily hauling on the line; and at last the breeches buoy was in the midst of the brave circle of rescuers.
“How are ye?” called out the occupant of the buoy, a sharp–nosed, red–headed man. “Much obleeged.”
“Oh, you’re welcome!” said Keeper Barney.
“How are all the folks at sea?” inquired Tom Walker.
“Does it look nat’ral round here?” asked Seavey Lowd.
“Altogether too nat’ral for me,” replied the arrival by this ocean air–line. “Ef we didn’t have a tough night!”
The man had now disembarked from this canvas–and–cork ship, and stood on the sands.
The keeper was hurriedly giving the order to “haul out,” when the stranger asked, “Haven’t ye suthin’ bigger and snugger ye could send out? Some of the folks there are awful weak.”
“All right. We will put on the life–car soon as we get some of the crew ashore. People can ride snug in that life–car. How long will your craft hold together?”
“She’s a good deal smashed, Cap’n, but she can stand it a while longer.”
“Man the weather–whip! Haul out!” the keeper was shouting. Out to the wreck, the breeches buoy traveled, and then returned with its freight of a second man.
“Haul the hawser taut there!” cried the keeper to Walter and Woodbury, who stood near the sand anchor and handled the tackle for tightening the hawser. Each rescued man proved a rescuer, going to work at once. There were three more brought ashore by the buoy, and then the keeper ordered the life–car forward. The buoy was quickly removed, and in its place above the roaring surf hung the life–car, riding along the hawser on its way to the wreck. The life–car was shaped like a boat, made of galvanized sheet iron. It was about eleven feet long, three deep, and over four wide, and would carry a load of six or seven persons. It was roofed over, and its cargo was received through a hatch which was securely covered, but little openings in the top admitted the air. The car had now gone to the wreck, had received its load, and in response to the keeper’s “haul ashore!” was traveling landward along the hawser. It was a feeble, shivering lot of mortals who crawled through the hatch at the end of the trip.