Page:Ruth Fielding at Lighthouse Point.djvu/69

Rh and they were just getting ready to haul her down to the beach.

"And the wreck must have struck nearly an hour ago!" cried Madge. "How slow they are."

"No," said Heavy thoughtfully. "It is July now, and Uncle Sam doesn't believe there will be any wrecks along this coast until September. In the summer Cap'n Abinadab keeps the station alone. It took some time to-night to find a crew—and possibly some of these men are volunteers."

But now that the life savers had got on the ground, they went to work with a briskness and skill that impressed the onlookers. They tailed onto the drag rope and hauled the long, glistening white boat down to the very edge of the sea. The wind was directly onshore, and it was a fight to stand against it, let alone to haul such a heavy truck through the wet sand.

Suddenly there was a glow at sea and the gun boomed out again. Then a pale signal light burned on the deck of the foundered vessel. As the light grew those ashore could see her lower rigging and the broken masts and spars. She lay over toward the shore and her deck seemed a snarl of lumber. Between the reef and the beach, too, the water was a-foul with wreckage and planks of all sizes.