Page:Ruth Fielding at Lighthouse Point.djvu/74



"! isn't it awful!' cried Helen, clinging to Ruth Fielding. "I wish I hadn't come."

"They're lost!" quavered Mary Cox. "They're drowned!"

But Heavy was more practical. "They can't drown so easily—with those cork-vests on 'em. There! the boat's righted."

It was a fact. Much nearer the shore, it was true, but the lifeboat was again right side up. They saw the men creep in over her sides and seize the oars which had been made fast to her so that they could not be lost.

But the lifeboat was not so buoyant, and it was plain that she had been seriously injured. Cap'n Abinadab dared not go on to the wreck.

"That timber mashed her in for'ard," declared a fisherman standing near the girls. "They've got to give it up this time."

"Can't steer in such a clutter of wreckage," declared another. "Not with an oared boat. She ought to be a motor. Every other station on this coast, from Macklin to Cape Brender,