Page:Ruth Fielding at Lighthouse Point.djvu/78

68 boat's badly smashed. But there's one thing sure—no other boat, nor no other crew, couldn't do what we started to do. Ain't no kick comin' on that score."

"And can't the poor creatures out there be helped? Must they drown?" whispered Helen in Ruth's ear.

Ruth did not believe that these men would give up so easily. They were rough seamen; but the helplessness of the castaways appealed to them.

"Come on, boys!" commanded the captain of the life-saving crew. "Let's git out the wagon. I don't suppose there's any use, unless there comes a lull in this etarnal gale. But we'll try what gunpowder will do."

"What are they going to attempt now?' Madge Steele asked.

"The beach wagon," said somebody. "They've gone for the gear."

This was no explanation to the girls until Tom Cameron came running back from the house and announced that the crew were going to try to reach the schooner with a line.

"They'll try to save them with the breeches buoy," he said. "They've got a life-car here; but they never use that thing nowadays if they can help. Too many castaways have been near smothered in it, they say. If they can get a line