“You take it when the regular crew are at practice, sometimes,” whispered Heavy, to Ruth, “and they work like lightning. They’ll shoot the line and get a man ashore in the breeches buoy in less than two minutes. But this is hard work for these volunteers–and it means so much!”
Ruth felt as though a hand clutched at her heart. The unshed tears stung her eyes. If they should fail–if all this effort should go for naught! Suppose that unknown girl out there on the wreck should be washed ashore in the morning, pallid and dead.
The thought almost overwhelmed the girl from the Red Mill. As the gun barked a second time and the shot and line hurtled seaward, Ruth Fielding’s pale lips uttered a whispered prayer.
CHAPTER X
THE DOUBLE CHARGE
But again the line fell short.
“They’ll never be able to make it,” Tom Cameron said to the shivering girls.
“Oh, I really wish we hadn’t come down here,” murmured his sister.
“Oh, pshaw, Nell! don’t be a baby,” he growled.
But he was either winking back the tears himself, or the salt spray had gotten into his eyes. How could anybody stand there on the beach and feel unmoved when nine human beings, in view now and then when the billows fell, were within an ace of awful death?