"Polhemus! Good! All hands on the cart, men; boat can't live in that surf. She lies to the north of us!" And he swung himself out of the door and down the stairs.
"God help 'em, if they've got to come through that surf!" Parks said, slinging on his coat. "The tide's just beginnin' to make flood, and all that cord-wood'll come a-waltzin' back. Never see nothin' like it!"
The front door now burst in and another shout went ringing through the house:
"Schooner in the breakers!"
It was Tod. He had rejoined Polhemus the moment before he flared his light and had made a dash to rouse the men.
"I seen her, Fogarty, from the lookout," cried the captain, in answer, grabbing his sou'wester; he was already in his hip-boots and tarpaulin. "What is she?"
"Schooner, I guess, sir."
"Two or three masts?" asked the captain hurriedly, tightening the strap of his sou'wester and slipping the leather thong under his gray whiskers.
"Can't make out, sir; she come bow on. Uncle Ike see her fust." And he sprang out after the men.
A double door thrown wide; a tangle of wild cats springing straight at a broad-tired cart; a grappling of track-lines and handle-bars; a whirl down the wooden incline, Tod following with the quickly lighted lanterns; a dash along the runway, the sand cutting their cheeks like grit from a whirling stone; over the dune, the men bracing the cart on either side, and down the beach the crew swept in a rush to where Polhemus stood waving his last Coston.