Jud, with a cry of “My God, Bill can’t swim!” dived over the side to his partner’s assistance.
Alex and Ike came running aft just as the cabin door splintered under a lusty blow from Case.
“Stop,” shouted Alex. “The key is on the outside. I will let you out.”
The imprisoned boys sprang out as soon as the door yielded. Both took in the situation at a glance. Clay sprang for the motor, while Case ran forward to the wheel.
“Lower the anchor,” Clay shouted despairingly, a moment later. “Run the cable out until she is close to the breakers. These fools have flooded the engine and it is going to take some time before I can succeed in working it all out.”
The three boys rushed to the bow and heaved the heavy anchor over. Alex took a turn around the snubbing block, paying the cable out, rapidly at first, then slowly tightening up on it until the Rambler’s bow swung up into the wind. Instead of rolling and wallowing, she met the seas with a steady, easy pitching. Just keeping the cable taut enough to hold the boat up to the wind, Alex continued to pay it out slowly until the Rambler’s stern was within forty feet of the breakers. Then he fastened the big hempen rope tightly to the snubbing post. The three boys stood tense awaiting results. Slowly the Rambler drifted back, dragging the huge anchor with its long cable with it. “No holding bottom,” Alex shouted. “She’s going on the rocks. Get ready to jump.”
But when her stern swung within a dozen feet of the foaming breakers, the Rambler brought up with a jerk, that threw the boys to the deck. The anchor had caught on a hidden rock. Their first act on regaining their feet was to assure themselves of their own safety, then to look around for their late captors. At first they could see neither of them in the long rolling waves. It was Alex who spied them first. “Good heavens!” he cried, “look there. Did you ever see a man like that in your life?”
Following his pointing finger, his two companions caught a glimpse of a sight, startling but inspiring. Jud, with one hand was holding not only Bill’s head, but half of his body, above the high waves, while with the other hand he was keeping his own head above water and swimming powerfully for the breaker-racked shore. The boys gained some idea of the man’s magnificent strength in the way he sustained the weight of his partner’s body aloft and still kept his own head high above the water. They caught one more glimpse of the two just before they entered the boiling breakers. Jud had turned on his back and had drawn the limp form from above, holding it tight with one arm thrown around his waist, while with the other he was still desperately battling to win through the rock-strewn smother to the sandy shore beyond. “Look at a man, boys,” Alex cried in admiration, “using his own body to protect his partner’s body from the rocks. That’s some man, I’m telling you.” In a few moments the two bodies were rolled up on the beach by a mighty wave. Jud stooped and picked Bill up as though he were a sleeping child, and laying him down on the dry, warm sand, thrust a bunch of dry sea moss under his head for a pillow.
The boys were close to the shore and could see the eyes of Jud clearly. They were eloquent with tenderness and woe. He was bleeding from a dozen gaping wounds, made by the cruel, ragged rocks, but he did not seem to notice them. Kneeling down by Bill’s side, he applied the first aids to the drowned, such as raising and lowering the arms and depressing the chest. The boys stood and watched him anxiously.
Suddenly Jud lifted a beaming face. “He’s coming to all right,” he shouted joyously. “Reckon that bear knocked him senseless so that he didn’t swallow much water.”