As Sig Bailey, the guard who had been muttering about the storm, swerved farther up the beach to avoid a far-reaching wave, he saw a dim shape scurrying among the sand dunes. At first he thought it merely a bunch of seaweed, blown by the blast, but it did not slump down in a heap as seaweed naturally would when the gust of wind ceased for a moment.
"Hello there!" cried the coast guard. "Who are you?"
For he saw that it was something alive—something that was seeking a shelter from the storm.
For a moment he felt a little sensation of fear. There are so many strange tales of the sea, and that which comes out of the sea. Perhaps it was some weird creature of the deep, cast up by the churning of the waves. Sig had heard such stories. Then his common sense came to his aid.
There followed a moment's lull in the storm and Sig, clearing his eyes of the rain and the salt spray, looked among the sand dunes for what he had seen.
Yes, there it was again—some moving shape.
"Why, it's a dog! A puppy!"
"Might be a man—crawling on his hands and knees," mused the coast guard. "Too weak to stand up, maybe. Been washed in off some boat. But I haven't heard anything of a wreck. I wonder——"
The dim shape seemed to come toward him, and for a moment Sig felt afraid again. Then he thought of the powerful electric flashlight in his outside pocket. It was the work of a moment to focus its beams on the subject. Then Sig exclaimed: