“Ile, ile, what we put into the lamps. Anyhow, I remembered it the last thing, and told her the boys at the station would help her. There was a nor’wester a-blowing round this Point that would have picked up an ocean liner, and played ball with it, and the snow a-banking up around us like sand dunes. I didn’t think Sally would weather it, but she started off. The fever had me tight, but I held my course and when it grew dark and no Sally, up I gets out of bed, and crept along on my hands and knees to the passageway that leads to the tower, and that’s where the Captain found me when he came to fill the lamps and light ’em up.”
“How did he know?” asked Polly, eagerly.
“He knew I was sick, and he was bringing me over some medicine Mis’ Carey fixed up for me, and he found Sarah in a drift, half-way between the Station and this here fence, half froze, but he had the ile, Lord bless your hearts, he had the ile, and he set the light burning.”
“Avast there, Billy,” shouted the Captain over his shoulder. “Are you spinning that there oil yarn to those poor children?”
“I am, Cap, I am,” laughed Billy. “And I’ll spin it to Saint Peter too, when I stop to rest a bit by the gates of pearl, if he’ll give me an ear, just to let him know you’re coming.”
CHAPTER XVII
POLLY PREPARES
It was dark when the girls reached the cottage on the island that night. They lingered at the Life Saving Station until the Captain ordered them home, and then Tom led the way with a lantern along the shore road. There was no moon, but the stars shone, and the wind had gone down, leaving the sea quiet, except for the long, lazy swells that brushed along the ocean beach to their left.
Once Tom paused at a rise in the ground and pointed away off to the south side of the Sickle where a light twinkled.
“That’s the half-way house,” he told them. “They have one every two miles along shore; the men meet there and exchange slips and pass on. I’ll be glad when I’m old enough to join.”