"I wonder what has happened to the Nelly G. by this time?"
"Oh, sugar! Don't you worry none about her now. We'll get the Trillion crew out and then if the worst comes to worst they'll be right there to pick Ralph and them other fellers off the schooner—yessir!"
His assurance that they would be in time to aid the crew of the threatened fishing schooner buoyed up Lorna's heart. She began to feel more confidence. They had come through so much already, it did seem as though their venture must end successfully.
She knew what the beach was below Dickson Point, on the bay side. Ralph never beached the motor-boat there, for it was stony. But they could not stop for thought of this. If the Fenique was to be smashed upon her landing, so it must be!
Good fortune accompanied them, however. A breaking wave drenched Tobias and the girl as the motor-boat came into shallow water. In the backwash of the wave the keel grounded slightly. The following billow raised the boat high and cast it speedily up the strand.
"I give it as my opinion, Lorna," said Tobias in a lull of the wind, "that this didn't do Ralph's boat a world of good. Ne'r mind. Let's get ashore and see what can be done."
Near the beach was nothing but some fish houses, and they were all abandoned during this hurricane. Back toward Clinkerport, perhaps a couple of miles, was a house in which was a telephone. But, as Tobias pointed out, the wires might be down over here as well as on the other side of the bay.
"I cal'late we've got to go over the hill to the station. Or mebbe you'd better stay here while I go. It'll be a rough passage, Lorna."
"I can go quicker than you, Tobias Bassett," the girl declared through chattering teeth. "And I would rather keep moving than stand here idle. There is no shelter here."
"I'll bust in the door of Rube Kellock's fish house——"