“We had too big a job on our hands to spend very much time in looking her over; but it’s possible to take things easier this morning, an’ I’d like to see how badly she’s been punished,” Sam replied as he and Benny stood by to take their places in the boat.
“She isn’t in bad shape, an’ if the weather holds good we’ll soon have her afloat,” he who was in charge of the boat said in a matter-of-fact tone, and after they had put off he asked, nodding toward Benny:
“Is that lad a member of the crew?”
“Ay, that he is, an’ one who don’t spend much idle time when we’re pushed, as was the case when this steamer came ashore.”
“Where’s the boy who hauled the two sailors out of the water? The steamer’s captain was tellin’ about it.”
“This is the same identical lad,” Sam replied with a laugh.
“That little shaver couldn’t haul his own weight through such a surf as was runnin’ when yonder craft struck the shoal,” the man replied decidedly, giving no more than a passing glance at Benny, who looked even smaller than ever beneath the huge pea-jacket.
“But he did, matey, an,’ what’s more, set about it in sailor-like fashion, finishin’ the job as quickly as you or I could have done it.”
Then Sam went into the details of the rescue effected by Benny, while the lad kept his face turned seaward lest the men should see and laugh at his blushes.
“Well, that beats me!” the sailor at the helm cried when Sam’s story was come to an end. “A lad who can do such a trick as that while everything is in confusion, as it must have been then, has good stuff in him.”