“Shall we take off your passengers?”
“There’s no need of it. We can lie here easily enough, if it isn’t possible to haul us off before morning.”
“I’m not so certain of that, sir. The tide will fall twelve inches or more before the ebb, and the water hereabouts is rough.”
“Send a message for me to the city, and that will be enough,” the master replied curtly, and Sam took up the oars again, pulling vigorously toward the station.
“There’s what you call a pig-headed captain,” he said when the dory was some distance away. “It stands to reason he doesn’t know anything about this coast, else he’d never gone on that shoal, an’ he had too good an opinion of his own abilities to so much as look at the chart. There are no tugs around here that can pull him off before high tide, and in the meanwhile he’s likely to find that the steamer won’t lay as easy as he’s countin’ on.”
“There comes our surf-boat!” Benny cried, pointing toward a projecting cliff which hid the station from view, and around which the life-saving crew were just appearing. “I knew they’d answer the steamer’s signal as soon as it could be done.”
“Of course they would, lad, there are no sleepy heads among us, if I do say it. Tom Downey will read that captain a lecture, I reckon.”
The dory and the surf-boat were soon side by side, and the keeper asked for information concerning the steamer.
Sam repeated the conversation he had had with the captain, and Mr. Downey replied:
“Send the message as soon as you get back, and then go on duty at once, taking up a station directly opposite where the steamer lies. Flash the Coston twice if she’s likely to need us between now and midnight. Joe Cushing shall cover the remainder of your beat.”