“There’ll be a smother upon us in less than half an hour, an’ it’s fortunate I brought an extra supply of Coston signals. That’s another case, No. 8, where people would talk of luck, an’ yet it was only reasonable foresight, such as any man ought to exercise.”
Sam was making his way along the coast at his best pace, which was so rapid that at times Benny was forced to run, and when ten minutes had passed the boy asked, panting for breath:
“Why are you hurrying? All the crew are out to the steamer, and a watch ashore won’t be needed until quite a while after they have come back.”
“True, lad; but it’s necessary to get the location of the ship well fixed in mind before the fog shuts down. Once that has been done we can go out to her without any great trouble, providin’ we’re needed.”
The two arrived none too soon at the post they were to occupy.
On gaining the bluff opposite the steamer, the mist, which had been rapidly creeping over the ocean, had already begun to envelop her, and no more than the spars could be distinguished.
“Ten minutes’ delay, and we’d have been too late, not only to make her out, but to hear what orders Tom Downey may have to give,” the surfman said, and Benny could faintly distinguish amid the vapor a dark spot which he understood, because of Sam Hardy’s words, to be the surf-boat coming shoreward.
Five minutes later the crew rested on their oars within an hundred feet of the bluff, as the keeper shouted:
“Did you send a message to the city?”
“Ay, sir, and there will be no tugs here much before high water.”