“I’ll be back in about twenty minutes,” he said, and he was as good as his word.
At the end of his beat he stopped to take a watchkey attached to a post, and, inserting it in the clock he carried, to record the time of his visit at that spot. By this means is kept an actual record of the movements of the patrol at all times.
Returning to the place where he had left the boys, he found them sitting in awed silence.
“No signs from the ship yet?” he shouted.
So quietly had he approached, and so thunderous was the booming of the surf, Billy and Hugh were startled at the sound of Downs’s voice. Even had they not been staring out to sea, waiting in suspense for the ship’s signal, they would not have seen him come up, so thick was the mist.
Billy gasped and jumped up. “What—what are we going to do now?” he asked.
“Want to go back to the station?”
“No, no!” exclaimed Hugh, springing to his feet. “We’re out here with you. We’ll stick by you.”
“But I’m out here for four hours’ duty. You don’t want to stick it out that long, son?”
“Yes, we do—if you don’t mind,” replied Billy.