utter was
sent out to look for them, first, however, having been in
communication with the ocean liner the girls had passed by wireless,
learning from the captain of the ship of their having sighted the
"Sister Sue" and giving the latter's position at the time. This
served as a guide for the revenue boat, which steamed through the
great seas until daylight.

There were no signs of the missing sloop; but, reasoning that, if the
boat was still afloat, it must have been blown down the coast, the
revenue boat headed in that direction. It was not until three o'clock
in the afternoon, however, that the lookout reported seeing something
floating in the far distance, off the starboard bow. A study of this
object through the glasses led the captain to turn his cutter in that
direction. An hour later he was close enough to see that it was a
dismantled boat, and that there were people aboard it.

Full speed ahead was ordered and the revenue boat rapidly drew up. A
strange spectacle was revealed to the officers and men of the revenue
cutter as she approached close enough to make out details. The
dismantled sloop was lying very low in the water, showing that she was
in a bad way. To the top of the stump of the mast a staple had been
driven and through this a rope run. This rope held a jib, the greater
part of which was on the deck because there was not height enough to
spread it all. But what there was of the jib was pulling well in the
fresh breeze and the sloop was wallowing through the seas, making
fair headway toward land, which now was not more than fifteen miles
away.

Harriet Burrell, still at the wheel, was giving her full attention to
handling the boat, leaving to her companions the task of attracting
the attention of the cutter, which, however, had seen the sloop long
before the passengers on her had discovered the revenue boat.

The captain of the cutter lay to as close to the sloop as he dared go,
then held a megaphone conversation with the survivors. Harriet replied
that she thought she would be able to get the boat to shore, but
suggested that they take off the other girls. The captain would not
listen to Harriet's first proposition. After a perilous passage he
finally succeeded in getting a boat's crew aboard the sloop, the
skipper himself accompanying the rescue party.

"And you brought this tub through the gale?" he questioned, turning to
Harriet after hearing a brief account of the loss of Captain Billy and