surfman's face.

"What's this? Read! That's the Polly Walters out there, I tell ye, and
the captain's son's aboard! I've been suspicionin' it all the mornin'.
That's him with the slouch hat. I knowed he warn't no sailor from the
way he acted. Don't say nothin' till we're sure."

Parks lunged forward, dodged a stick of cord-wood that drove straight
at him like a battering-ram and, watching his chance, dragged a
floating keg from the smother, rolled it clear of the surf, canted it
on end, and took a similar card from its head. Then he shouted with all
his might:

"It's the Polly, men! It's the Polly--the Polly Walters! O God, ain't
that too bad! Captain Ambrose's drowned, or we'd a-seen him! That
feller in the slouch hat is Bart Holt! Gimme that line!" He was
stripping off his waterproofs now ready for a plunge into the sea.

With the awful words ringing in his ears Captain Holt made a spring
from the dune and came running toward Parks, who was now knotting the
shot-line about his waist.

"What do you say she is?" he shouted, as he flung himself to the edge
of the roaring surf and strained his eyes toward the wreck.

"The Polly--the Polly Walters!"

"My God! How do ye know? She ain't left Amboy, I tell ye!"

"She has! That's her--see them kerds! They come off that stuff behind
ye. Tod got one and I got t'other!" he held the bits of cardboard under
the rim of the captain's sou'wester.

Captain Holt snatched the cards from Parks's hand, read them at a
glance, and a dazed, horror-stricken expression crossed his face. Then
his eye fell upon Parks knotting the shot-line about his waist.

"Take that off! Parks, stay where ye are; don't ye move, I tell ye."

As the words dropped from the captain's lips a horrified shout went up
from the bystanders. The wreck, with a crunching sound, was being
lifted from the sand. She rose steadily, staggered for an instant and
dropped out of sight. She had broken amidships. With the recoil two
ragged bunches showed above the white wash of the water. On one
fragment--a splintered mast--crouched the man with the slouch hat; to
the other clung the two sailors. The next instant a great roller,
gathering strength as it came, threw itself full length on both
fragments and swept on. Only wreckage was left and one head.

With a cry to the men to stand by and catch the slack, the captain
ripped a line from the drum of the cart, dragged off his high boots,
knotted the bight around his waist