houlder. As Lollie's hand reached out and
began coiling the rope, he turned to watch the breakers, that he might
time the first dash of his flight back to safety.

The tide was higher now, the combers nearer, and he had but one free
hand with which to cling to the base of the bluff when the enveloping
waters rose about him. He plunged. He staggered. . . . His senses
after a few moments were bludgeoned into numbness by the roar of the
sea; his body was sore from the impact of beating water and stinging
gravel. He struggled on step by step, feeling his way along the
shifting beach, until only the primal instinct of self-preservation was
guiding him in the grim game with the tide.

At last he reached the other end of the bluff. He reeled up to the dry
sand and let the body of the girl slip from his shoulder. As he did so
he heard a shout. Boreland and his wife were running down from the
cabin trail. He did not pause but plunged back again through the
drenching maelstrom.

In a moment their frantic calls were swallowed up in the deafening roar
of waters. Would he have strength to fight his way back? Would he
find the boy where he had left him, or had a comber swept him off the
narrow shelf? Harlan was unutterably weary now. He longed to let go
his hold on the rocky wall, to cease fighting, and let himself be taken
out into obliteration; but he drove himself on . . . and on. . . .
After a long while he gained the perilous perch where Loll bravely
awaited him above the roar.

He rested a moment. The little fellow's absolute faith in him gave him
the will to fight his way back again. He took the child on his
shoulders and once more plunged into the watery hell.

How he returned to safety he never knew. He was conscious only of
reaching the place where Jean lay . . . of asking whether or not the
girl was still alive . . . then the great weariness overpowered him.
He sank down on the sand beside Jean, and Lollie's glad shout, as he
was clasped in his mother's arms, floated through his mental numbness
like a clear toy balloon drifting up in a fog.

Three hours later Harlan was resting on the bed in the living-room. In
the adjoining room where Jean lay in her little bunk he knew that the
girl was hearing, from Ellen's guarded lips, the story of her rescue.
On recovering consciousness she had tried to rise, but one side, where
she had struck against the rocks, was bruised and so painful that,
though she rebe