ou'll see all you want of that in the morning," replied the coast
patrol. "We can't do much until daylight. Are you afraid to go back
alone?"

"No," replied Larry.

Back he trudged to Bailey's cabin. It was about three o'clock when
he reached there, and he found the fisherman sitting beside the
table, drinking some hot tea.

"I thought you'd got lost," spoke the fisherman.

"I went to help 'em launch the boat. They needed me. George Tucker
was coming for you, but I told him of the man we saved. How is he?"

"Doing well. He's asleep in the next room. He had been struck on the
head by something, and that was what made him senseless. It wasn't
the water. I soon brought him around. How about the wreck?"

Larry told all he knew. Bailey insisted on the young reporter
drinking two cups of steaming hot tea, and Larry felt much better
after it. Then he and the fisherman stretched out on the floor to
wait until morning, which would soon break.

Bailey was up early, and his movements in the hut as he shook down
the fire and made coffee, aroused Larry.

"We'll get a bit of breakfast and then we'll go down to the
station," said the fisherman. "I guess our man will be all right."

He went outside to bring in some wood. A moment later the door of
the inner room, where the rescued man was, opened, and a head was
thrust out.

"If my clothes are dry I'll take them," the man said, and Larry,
glancing at him, saw that the stranger was smooth-shaven. The
reporter was sure that when he was pulled from the water on the
raft the man had had a heavy beard.

"Why--why--" began the youth--"your whiskers. Did you----?"

"Whiskers?" replied the man with a laugh. "Oh, you thought that
bunch of seaweed on my face was a beard. I see. No, this is the way
I looked. But are my clothes dry?"

Larry took them from a chair near the fire, where Bailey had hung
them. He gave them to the stranger. Larry was much puzzled. It
seemed as if he had stumbled upon a secret. The man shut the door of
his room, A moment later the fisherman called from without the hut:

"Come on! Never mind breakfast! They're going to fire the gun!"

CHAPTER IV

RESCUED FROM THE SEA

Larry paused only long enough to don his oilskins, as it was still
raining hard. The coffee was made, but he did not wait for any,
though he wanted it very much. But he knew he ought to be on the
spot to see all the details of the rescue from the sea, and it was
not the first t