ee
men, like black specks, lashed to her after rigging. Louise, between
bursting waves, counted twenty of these figures.

"It may be the _Curlew_!" she cried to the Taffy King. "Father told me
in his letter there were twenty people aboard her afore and abaft. He
may be out there!" and the girl shuddered.

"No, no," said I. Tapp. "Not possible. Don't think of such a thing,
my girl. But whoever they are, they are to be pitied."

There rose a shout at the edge of the surf. The fringe of fishermen
had rushed in to aid in launching the boat. Anscomb and his camera man
had taken up a good position with the machine. The director was going
to get some "real stuff."

Louise saw that Lawford was foremost among the volunteers. The
lifeboat crew, their belts strapped under their arms, had taken their
places in the boat. Captain Trainor stood in the stern with his
steering oar. On its truck the lifeboat was run into the surf.

"Now!" shrieked the excited moving picture director. "Action! Camera!
Go!"

There was something unreal about it--it was like a play. And yet out
there on that schooner her crew faced bitter death, while the men of
the Coast Patrol took their lives in their hands as the lifeboat was
run through the bursting surf.

The volunteers ran in till those ahead were neck deep in the sea. Then
the boat floated clear and, with a mighty shove from behind the surfmen
pulled out.

Lawford and his mates staggered back with the gear. The lifeboat
lifted to meet the onrolling breakers. The men tugged at the oars.

Somebody screamed. Those ashore saw the white gash of a split oar.
The man in the bow went overboard, not being strapped to the seat. His
mate reached for him and the banging broken oar handle hit him on the
head.

The boat swung broadside and the next instant was rolling over and over
in the surf, the crew half smothered.

The spectators ran together in a crowd. But Lawford and some of the
men who had helped to launch the boat rushed into the surf and dragged
the overturned craft and her crew out upon the beach.

"One of the crew with a broken arm; another knocked out complete with
that crack on the head," sputtered Cap'n Jim Trainor. "Two of my very
best men. Come on, boys! Who'll take their places?"

Lawford was already putting on the belt he had unbuckled from about one
of the injured surfmen. The Taffy King, seeing what his son was about,
shouted:

"Ford! Ford! Don't