Rocks.

"A brave man is Cap'n Amazon," Lawford Tapp said. "And if Cap'n Abe
was in the schooner's crew----Why, Professor Grayling! surely you must
remember him? Not a big man, but with heavy gray beard and
mustache--and very bald. Mild blue eyes and very gentle-spoken. Don't
you remember him in the crew of the _Curlew_?"

"It would seem quite probable that he was aboard," Professor Grayling
returned, "minding his p's and q's," as Louise had warned him. "But
you see, Mr. Tapp, being only a passenger, I had really little
association with the men forward. You know how it is aboard
ship--strict discipline, and all that."

"Yes, sir; I see. And, after all, Cap'n Abe was a man that could
easily be overlooked. Not assertive at all. Not like Cap'n Amazon.
Quite timid and retiring by nature. Don't you say so, Louise?"

"Oh, absolutely!" agreed the girl. "And yet, when you come to think of
it, Uncle Abram is a wonderful man."

"I don't see how you can say so," the young man said. "It's Cap'n
Amazon who is wonderful. There were other men down on the beach better
able to handle an oar than he. But he took the empty seat in the
lifeboat when he was called without saying 'yes or no'! And he pulled
with the best of us."

"He is no coward, of that I am sure," said Professor Grayling. "He
gave me his place in the boat. We can but pray that the lifeboat will
get to him in the morning."

That hope was universal. All night driftwood fires burned on the sands
and the people watched and waited for the dawn and another sight of the
schooner on the reef.

The tide brought in much wreckage; but it was mostly smashed top gear
and deck lumber. Therefore they had reason to hope that the hull of
the wreck held together.

It was just at daybreak that the wind subsided and the tide was so that
the lifeboat could be launched again. Wellriver station owned no
motor-driven craft at this time, or Cap'n Jim Trainor and his men would
have been able to reach the wreck at the height of the gale.

It was no easy matter even now to bring the lifeboat under the lee of
the battered schooner. Her masts and shrouds were overside, anchoring
her to the reef. Not a sign of life appeared anywhere upon her.

One of the crew of the lifeboat leaped for the rail and clambered
aboard. Down in the scuppers, in the wash of each wave that climbed
aboard the wreck, he spied a huddled bundle.

"Here's one of 'em, sure 'nough!" he sang out.