h a squarely trimmed "paint-brush" beard.
The girls drew nearer to the group and heard one of the surfmen say:

"We'll smash her, Cap, sure as you're born! Those planks are charging
in like battering-rams."

"We'll try it, Mason," returned Cap'n Abinadab. "I don't believe
we can shoot a line to her against this gale. Ready!"

The captain got in at the stern and the others took their places in the
boat. Each man had a cork belt strapped around his body under his arms.
There were a dozen other men to launch the lifeboat into the surf when
the captain gave the word.

He stood up and watched the breakers rolling in. As a huge one curved
over and broke in a smother of foam and spray he shouted some command
which the helpers understood. The boat started, truck and all, and
immediately the men launching her were waist deep in the surging, hissing
sea.

The returning billow carried the boat off the truck, and the lifeboatmen
plunged in their oars and pulled. Their short sharp strokes were in such
unison that the men seemed moved by the same mind. The long boat shot
away from the beach and mounted the incoming wave like a cork.

The men ashore drew back the boat-truck out of the way. The lifeboat
seemed to hang on that wave as though hesitating to take the plunge.
Ruth thought that it would be cast back--a wreck itself--upon the beach.

But suddenly it again sprang forward, and the curling surf hid boat and
men for a full minute from the gaze of those on shore. The girls clung
together and gazed eagerly out into the shifting shadows that overspread
the riotous sea.

"They've sunk!" gasped Helen.

"No, no!" cried Heavy. "There! see them?"

The boat's bow rose to meet the next wave. They saw the men pulling as
steadily as though the sea were smooth. Old Cap'n Abinadab still stood
upright in the stern, grasping the heavy steering oar.

"I've read," said Ruth, more quietly, "that these lifeboats are
unsinkable--unless they are completely wrecked. Water-tight compartments,
you know."

"That's right, Miss," said one of the men nearby. "She can't sink.
But she can be smashed--Ah!"

A shout came back to them from the sea. The wind whipped the cry past
them in a most eerie fashion.

"Cap'n Abinadab shouting to the men," explained Heavy, breathlessly.

Suddenly another signal light was touched off upon the wreck. The growing
light flickered over the entire expanse of lumber-littered sea between
the reef and the beach. T