h-plum preserves, Miss Davis,"
exclaimed the lady from Nantucket. "I declare! I'm goin' to ask you for
another sasserful. I b'lieve they're the best I ever ate."

"Well, now! Do you think so? I kind of suspected that the plums was a
little mite too ripe. You know how 'tis with beach-plums, they've got to
be put up when they're jest so, else they ain't good for much. I was at
Luther for I don't know how long 'fore I could git him to go over to the
P'int and pick 'em, and I was 'fraid he'd let it go too long. I only put
up twenty-two jars of 'em on that account. How much sugar do you use?"

There was material here for the discussion that country housewives love,
and the two ladies took advantage of it. When it was over the female
portion of the company washed the dishes, while the men walked up and
down the beach and smoked. Here they were joined after a while by the
ladies, for even by the ocean it was as mild as early May, and the wind
was merely bracing and had no sting in it.

The big blue waves shouldered themselves up from the bosom of the sea,
marched toward the beach, and tumbled to pieces in a roaring tumult
of white and green. The gulls skimmed along their tops or dropped
like falling stones into the water after sand eels, emerging again,
screaming, to repeat the performance.

The conversation naturally turned to wrecks, and Captain Davis, his
reserve vanishing before the tactful inquiries of the captains and
Ralph, talked shop and talked it well.

CHAPTER XI

HEROES AND A MYSTERY

Luther Davis had been commandant at the life-saving station for years
and "Number One Man" before that, so his experience with wrecks and
disabled craft of all kinds had been long and varied. He told them
of disasters the details of which had been telegraphed all over the
country, and of rescues of half-frozen crews from ice-crested schooners
whose signals of distress had been seen from the observatory on the roof
of the station. He told of long rows in midwinter through seas the spray
of which turned to ice as they struck, and froze the men's mittens to
the oar-handles. He told of picking up draggled corpses in the surf at
midnight, when, as he said, "You couldn't tell whether 'twas a man or
a roll of seaweed, and the only way to make sure was to reach down and
feel."

Captain Eri left them after a while, as he had some acquaintances
among the men at the station, and wished to talk with them. Miss Davis
remembered tha