At last the boat mounted the last billow on which she was to continue her voyage to the beach.
The crew pulled heartily to keep her perched high on its foamy crest, and in this fashion they went rushing shoreward.
As the boat shot forward and her keel grated on the sand the crew were over the sides like a shot, seizing upon her in order to prevent the outgoing wave from carrying her along.
Then one by one the women and children were carried to the shore, and hurried to the shelter of the station, where a warm fire and something to drink in the way of coffee and tea would put new life in the shuddering mass.
The woman who had been so strangely agitated at sight of Darry seemed to be a lady of refinement, but she was almost perishing from the cold, and did not resist when they forced her to seek shelter.
Once she turned around and looked back to where Darry was busy; but when inside the house she swooned from exhaustion, to come to later and find Paul Singleton bending anxiously over her, with words of affection on his lips.
Meanwhile Darry was ready to again take his place with the rest, but Abner had been busy, and spoke to Mr. Frazer, who in turn engaged a stalwart fisherman to fill the vacancy caused by Tom's absence.
Although disappointed, Darry did not insist, for he knew the tax upon his young muscles had been severe, and if he failed it might throw the whole crew out of balance.
So he saw them set out again, with his heart in his eyes.
When they had vanished from view he walked nervously up and down the beach for a short time; then noticing the presence of a moving light not more than half a mile down the shore he remembered what he had heard Mr. Frazer say about the wreckers being abroad, looking for anything of value they could lay hands on.
Usually these men make their living by gathering up whatever may be cast on the beach after a vessel has gone to pieces, and thus far their calling is legitimate, but as a rule they are a bad class, and at times, when fortune frowns upon their efforts, many of their kind resort to desperate means for accumulating riches, even robbing the dead, and it was hinted in connection with Jim Dilks' crowd, going still further.
When a vessel is in danger of going to pieces, the passengers usually load themselves with what valuables they may possess in the hope of saving these in case they reach the shore in safety; so that these ghouls frequently find a little fortune upon the persons of the drowned travelers.