It was nearly midnight when the cove was reached, and after a desperate struggle the life-boat was launched.

“Some of you go back and get ready to operate the breeches buoy as soon as it’s light enough!” called Captain Needam, as the boat was pulled away over the heaving billows toward the wreck, which could be seen in the occasional glare of a rocket or signal light.

“Might as well come back,” said George Tucker to Larry.  “Can’t do any more here.”

Back through the wind and rain they walked, with half a score of others.  They reached the life-saving station, tired and spent from their struggle through the storm.

“You can go back to Bailey,” said George, as Larry sat down inside the warm and cozy living-room of the station to rest.  “He may need you.”

“I thought I could help here,” replied Larry.  “Besides, I’d like to see you work the breeches buoy.”

“You’ll see all you want of that in the morning,” replied the coast patrol.  “We can’t do much until daylight.  Are you afraid to go back alone?”

“No,” replied Larry.

Back he trudged to Bailey’s cabin.  It was about three o’clock when he reached there, and he found the fisherman sitting beside the table, drinking some hot tea.

“I thought you’d got lost,” spoke the fisherman.

“I went to help ’em launch the boat.  They needed me.  George Tucker was coming for you, but I told him of the man we saved.  How is he?”

“Doing well.  He’s asleep in the next room.  He had been struck on the head by something, and that was what made him senseless.  It wasn’t the water.  I soon brought him around.  How about the wreck?”

Larry told all he knew.  Bailey insisted on the young reporter drinking two cups of steaming hot tea, and Larry felt much better after it.  Then he and the fisherman stretched out on the floor to wait until morning, which would soon break.

Bailey was up early, and his movements in the hut as he shook down the fire and made coffee, aroused Larry.

“We’ll get a bit of breakfast and then we’ll go down to the station,” said the fisherman.  “I guess our man will be all right.”

He went outside to bring in some wood.  A moment later the door of the inner room, where the rescued man was, opened, and a head was thrust out.

“If my clothes are dry I’ll take them,” the man said, and Larry, glancing at him, saw that the stranger was smooth-shaven.  The reporter was sure that when he was pulled from the water on the raft the man had had a heavy beard.

“Why—­why—­” began the youth—­“your whiskers.  Did you——?”

“Whiskers?” replied the man with a laugh.  “Oh, you thought that bunch of seaweed on my face was a beard.  I see.  No, this is the way I looked.  But are my clothes dry?”

Larry took them from a chair near the fire, where Bailey had hung them.  He gave them to the stranger.  Larry was much puzzled.  It seemed as if he had stumbled upon a secret.  The man shut the door of his room, A moment later the fisherman called from without the hut: