“You keep those flames so high, rain or no rain,” Henderson charged them, “that we can see ’em from anywheres!”

A moment later the searchers plunged into the marsh, facing bravely away from lights and voices and solid earth.

Stumbling and slipping, Mary Bell followed the fence.  The rain slapped her face, and her rubber boots dragged in the shallow water.  But she thought only of five little boys losing hope and courage somewhere in this confusing waste, and her constant shouting was full of reassurance.

“Nobody would be scared with this fence to hang on to!” she assured herself, “no matter how fast the tide came in!” She rested a moment on the rail, glancing back at the distant fire, now only a dull glow, low against the sky.

Frequently the rail was broken, and dipped treacherously for a few feet; once it was lacking entirely, and for an awful ten feet she must bridge the darkness without its help.  She stood still, turning her guttering lantern on waving grasses and sinister pools.  “They are all dancing now!” she said aloud, wonderingly, when she had reached the opposite rail, with a fast-beating heart.  After an endless period of plunging and shouting, she was at the water’s very edge.

There was light enough to see the ruffled, cruel surface of the river, where its sluggish forces swept into the bay.  Idly bumping the grasses was something that brought Mary Bell’s heart into her throat.  Then she cried out in relief, for it was not the thing she feared, but the little deserted boat, right side up.

“That means they left her!” said Mary Bell, trembling with nervous terror.  She shouted again in the darkness, before turning for the homeward trip.  It seemed very long.  Once she thought she must be going aimlessly back and forth on the same bit of rail, but a moment more brought her to the missing rail again, and she knew she had been right.  Blown by the wind, struck by the now flying rain, deafened by the gurgling water and the rising storm, she fought her way back to the fire again.  The others were all there, and with them three cramped and chilled little boys, crying fright and relief, and clinging to the nearest adult shoulder.  The Chinese boy and Grandpa Barry had found them, standing on a hummock that was still clear of the rising tide, and shouting with all their weary strength.

“Oh, thank God!” said Mary Bell, her heart rising with sudden hope.

“We’ll get the others, now, please God!” said Henderson, quietly.  “We were working too far over.  You said they were all right when you left them, Lesty?” he said to one of the shivering little lads.

“Ye-es, sir!” chattered Lesty, eagerly, shaking with nervousness.  “They was both all right!  Davy wanted to git Billy over to the fence, so if the tide come up!”—­terror swept him again.  “Oh, Mr. Henderson, git ’em—­git ’em!  Don’t leave ’em drowned out there!” he sobbed frantically, clutching the big man with bony, wet little hands.