Below him stretched a dull waste of sand hardly distinguishable in the gloom until his eyes became accustomed to it, and beyond this the white line of the surf, whiter than either sky or sand.  This writhed and twisted like a cobra in pain.  To the north burned Barnegat Light, only the star of its lamp visible.  To the south stretched alternate bands of sand, sky, and surf, their dividing lines lost in the night.  Along this beach, now stopping to get their breath, now slanting the brim of their sou’westers to escape the slash of the sand and spray, strode Tod and Polhemus, their eyes on and beyond the tumbling surf, their ears open to every unusual sound, their Costons buttoned tight under their coats to keep them from the wet.

Suddenly, while his eyes were searching the horizon line, now hardly discernible in the gloom, a black mass rose from behind a cresting of foam, see-sawed for an instant, clutched wildly at the sky, and dropped out of sight behind a black wall of water.  The next instant there flashed on the beach below him, and to the left of the station, the red flare of a Coston signal.

With the quickness of a cat Captain Holt sprang to the stairs shouting: 

“A wreck, men, a wreck!” The next instant he had thrown aside the door of the men’s room.  “Out every one of ye!  Who’s on the beach?” And he looked over the cots to find the empty ones.

The men were on their feet before he had ceased speaking, Archie before the captain’s hand had left the knob of the door.

“Who’s on the beach, I say?” he shouted again.

“Fogarty and Uncle Ike,” someone answered.

“Polhemus!  Good!  All hands on the cart, men; boat can’t live in that surf.  She lies to the north of us!” And he swung himself out of the door and down the stairs.

“God help ’em, if they’ve got to come through that surf!” Parks said, slinging on his coat.  “The tide’s just beginnin’ to make flood, and all that cord-wood’ll come a-waltzin’ back.  Never see nothin’ like it!”

The front door now burst in and another shout went ringing through the house: 

“Schooner in the breakers!”

It was Tod.  He had rejoined Polhemus the moment before he flared his light and had made a dash to rouse the men.

“I seen her, Fogarty, from the lookout,” cried the captain, in answer, grabbing his sou’wester; he was already in his hip-boots and tarpaulin.  “What is she?”

“Schooner, I guess, sir.”

“Two or three masts?” asked the captain hurriedly, tightening the strap of his sou’wester and slipping the leather thong under his gray whiskers.

“Can’t make out, sir; she come bow on.  Uncle Ike see her fust.”  And he sprang out after the men.

A double door thrown wide; a tangle of wild cats springing straight at a broad-tired cart; a grappling of track-lines and handle-bars; a whirl down the wooden incline, Tod following with the quickly lighted lanterns; a dash along the runway, the sand cutting their cheeks like grit from a whirling stone; over the dune, the men bracing the cart on either side, and down the beach the crew swept in a rush to where Polhemus stood waving his last Coston.