Farther down toward Beach Haven the sand was dotted with wagons and buggies; some filled with summer boarders anxious to see the crew at work.  One used as the depot omnibus contained Max Feilding, Lucy, and half a dozen others.  She had passed a sleepless night, and hearing the cries of those hurrying by had thrown a heavy cloak around her and opening wide the piazza door had caught sight of the doomed vessel fighting for its life.  Welcoming the incident as a relief from her own maddening thoughts, she had joined Max, hoping that the excitement might divert her mind from the horror that overshadowed her.  Then, too, she did not want to be separated a single moment from him.  Since the fatal hour when Jane had told her of Bart’s expected return Max’s face had haunted her.  As long as he continued to look into her eyes, believing and trusting in her there was hope.  He had noticed her haggard look, but she had pleaded one of her headaches, and had kept up her smiles, returning his caresses.  Some way would be opened; some way must be opened!

While waiting for the change of wind and tide predicted by Captain Holt to clear away the deadly drift of the cord-wood so dangerous to the imperilled men, the wreckage from the grounded schooner began to come ashore—­crates of vegetables, barrels of groceries, and boxes filled with canned goods.  Some of these were smashed into splinters by end-on collisions with cord-wood; others had dodged the floatage and were landed high on the beach.

During the enforced idleness Tod occupied himself in rolling away from the back-suck of the surf the drift that came ashore.  Being nearest a stranded crate he dragged it clear and stood bending over it, reading the inscription.  With a start he beckoned to Parks, the nearest man to him, tore the card from the wooden slat, and held it before the surfman’s face.

“What’s this?  Read!  That’s the Polly Walters out there, I tell ye, and the captain’s son’s aboard!  I’ve been suspicionin’ it all the mornin’.  That’s him with the slouch hat.  I knowed he warn’t no sailor from the way he acted.  Don’t say nothin’ till we’re sure.”

Parks lunged forward, dodged a stick of cord-wood that drove straight at him like a battering-ram and, watching his chance, dragged a floating keg from the smother, rolled it clear of the surf, canted it on end, and took a similar card from its head.  Then he shouted with all his might: 

“It’s the Polly, men!  It’s the Polly—­the Polly Walters!  O God, ain’t that too bad!  Captain Ambrose’s drowned, or we’d a-seen him!  That feller in the slouch hat is Bart Holt!  Gimme that line!” He was stripping off his waterproofs now ready for a plunge into the sea.

With the awful words ringing in his ears Captain Holt made a spring from the dune and came running toward Parks, who was now knotting the shot-line about his waist.

“What do you say she is?” he shouted, as he flung himself to the edge of the roaring surf and strained his eyes toward the wreck.