, and started on a run for the surf.

Before his stockinged feet could reach the edge of the foam, Archie
seized him around the waist and held him with a grip of steel.

"You sha'n't do it, captain!" he cried, his eyes blazing. "Hold him,
men--I'll get him!" With the bound of a cat he landed in the middle of
the floatage, dived under the logs, rose on the boiling surf, worked
himself clear of the inshore wreckage, and struck out in the direction
of the man clinging to the shattered mast, and who was now nearing the
beach, whirled on by the inrushing seas.

Strong men held their breath, tears brimming their eyes. Captain Holt
stood irresolute, dazed for the moment by Archie's danger. The beach
women--Mrs. Fogarty among them--were wringing their hands. They knew
the risk better than the others.

Jane, at Archie's plunge, had run down to the edge of the surf and
stood with tight-clenched fingers, her gaze fixed on the lad's head as
he breasted the breakers--her face white as death, the tears streaming
down her cheeks. Fear for the boy she loved, pride in his pluck and
courage, agony over the result of the rescue, all swept through her as
she strained her eyes seaward.

Lucy, Max, and Mrs. Coates were huddled together under the lee of the
dune. Lucy's eyes were staring straight ahead of her; her teeth
chattering with fear and cold. She had heard the shouts of Parks and
the captain, and knew now whose life was at stake. There was no hope
left; Archie would win and pull him out alive, and her end would come.

The crowd watched the lad until his hand touched the mast, saw him pull
himself hand over hand along its slippery surface and reach out his
arms. Then a cheer went up from a hundred throats, and as instantly
died away in a moan of terror. Behind, towering over them like a huge
wall, came a wave of black water, solemn, merciless, uncrested, as if
bent on deadly revenge. Under its impact the shattered end of the mast
rose clear of the water, tossed about as if in agony, veered suddenly
with the movement of a derrick-boom, and with its living freight dashed
headlong into the swirl of cord-wood.

As it ploughed through the outer drift and reached the inner line of
wreckage, Tod, whose eyes had never left Archie since his leap into the
surf, made a running jump from the sand, landed on a tangle of drift,
and sprang straight at the section of the mast to which Archie clung.
The next instant the surf rolled clear, submer