metimes wakened in St. Andrew's, with Brother Bart's kind voice in his
ear telling him it was all a dream,--an awful dream.

And then blaze and crash and roar would send poor little Boy Blue
shivering to his knees, realizing that it was all true: that he was indeed
here on this far-off ocean isle, beyond all help and reach of man, with
daddy dying,--dead beside him. He had closed the door as best he could
with its rusted bolt; but the wind kept tearing at it madly, shaking the
rotten timbers until they suddenly gave way, with rattle and crash that
were too much for the brave little watcher's nerves. He flung his arms
about his father in horror he could no longer control.

"Daddy, daddy!" he cried desperately. "Wake up,--wake up! Daddy, speak to
me and tell me you're not dead!"

And daddy started into consciousness at the piteous cry, to find his
little Boy Blue clinging to him in wild affright, while wind and wave
burst into their wretched shelter,--wind and wave! Surging, foaming,
sweeping over beach and bramble and briar growth that guarded the low
shore, rising higher and higher each moment before the furious goad of the
gale, came the white-capped breakers!

"Oh, the water is coming in on us! Poor daddy, poor daddy, you'll get
wet!"

And then daddy, wild wanderer that he had been over sea and land, roused
to the peril, his dulled brain quickening into life.

"The gun,--my gun!" he said hoarsely. "It is loaded, Freddy. Lift it up
here within reach of my hand."

"O daddy, daddy, what are you going to do?" cried Freddy in new alarm.

"Shoot,--shoot! Signal for help. There is a life-saving station not far
away. There, hold the gun closer now,--closer!"

And the trembling hand pulled the trigger, and its sharp call for help
went out again and again into the storm.

XXI.--A DARK HOUR.

Meantime Dan had set his dingy sail to what he felt was a changing wind,
and started Neb's fishing boat on the straightest line he could make for
Killykinick. But it had taken a great deal of tacking and beating to keep
to his course. He was not yet sailor enough to know that the bank of
clouds lying low in the far horizon meant a storm; but the breeze that now
filled and now flapped his sail was as full of pranks as a naughty boy. In
all his experience as second mate, Dan had never before met so trying a
breeze; and it was growing fresher and stronger and more trying every
minute. To beat back to Beach Cliff against its