ight out to the vessel, and--here she goes!"

The life-car was moving along the upper line bound for the wreck. One or
two halts occurred on the way, but the venture was ultimately successful,
and Charlie saw the life-car as the crew of the wreck eagerly seized it.

"She's coming back!" he cried.

Captain Peters shouted, "Here she comes, my hearties! Pull away on the
whip!"

This was a title for the endless line.

"Suthin' in that life-car!" sang out one of the men.

"Not so very much, I guess," said another. "She runs sort of light."

How the breakers tried to reach the car! Several times the sea threw
itself spitefully, violently upward. One breaker seemed to make a spring
for the car, wetting it with a cloud of spray.

"A real vixen, aint it?" said John. "It can't harm any thing. But who is
that in the car? A small cargo."

It was not a large one certainly. One man doubted if any thing were there.

Nearer and nearer came the car, riding safely over that white, yeasty sea.
It was pulled across the surf, and the outermost man laid his hands on it
and pushed it. At the same time a little door in the top slid back, and a
boy's head rose higher and higher in the car, and as it stopped he was
helped to get out. He seemed to be in a heap, and his movements were
stiff, for his legs were cramped by the cold.

"There!" he screamed, "it's the last time I ever want to go on that pesky
old sea."

"Wort Wentworth!" shouted Tony, springing forward to meet this returned
knight.

"Hullo, Tony! Hullo, Charlie!"

"This _you_?" asked Charlie.

"Yes, it's me just about drowned. They let me come alone. The others were
not quite ready."

"Haven't you been through a lot?" asked Tony.

"More than I want to see again."

"How many are on board the 'White Shield?'"

"I feared it was she when I laid my eyes on her," said Captain Peters.

"Five in the crew, my father, and one passenger."

"Dis a s'prise," said a new-comer, looking at Wort. It was Juggie.

"It _is_ a surprise," was Wort's reply. "Catch me going again."

"You'd rather be de keeper ob de great seal."

"Yes, indeed!"

Among the arrivals by the life-car was the skipper of the "White Shield,"
and there was also a man wrapped in a cloak.

"He aint a sailor," said one of the station-hands, criticising the dress
of the man in the cloak.

"It is the passenger," said Wort.

He was a man still young, and his clothes had an outlandish cut. He walked
up the