oices, masculine voices.

"The life-savers!" gasped Grace. "We don't have to go any farther.
Let's--let's--wait for them."

They had not long to wait, for almost before Grace had finished speaking
half a dozen men carrying life-saving paraphernalia broke through the
underbrush and came running down the path toward them.

They stopped at sight of the panting girls, but Betty waved them on
impatiently.

"The wreck!" she cried. "We came for you! Hurry!" and without another
word the men hurried on, leaving the girls to follow them more slowly.

However, they accomplished the return trip in about half the time it had
taken them to fight their way against the wind, and as the first bright
rays of the sun gilded the country side, they found themselves back at
the house, where Mrs. Ford was anxiously awaiting them.

She had some breakfast prepared for them, which they ate standing, then
rushed headlong down to the beach. The life-savers were already busily
at work launching their sturdy boats, and as the girls followed the
direction they were taking out to sea they suddenly saw the wrecked
ship.

Driven by the hurricane wind, it had been caught on one of those
treacherous bars so common along this part of the coast. Part of the
bottom had been torn away, and if the ship had not been so tightly
wedged upon the bar it must certainly have sunk hours before. As it was,
the starboard deck stood high in the air while the port side almost
touched the water and was constantly swept by mountainous combers.

The girls shivered as they looked.

"If the waves should wash it loose--" Betty began, then checked herself.
The possibility was too horrible to contemplate.

"Look!" cried Mollie, clutching her arm, "They are filling the first
boat. Oh, Betty, they'll certainly be swamped! I can't look!" She turned
away but the next minute her eyes were fixed strainingly upon the wreck
again.

"They're gone! They're gone!" cried Amy, jumping up and down in her
excitement as the boat sunk in the hollow between two huge combers and
was lost to view. "No, they're not! They're up again," as the boat,
looking pathetically tiny in comparison to the vastness of the ocean,
rose gallantly on the crest of a big wave and came rushing toward them,
reeling from side to side. The next moment they were lost to view again.

"Oh, they'll never make it, they'll never make it," moaned Grace. "It
isn't possible."

But the gallant little boat came on and