ky.

"God," he said, conversationally, "I guess _you'll_ have to take a
hand."

Jean slipped the rope from about his waist. She tied one end to him
and the other about her own body in clumsy, womanish knots.

"Lollie,"--despite her efforts her voice quavered--"we're going to run
for it. Cling tightly to my hand, dear."

At that moment a wave receded. They ran dizzily forward in the
shifting, wet gravel of the beach. When the next incoming comber was
beginning to curl down from the top, Jean dashed to the bluff.
Shielding the little fellow below her, she clung to the uneven shale of
its base, presenting her back to the billow that crashed with a
deafening roar just behind her.

Swift, terrifying, the wash of the breaker boiled and foamed about
their feet, to their ankles, to their knees. It made Jean's head swim.
It paralyzed her power of thought, leaving her with only the instinct
to cling. She had to wait while two more breakers rolled in and broke
before she saw a chance to stagger to the next point of safety. It
seemed to her that hours passed thus while she and Loll struggled, wet
and battered, onward.

They had gone but two-thirds of the way when, glancing at the incoming
wave to calculate how far they might run, she became aware of a
mountainous unbroken roller immediately behind it--a watery monster
that humped its back into a ragged, dancing crest high above her head.
It advanced in eager, liquid blackness. She knew it must break nearly
against the bluff where they stood.

Her desperate eyes espied a rough ledge just above her. With the
strength born of despair she caught up her nephew and tossed him to
safety. Frantically she herself tried to climb the bluff. . . . She
thought she heard a man's voice shouting to her. . . . There was a
moment when Loll's white face looked down at her through a haze. . . .
A moment when his little hands moved swiftly taking a turn with the
rope about a ragged, upstanding piece of rock. Then a boiling, roaring
sound filled her ears. . . . An avalanche of dark water crashed down
upon her, freezing her, smothering her, crushing her. She felt her
body thrown high against the stony wall. . . .

As she was whirled, choking, into darkness and oblivion there flashed
through her mind the thought:

"This, then, is how it feels to die."

CHAPTER XVIII

THE PERIL OF THE SURF

After Jean and Loll had left for the West Camp that morning Harlan,
Boreland an