lats.

"Oh, George, what shall we do?" almost sobbed Bert, for he was only ten,
and the wind, and rain, and seething floods around him raged most
furiously.

George was frightened too, but remembering his twelve years, he tried to
look confident and hopeful, as he pointed out the fact that some one
would surely come after them.

"But--but won't the tide come in before then?" queried Bert, his voice
trembling still, and his cheeks all wet with rain. "I think I feel it a
little higher now."

"It's only the waves makes that," returned George, soothingly, although
the same horrible possibility had just presented itself to him.

The storm, however, did not last long; but with the going down of the
wind, the tide began to come in faster, and Bert stood on his toes, and
then sank the crab car, and stood on that. It was a good mile across the
river to Yorking--too far to permit of any signals being seen there--and
the nearer shore was quite wild, the woods extending down almost to the
water's edge.

And still the tide came rushing in; and then the sun went down, and Bert
began to cry in earnest, for he was both cold and hungry, besides
feeling it a decidedly unpleasant sensation to have the water creep up
little by little toward his neck.

"Why don't Captain Sam come after us?" he sobbed, hiding his face on
George's coat sleeve.

"Perhaps he will; but, you see, he don't know we've lost our boat; so
we'll just have to wait long enough for them to get worried about us at
home."

George spoke bravely, but his heart beat very hard and fast, for now the
water had reached above where his trousers were rolled, while Bert, who
was almost a head shorter, was wet to the waist.

And so the minutes passed by as if they were hours, with the tide
creeping up around the lads higher, higher, till just as Bert's
shoulders were about to disappear into its cold embrace, George
exclaimed:

"A light! a light! Look, Bert, it's coming this way!"

And now both boys strained their eyes to see if they might hope, and
then cried out with all their might.

Nearer and nearer came the welcome beacon, casting a shining pathway
before it over the waters, and soon answering shouts were echoed back,
and a girl's voice rang out, "George! Bertie!" and the next moment
Captain Sam's boat shot into view, with the "jack-light" on the bow, and
Sarah sitting pale and anxious in the stern.

Tenderly Sam's strong arms lifted the two shivering lads on b