ms, but when the
line was ready to be thrown again, Mr. Putchett was not visible.

By this time the boat was at the water's edge, and four men--two of whom
were familiar with rowing--sat at the oars, while two of the old
fishermen stood by to launch the boat at the proper instant. Suddenly
they shot it into the water, but the clumsy dip of an oar turned it
broadside to the wave, and in an instant it was thrown, waterlogged,
upon the beach. Several precious moments were spent in righting the boat
and bailing out the water, after which the boat was safely launched, the
fishermen sprang to the oars, and in a moment or two were abreast the
buoy.

Mr. Putchett was not to be seen--even had he reached the buoy it could
not have supported him, for it was but a small stick of wood. One of
the boarders--he who had swamped the boat--dived several times, and
finally there came to the surface a confused mass of humanity which
separated into the forms of the diver and the broker.

A few strokes of the oars beached the boat, and old "Captain" Redding,
who had spent his Winters at a government life-saving station, picked up
Mr. Putchett, carried him up to the dry sand, laid him face downward,
raised his head a little, and shouted:

"Somebody stand between him and the sun so's to shade his head! Slap his
hands, one man to each hand. Scrape up some of that hot, dry sand, and
pile it on his feet and legs. Everybody else stand off and give him
air."

The captain's orders were promptly obeyed, and there the women and
children, some of them weeping, and all of them pale and silent, stood
in a group in front of the bathing-house and looked up.

"Somebody run to the hotel for brandy," shouted the captain.

"Here's brandy," said a strange voice, "and I've got a hundred dollars
for you if you bring him to life."

Every one looked at the speaker, and seemed rather to dislike what they
saw. He was a smart-looking man, but his face seemed very cold and
forbidding; he stood apart, with arms folded, and seemed regardless of
the looks fastened upon him. Finally Mrs. Blough, one of the most
successful and irrepressible gossips in the neighborhood, approached him
and asked him if he was a relative of Mr. Putchett's.

"No, ma'am," replied the man, with unmoved countenance. "I'm an officer
with a warrant for his arrest, on suspicion of receiving stolen goods.
I've searched his traps at the hotel and boarding-house this morning,
but can't find w