CHAPTER XXI.

MOTOR-SCOOTERS TO THE RESCUE.

“Great guns, we’re too late!” groaned Merritt.

“No. See! she’s not awash yet,” cried Rob. “Look! they are climbing into her rigging. Come on, fellows, run as you never ran before.”

It was hard work plowing along that soft beach with the bitter wind fighting them every inch of the way, but the Boy Scouts stuck to it doggedly. Before long they were opposite the turmoil of waters in which the unfortunate schooner lay.

To their astonishment, however, she was not in such a desperate plight as had at first seemed the case. Her decks were still unswept by the waves, although, occasionally, a big sea would break against her side and fling a smother of spray almost as big as her topmasts.

“She’s stuck on that sandy shoal the captain told us about,” said Rob comprehendingly. “It runs along the beach here at just about the distance she lies off shore.”

“I wish those life savers were here with their gun,” exclaimed Tubby. “We’ve got lots of rope here, but how are we going to reach them?”

This problem, however, was solved more easily than they imagined. A bearded man clambered into the lee rigging as he spied the party on the shore, and, after a dozen attempts, succeeded in flinging a light line with a leaden weight attached to it to the beach. The wind helped him, or otherwise he could not have succeeded, but as it happened, Providence was good to the stranded schooner in this respect, at least.

Seizing up the light line, the boys ran back on the beach with it, and guided by the man’s gesticulations, they began to haul on it for all they were worth. Presently it was seen that a heavier line was attached to the first one, and was evidently intended to serve as a life rope between the vessel and the shore.

The lads cast about them for some place to which to make the line fast. Soon they spied the gaunt framework of an old range light, long disused. The timbers seemed stout, however, and in a jiffy they had the line fastened with two double half hitches on the uprights. In the meantime, the men on the schooner had made their end fast.

Before taking this latter action, they had slid the rope through the handles of a stout basket, intending, it seemed, to use it in getting ashore. As the rope was inclined at quite a steep angle, this looked as if it would be an easy matter. As the boys waited for the first person to take the perilous trip over and through the waves, some members of the crew began handing the woman and child up the shrouds. But before they could get anywhere near the basket, a man’s form was seen to dash past them, pushing them so roughly aside that they were almost projected into the sea. The next instant the intruder was in the basket and several feet out from the ship’s side. On he came toward the beach, clawing at the line and pulling himself along, hand over hand. The bearded man had leaped into the rigging and was shaking his fist furiously after him, but he was far too engrossed with securing a safe passage for himself to pay any attention to this.

“He’s a fine coward, whoever he is,” commented Rob, as the man in the basket neared the shore. But at this point the weight on the rope caused it to sag till the basket was immersed completely in the immense waves. Gasping and fighting for breath, they could see the crawling figure on the rope emerge again and again from the vortex of one of the big waves. At last, with a howl of anguish, he vanished altogether. As the wave that had engulfed him rolled on shoreward, it could be seen that there was nothing on the line. The force of the big sea had torn the basket off, and hurled its living freight into the turmoil of water.

The Boy Scouts dashed down the beach to watch for the man’s reappearance. As the big wave broke, they saw him. Rolled helplessly up the beach in the tumble of waters, he would have been drawn back when the wave receded, but for the fact that Rob had already acted. Rapidly instructing the others to form a chain, of which Tubby acted as the anchor, the leader of the Eagle Patrol waded waist deep into the water. Just as the wave was about to drag back its prey, the boy’s strong arms closed around the man, who was by this time unconscious, and dragged him up upon the beach.

As the boys gazed down into the features of the man they had rescued, they broke into involuntary exclamations of amazement. The man was no stranger to any of them.

It was Hank Handcraft, the former beach-comber. A thick beard now covered the lower part of his face, but about his identity there could be no question.

“Drag him further up the beach,” ordered Rob, their first surprise over. “I’ve no idea how he comes to be out of prison, but we’ve no time to worry over that now.”

A shout from Merritt, who had been gazing down the beach, caused them all to turn their heads from the unconscious man.

“Hooray! Here comes the life savers!” he cried, and sure enough, from the direction in which he pointed, came the brave beach patrolmen from the Lone Hill Life Saving Station. Two stout horses dragged their “rope-gun” and a large dory boat. Hasty explanations were soon exchanged between Captain Ed Baker of the life savers and the boys, all of whom knew him well. While these were being made, the men of the Life Saving Station rigged a line, and presently a sharp report was heard as their rope flew seaward and fell over the deck of the schooner. It was soon made fast, and then a breeches buoy was sent across. The first person to come ashore in it was the woman they had seen on their wild trip across the ice. She clasped in her arms a little lad about four years old.

Rob and the boys were set to work by Captain Baker with the medicine chest, administering restoratives to the woman. She explained to them that she was the wife of Captain Tom Pratt, the skipper and owner of the schooner, the Vesper of New York. They had set sail the day before, bound for the West Indies, and without a cargo. The gale which they encountered at midnight had proven too much for them, and for ten terrible hours they waited for death.

Tubby, who had been looking after Hank Handcraft, announced presently that the man showed signs of life, and was coming to. This induced Rob to ask Mrs. Pratt if she knew anything about the fellow. She replied that she did not. He had shipped at the vessel’s Brooklyn Wharf only the day before, and her husband being short a man had signed him on.

Before long all the crew were ashore. The last man to make the voyage in the breeches buoy was Captain Tom Pratt. He thanked the boys warmly, and he and his wife could not say too much in praise of their bravery and that of the life saving crew.

Hank Handcraft had, by this time, recovered, and had recognized the boys with a wild cry of surprise in which alarm mingled. He begged them piteously not to be hard on him. He had escaped from the western penitentiary in which he had been confined and had made his way east, he said, and then shipped on the Vesper in hopes of beginning a new life in the West Indies.

“We won’t cause you any trouble as long as you behave yourself,” Rob promised him. “But I can’t answer for the captain of the Vesper,” he said, as Tom Pratt approached with thunder in his eye.

“You miserable varmint! You yaller dog!” he exclaimed. “I’ve a notion to throw you back inter the sea, if it wasn’t that even the waves would throw you back again. This feller, boys,” he exclaimed, turning to the life savers, “threw my wife aside and tried to save himself on the life line them brave boys helped us rig up.”

A low, angry growl came from the life savers, and Pratt’s crew advanced threateningly upon Hank. The wretched creature threw himself on his knees and whimpered like a baby as he saw these danger signals.

“Bah! Leave him alone,” said Captain Pratt disgustedly, turning to his wife. “I wouldn’t soil my hands on the critter.”

The boys’ motor-scooter—which caused great wonderment to the life savers and the rescued crew, as may be imagined—did good work in taking the shipwrecked men ashore. A big crowd met them on their first trip, and the cheers that went up for the Boy Scouts were deafening. They reached the ears of Jack Curtiss and his crowd, and of Stonington Hunt. The former broker was as vindictively malicious as the others when he heard that his enemies, as he designated them, had again distinguished themselves.

“I’ll be even with them yet,” he grated out.

“Sneaking into the limelight again,” sniffed Jack, as he and his chums joined the crowd on the water front.

Hank Handcraft was the last to be brought over, but none in the crowd recognized him with his heavy beard and pale, woe-begone face. With a growled-out, grudging word of thanks, he parted from the Boy Scouts and made his way up the village street. But he was not to go altogether unrecognized. Jack Curtiss and Bill Bender, after an incredulous glance, were convinced they had made no mistake in their man, and followed him up.

“Hank!” exclaimed Jack, coming up behind the fellow and laying his hand on his shoulder.

“Jumping periwinkles! It’s Jack Curtiss!” exclaimed Hank. “The very fellow I want to see, too. Have you got a quiet place we can go and where you can give me a good drink?—and I’ll tell you something that’s worth your while.”

“Worth while. What are you getting at?” exclaimed Jack incredulously, for he knew Hank of old. “I heard about your escape. Why, you are just an escaped convict. What can you know that’s worth while?”

“I know there is two thousand dollars in good money right on that schooner,” was the astonishing response, “and if you keep me hid and the boat don’t break up I’ll pay you well for your trouble.”

“Sure you’re not at your old tricks, Hank?” questioned Jack and Bill, in one breath.

“No; it’s true as gospel. You believe me, don’t you?”

The outcast, wet, dripping, and miserable as he was, had a convincing ring in his voice as he hinted at his improbable tale.

But Jack was so dishonest and unreliable himself that he applied the same standards to everybody else—and with some justice in Hank’s case. He, therefore, made a non-committal reply.

“I know a place where I can hide you, Hank,” he said, “till we find out if your yarn is true or not. In the meantime, come on and get on some dry clothes, and throw a feed into yourself. Then you can tell us your story. If you’re lying to us, it will go hard with you.”

“I wish I were as sure of going to heaven as I am that there is two thousand dollars on that schooner,” grunted Hank, in reply.