The news spread. “Here they come!” was passed from mouth to mouth. Those
who had gone out of the firelight, in order to get a glimpse of the
hulk that stood out dimly against the horizon, now came running back and
joined their voices to the cheer that was rising.

Yes, they had come. A Coston signal was burning up on the bluff; and
half a hundred pair of legs were running up the beach to lend a hundred
hands in getting a ton and more of surf-boat down the ravine road. The
tall young man led the way, thanks to the nimble legs, and called over
his shoulder as he ran:

“This way, boys! Everybody this way!”

The horses were taken out in a hurry and led off to the nearest barn.
Long ropes were rigged to the back axle, “everybody” laid hold, and
then, with the crew men still hanging to the spokes and the young driver
leaning back on the tongue to guide the forward wheels, the surf-boat
went bumping and lurching down the road. With a rush and a cheer she
went, as if the fever of the waiting crowd had got into the wheels, as
if the desperate hands of the half-drowned men out yonder were hauling
them on--impatiently, madly, courageously hauling them on.

On down the beach, the broad wheels plowing through the sand; on toward
the breakers that came running to meet them: into the water with a
splash and a plunge, until ankles were wet and knees were wet--then
a halt. The eight young men in oilskins bustled about the boat, their
yellow coats and hats glistening in the firelight; and the crowd stood
silent at the water's edge, looking first at them and then at the
black-and-white sea out yonder--and an ugly sea it was. But in a moment
the confusion resolved into harmony. The eight men fell into place
around the boat, lashed on their cork jackets, laid hold of the
gunwales, ran her out into the surf, tumbled aboard--and the fight was
on.

It was a fight that made those young fellows set their teeth hard as
their backs bent over the oars. They did not know that this storm had
strewn the coast with wrecks; they did not know that the veteran crew at
Chicago had refused to venture out in their big English life-boat. And
they did not care. Too young to be prudent, too strong to be afraid,
these youngsters fought for the sake of the fighting; and they loved it.

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