The Motor Girls on the Coast: or, The Waif From the Sea

“Oh–Oh–I–I’m so glad!” cried Belle. “I’ve always wanted to, but they said I–I would be afraid!”

Rosalie was half supporting her, but really Belle was doing well, and gaining confidence every minute. As the lighthouse maid swam past Cora she managed to whisper:

“Father wants to see you. Come over when you can. I think he has had some word from Aunt Margaret.”

CHAPTER IX

GATHERING CLOUDS

The word which the lighthouse keeper had received was rather indefinite. It was a letter from his sister, but it only confirmed that which he already knew.

“And it doesn’t give me any address where I can write to her!” he complained when Cora had paid him a visit, in response to the invitation given by Rosalie during the swim. “It’s postmarked at–maybe you can see it, my eye-sight isn’t what it used to be,” and he held the envelope out to Cora.

“Edmenton,” she read. “That’s in this State.”

“Yes, but what good would it do to write to her there?” he asked. “She evidently doesn’t want me to know where she is. Just read the letter, Miss.”

It was not long and in effect said that Mrs. Raymond would not come back to her relatives until she had found Nancy Ford, and cleared her name of the suspicion on it.

“Don’t try to find me,” wrote Mrs. Raymond, “as I am going from place to place, working where I can. I am seeking Nancy. I thought she might have gone back where she used to live, but I wrote there and she had not arrived. I must search farther. I am doing fairly well, so don’t worry about me. Some folks have been very kind–especially some young ladies. I will tell you about them when I see you, brother–if I ever do.”

“She must mean you–the time of the fire,” said the light keeper. “I’m sure I’m much obliged to you for befriending my sister.”

“Oh, it was nothing,” protested Cora. “I wish we could have done more. I am sure we could have, had she not gone off in such a hurry. But we can’t blame her, for she was very nervous and excited.”

“Poor Margaret,” murmured Mr. Haley. “She was always that way. She tells me not to worry–but I can’t help it.”

“I suppose not,” agreed Cora. “You might try writing to Edmenton. The postmaster there might give you a clue, or tell you some one who could give information.”

“I’ll do it!” exclaimed the keeper of the light. “It will give me something to do, anyhow,” and he set to the task.

Cora had called at the light alone, not knowing what the nature of the communication might be that the keeper wished to make to her. It was the day after Belle had bravely struck out for herself in the water.

Cora said good-bye to Rosalie, who was busy about her household duties, and waved to little Dick, who was playing on the beach. Then, getting into the Pet in which she had come to the lighthouse float, Cora turned the bow toward the little dock at the foot of the slope on which the bungalows were perched.

“Well, you were gone long enough!” complained Jack when she got back. “I’ve been waiting for you.”

“What for?” she asked. “Has anything happened?”

“Nothing except that we fellows have heard of a motor boat we can hire cheap for the season, and we want to run over and look at it. The fellow who has it is on the other side of the Cove. Can I take the Pet?”

“Certainly, Jack. We girls are going to the life-saving station, anyhow. You’ll be back before lunch; won’t you?”

“I should guess yes!” exclaimed Walter, who had come up. “We wouldn’t miss our rations for anything.”

Jack and his chums were soon speeding across the bay. There was quite a sea on, for the wind was rising, and there seemed to be indications of a storm. But a number of boats were out on the water, and the Pet was a staunch craft. Also, Jack and the other boys were able to manage her, and all were excellent swimmers.

Cora and the girls went on to the life-saving station not far from their bungalow. They were much interested in the method of launching the boat, and the captain explained how it would right itself if capsized, and also bail out the water that entered in a storm.

“What do you do when you can’t launch a boat?” asked Belle.

“Use the breeches buoy,” answered the grizzled old salt. He showed how by means of a mortar a line was fired aboard the wreck, and how, by a sort of pulley arrangement, the persons in danger could, one at a time, be pulled ashore, sitting in the “breeches buoy.”

“It’s just like some of those apartment house clothes lines on high poles,” said Bess; “isn’t it?”

“I never heard it called that afore,” remarked the captain of the coast guard, “but I s’pose you could call it that if you was a mind to. If you’ll stay around a bit you’ll see our drill.”

The girls were delighted, and eagerly watched while the mortar was fired, the cylindrical shot carrying the line out to an imaginary wreck. Then one man played the part of a shipwrecked mariner, and was hauled over the sand, while Cora took several photographs of him.

“We’ve got her!” exclaimed Jack, as the girls returned to the bungalow. “She isn’t much for looks, but she can beat the Pet!”

“Who?” asked Cora, thinking of something else.

“The motor boat we hired. Come on out and we’ll give you a race.”

“Let’s!” exclaimed Belle.

“My, but you’re getting brave!” observed Ed. “The time was when a race frightened you even if you read of it in the papers.”

“I did not!”

“She can swim now,” commented Bess.

Motor maids and motor boys went out on the bay in the two motor boats. The craft Jack and his chums had hired was not very elegant, and she seemed to be rather uncertain about starting, and when she did the engine appeared to be protesting most of the while. But the boat made good time, and though it did not really beat the Pet (much to the disappointment of boastful Jack) it kept well up with Cora’s speedy craft.

For a week or more the young people enjoyed to the utmost the life on the coast. More people came to the little summer resort, and several social affairs were arranged.

There were swimming races, in which the girls and boys participated, even Belle entering in the novice class. But she won no prize, nor did she expect to.

“I just wanted to show Jack Kimball that I didn’t have to wear a life preserver nor be anchored to the shore!” she declared with spirit.

“I humbly beg your pardon!” said Jack, with a bow.

Then there were motor boat races, in which the Pet did herself proud, coming in first in her class. The boys had great hopes of the Duck, as they had re-named the boat they hired, but when they were doing well, and not far from the finish line, with every prospect of winning, something went wrong with the ignition, and they were out of it.

There were affairs on shore too, several dances to which the girls and boys went. Then there was a moving picture performance semi-occasionally, and some other plays. Altogether the summer was a happy one, thus far.

Nothing was heard of Mrs. Raymond, though her brother wrote a number of letters, and of course the missing Nancy Ford was not located. Though Jack and the boys insisted on staring at all the pretty strangers they met, playfully insisting that Nancy might be one of them.

“Of course she’s bound to be good-looking,” said Ed.

“Naturally,” agreed Jack.

“How do you make that out?” Cora wanted to know.

“Everybody named Nancy is good-looking,” asserted Norton, with his lazy drawl.

The girls laughed at this reasoning.

“Let’s go for a long run to-day, Sis!” proposed Jack one morning, when he called at the girls’ bungalow. “We can take our lunch, run around the lighthouse point, into the Cove on the other side, and have a good time. There’s said to be good fishing there, too.”

“I’ll go if the others will,” she agreed, and when she proposed it to them the girls were enthusiastic about it. Soon two merry boatloads of young people were speeding over the sun-lit waters of the Cove.

“We have to go right out on the ocean; don’t we?” asked Belle with a little shiver as she looked ahead at the expanse of blue water.

“Only for a little way,” said Cora. “Just round the lighthouse point. Then we’re in another bay again.”

“Are you afraid?” asked Eline.

“N–no,” said Belle, bravely.

As they went on the sky became overcast, and Cora looked anxiously at them.

“I’m afraid it’s going to storm, Jack,” she said.

“Not a bit of it!” he cried. “I’ll ask this fisherman,” and he did, getting an opinion that there would be no storm that day. Reassured, they went on.

The sea was not a bit rough and even Belle’s fears were quelled. They went past the light, close enough to see Rosalie waving at them. High up in the tower they could note Mr. Haley and his helper cleaning the great lantern and lens.

They reached the other bay in due time, but the gathering clouds grew more menacing, and Cora was for putting back.

“No,” urged Jack. “Let’s stay and eat our lunch. If it gets too rough we can leave our boats here and walk back over the point. It isn’t far.”

So the girls consented. The clouds continued to gather.

CHAPTER XX

THE STORM

“Jack Kimball, I knew we stayed too late! Now look over there!” and Cora pointed to the west, where a bank of dark and angry-looking vapor piled up in contrast to the lighter-hued clouds that had caused apprehension earlier in the day.

“That’s right–blame it all on me–even if it rains!” protested Jack. “You wanted to stay as much as we did, Sis.”

“Well, perhaps I did,” admitted Cora. “But really we should not have stayed so long. I am afraid we will be caught in the storm.”

“Do you really think so, Cora?” asked Belle, and she could not keep a quaver out of her voice.

“If I’m any judge we’re in for a regular old – ”

“You’re it, old man!” and Walter interrupted Ed, who was evidently on the verge of making a dire prophecy concerning the weather. “Don’t scare ’em any more than you have to,” went on Walter in a low voice, nodding at the girls in the Pet. “We may have our hands full as it is.”

“Do you think so?”

“Look at those clouds!”

It was enough. Indeed all were now anxiously scanning the heavens that seemed to grow blacker momentarily. The little party, after having had lunch on the beach of the smaller cove, around the lighthouse point, were now on their way back in the two motor boats, and Cora, with a look aloft, had made the observation to Jack that opened this chapter.

“Well, turn on all the gas you can, Sis, and we’ll scud for it,” called Jack to his sister. “We may beat it out yet. If not, we can go ashore almost any place.”

“Except on the rocks,” spoke Cora. “The worst part will be round the point, in the open sea.”

“Oh, we’ll do it all right,” asserted Norton, confidently. “The wind isn’t rising much.”

The boats were close enough together so that talking from one to the other was easy. They were headed out toward the open sea, and as Cora guided her craft she could not help anticipating apprehensively the heavy rollers that would be encountered once they were out of the land-locked shelter. But the bow of the Pet was high. She was a good craft in rough weather, and as for the hired Duck, she was built for those waters.

“Let’s be jolly!” proposed Jack, for a glance at the girls in their boat had showed him that they were on the verge of hysterics. “Strike up a song, Ed.”

“Give us Nancy Lee,” suggested Walter.

“Nancy!” exclaimed Cora. “I wonder where that other Nancy is?”

“No telling,” declared Eline. “Oh dear! I hope it doesn’t rain. This dress spots so!” and she looked down at her rather light gown, which really she ought not to have worn on a water picnic. Cora had said as much, but Eline–well, it must be confessed that she was rather vain. She had good clothes and she liked to wear them, not always at appropriate times.

“It won’t rain!” asserted Jack. “Go ahead, Ed–sing!”

“‘Rocked in the Cradle of the Deep’ would be most appropriate,” voiced Norton. “We are rocking some.”

It was indeed getting rougher, and the motor boats bobbed up and down on the long swells. But as yet none had broken over the bows. Cora dreaded this, not because of any particular danger, but because of the effect it would have on her chums, particularly Belle, who, try as she might, could not conquer her nervous dread of the water.

The boys started a song, and the girls joined in, but a sudden dash of spray over the Pet’s stem brought a scream from Belle that made a discord, and they all stopped.

Jack, who was steering the Duck, stood up and looked ahead. They were approaching the point around which they must go to reach their own cove.

“Can we do it, old man?” asked Walter, in a low voice.

“We’ll try,” answered Jack, equally low. “If we give up now the girls will get scared. We’ll keep on a bit longer, and see where we come out.”

“Can’t you get a bit nearer in shore?” asked Norton.

“It’s risky,” said Jack. “It’s low tide now, and while this old tub doesn’t draw much there are a lot of rocks here and there, sticking almost up at low water. If we hit on one of them we’ll be in the pot for fair. The only thing to do is to stand out, and trust to luck. Once around the point we’ll be all right.”

“They’re coming in,” said Walter, nodding toward Cora and the others.

“Keep out! Keep out!” cried Jack. “It’s dangerous.”

“But the girls want to land!” cried his sister.

“You can’t now. The shore is too rocky. You’d pound her hull to pieces. Keep on around the point. The storm won’t break for half an hour yet.”

Rather reluctantly Cora put the wheel over. Yet she recognized the truth of what Jack had said. It would be dangerous to go ashore there. And to turn back was equally out of the question, since the wind was rising. It was at their backs, and to turn in the heavy sea now running might mean an upset. To face the waves, too, would be dangerous. The only chance lay in keeping on.

Jack’s prophecy about the storm was not borne out. With a sudden burst of wind, that whipped the salty spray of the waves over those in both boats, and a sprinkle of rain that soon became a downpour, the tempest broke.

The girls screamed, and tried to get under some bits of canvas that Cora had brought along to cover the engine. But the wind was so strong, and the rain so penetrating that it was of little avail.

“Head her up into the waves!” cried Jack. “Take ’em bow on, Cora!”

“Of course!” she shouted back, and gripped the wheel with tense fingers.

A little later they were out on the heaving ocean. Fortunately the point cut off some of the wind, and, having the gale at their backs helped some. But the two motor craft, separated by some distance now, had no easy time of it.

“Oh–oh!” moaned Belle.

“Be quiet!” commanded her sister. “Look at Eline!”

Eline was calm–that is, comparatively so.

“But–but she can swim better than I.”

“Swim! No one will have to swim!” said Cora, not turning around. “I wonder what’s the matter with that man?” and she pointed to one in a dory, who seemed to be signalling for help.

Then there came a further burst of the storm, and the rain came down harder than ever.

CHAPTER XXI

THE WRECK

“There must certainly be something the matter with that man!” exclaimed Cora. She had fairly to shout to be heard above the noise of the wind and rain.

“Well, we daren’t stop to see what it is,” said Belle. “Oh, do go faster, Cora! Get in quiet water! I am getting seasick!”

“Don’t you dare!” cried Bess. “Think of–lemons!”

“I’m going to see what is the matter,” declared Cora. “He’s waving to us!”

“What about the boys?” asked Eline.

“They don’t seem to see him. Besides, they’re past him now, and it would be risky to turn back. I can easily pass near him.”

The man, who was in a power-driven dory, was waving and shouting now, but the wind carried his words away. He seemed to be in some difficulty.

“Why doesn’t he row in out of the storm?” asked Bess.

“Perhaps he has lost his oars,” suggested Eline.

“Maybe that is the trouble,” remarked Cora. “Well, we’ll soon see.”

She changed the course of the Pet, though it was a bit risky for the seas were quartering now, and the spray came aboard in salty sheets. But the girls could not get much wetter.

Cora slowed down her engine by means of a throttle control that extended up near the wheel. She veered in toward the tossing dory.

“What is it?” she cried. “What’s the matter?”

“Out of gasoline! Can you lend me a bit so I can run in? I came out to lift my lobster pots, but it’s too rough.”

“Gasoline? Yes, we have plenty,” said Cora. “I’ll give you some.”

“Don’t come too close!” warned the fisherman. “Can you put it in a can and toss it to me? That’s the best way.”

“I’ll try,” promised Cora, as she cut off all power. The Pet was now drifting, rising and falling on the swells. Belle looked very pale, and Bess was holding her.

“Find something, and run some gasoline into it from the carbureter drip,” directed Cora, as she clung to the wheel.

“What shall I find?” asked Bess.

“Would an empty olive bottle do?” asked Eline.

“The very thing!” cried Cora. “Has it a cork?”

“Yes, and one olive in it.”

“Throw out the olive, and poke your handkerchief down in the bottle to dry it out before you put in the gasoline. Even a drop of the salt water the olives come in will make trouble in the gasoline. Hurry!”

“Look out!” cried the fisherman. “Fend off!”

“You’d better do it!” directed Cora. “We have no boat hook!”

“All right, I’ll attend to it.”

The two boats were drifting dangerously close together. The fisherman caught up an oar he carried for emergencies, and skillfully fended off the Pet, which was drifting down on him. In the meanwhile Bess, with the help of Eline, had dried out the olive bottle, and had filled it with gasoline.

“What shall I do with it?” she asked Cora.

“Throw it to the man.”

“I never can throw it.”

“Then give it to me,” and, holding to the wheel with one hand, with the other Cora tossed over the bottle of gasoline. The lobsterman caught it, called his thanks and gave the Pet a final shove that carried her past him.

“Can you crank her?” asked Cora to Bess, nodding toward the engine.

“I’ll try!”

It needed three tries, but finally the motor started, and the boat surged forward again. Cora, bringing her head up to the seas, noted that Jack had started to turn around to come back to her, but, seeing that the Pet was under way again, had gone on his own course.

The wind continued to blow, the rain never ceased and the storm increased apace. But finally, after a battle with the elements that made the hearts of the girls quail, they passed the lighthouse point, and shot around into the quiet and wind-protected waters of the bay. A little later they were chugging into the even calmer cove.

“Oh Cora! So frightened as I have been!” exclaimed Aunt Susan, as the dripping girls trooped up the hill to the bungalow. “Oh, what a storm!”

“But we weathered it!” laughed Cora, shaking back her damp hair. “It was a bit scary at first, but we came out all right. It was fun at the finish.”

“I’m never going out again when it’s cloudy!” declared Belle. “Never!”

“Oh, you’ll get used to it,” said Eline.

Dry garments, hot tea, and supper coming in the order named restored in the girls their natural happy dispositions. But the storm continued. It grew worse as darkness advanced, and the wind rose to a gale. The rain came down in torrents, and the boys, in spite of rain coats and umbrellas, were drenched a second time in the short trip from their bungalow to that of the girls, when they came to pay a visit.

“It’s a wild night,” declared Jack, as he and his chums got ready to go back, about ten o’clock.

“There must be quite a sea on,” said Ed.

“I wouldn’t want to be out in it,” remarked Walter.

“And I beg to be excused,” came from Norton.

“Think of the poor sailors,” said Eline, softly.

“I tell you what I’d like to do,” observed Jack.

“What?” Ed wanted to know.

“Go over to the lighthouse. It must be great up in the lantern room in a storm like this.”

“Don’t you dare to go!” cried Cora. “It might blow away.”

“No danger,” said Jack with a laugh. “But I’m not going. Another thing we might do.”

“What?” demanded Norton.

“Go out and find a beach patrol. We could walk up and down with him, and maybe sight a wreck.”

“Oh, don’t speak of a wreck!” begged Bess. “A wreck on such a night would be dreadful.”

“This is just the kind of a night when they have wrecks,” observed Ed, as a blast of wind and rain shook the bungalow.

As the boys were going out into the storm there came a dull report, reverberating on the night air.

“What was that?” gasped Cora.

“Sounded like a gun,” said Jack. “Maybe a ship at sea – ”

There was a flash in the sky. It was not lightning, for there was no thunder storm.

“See!” exclaimed Eline.

“The lighthouse,” ventured Norton.

“The light is over there,” and Ed pointed to the flashing beacon in a different direction.

“Then it’s a rocket from some ship in danger,” declared Walter. “There goes another!”

It was unmistakably a rocket that went cleaving through the blackness. It came from off the lighthouse point.

“Some ship is in danger, or maybe off her course,” spoke Jack. “Well, we can’t do anything, and there’s no use getting any wetter. Come on to bed, fellows.”

“Oh, the poor people–if that is a wreck,” murmured Bess.

“If it was only daylight we might witness some rescues,” said Cora. “But at least let us hope it is nothing serious.”

It was Rosalie who brought the news next morning. Through the driving rain she came to the girls’ bungalow, her face peering out from beneath a sou’wester that was tied under her chin, her feet barely visible beneath the yellow oilskin coat.

“There’s a wreck ashore!” she cried. “I thought maybe you might like to see it! It’s out in front of our light, and they’re bringing the crew ashore!”

“Can they save them?” asked Cora, clasping her hands.

“Most of ’em, I guess. Want to come?”

“Of course we’ll go!” cried Eline. “The boys won’t want to miss this!”

CHAPTER XXII

THE RESCUE

Green masses of foam-capped water hurling themselves on the sand–thundering and pounding. A spray that whipped into your face with the sting of a lash. The wind howling overhead and picking up handfuls of wet sand, scattering them about to add to the bite of the salt water. The rain pelting down in torrents. A dull boom, repeated again and again. The hissing of the breakers. And, out in the midst, out in a smother of water, gripped on the sharp rocks that now and then could be seen raising their black teeth through the white foam was the ship–a wreck.

It was this scene that Cora, the other girls, and the boys saw as they hurried out to the lighthouse point. And it was one they never forgot.

They had hurried out when Rosalie brought the news that in the storm of the night a three-masted auxiliary schooner had come too far inshore despite the warning of the light.

“Father was up all night tending the lantern, too!” she shouted–she had to shout to be heard above the roar. “I helped him,” she added. “But in spite of it the schooner worked in. She couldn’t seem to steer properly. We could see her red and green lights once in a while. Then the current caught her and nothing could save her. She went right on the rocks. Her back’s broke, Captain Meeker of the life guards said.”

“Can they save the people?” Cora inquired, as she pulled her raincoat more tightly about her, for the wind seemed fairly to whip open the buttons.

“They’re going to try,” answered the lighthouse maid. “They got some of ’em off in the motor life-boat early this morning, but it’s too rough for that now.”

“What are they going to do, then?” asked Bess.

“Use the breeches buoy. It’s the only way now!” cried Rosalie. “They’re going to fire a line over soon.”

“We don’t want to miss that,” declared Jack.

The wreck had gone on the rocks nearly opposite the lighthouse that guarded them. In this case the guardianship had been in vain, and the sea was hastening to wreak further havoc on the gallant ship.