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He had been poised for flight and the shock of the lifeboat captain's call almost startled him into running full speed up the beach. Then the thought smote upon his harassed mind that Cap'n Trainor was not speaking to Cap'n Abe, storekeeper. The call for aid was addressed to Cap'n Amazon Silt.
The lifeboat crew, their belts strapped under their arms, had taken their places in the boat. Captain Trainor stood in the stern with his steering oar. On its truck the lifeboat was run into the surf. "Now!" shrieked the excited moving picture director. "Action! Camera! Go!" There was something unreal about it it was like a play.
It was just at daybreak that the wind subsided and the tide was so that the lifeboat could be launched again. Wellriver station owned no motor-driven craft at this time, or Cap'n Jim Trainor and his men would have been able to reach the wreck at the height of the gale. It was no easy matter even now to bring the lifeboat under the lee of the battered schooner.
"They might search hell over and they could not find a worse President than Abraham Lincoln." Hon. Mr. Trainor, of Ohio, said: "He would urge the people to be freemen, and HURL ABRAHAM LINCOLN AND HIS MINIONS FROM POWER." Henry Clay Dean, said: "In the presence of the face of Camp Douglas and all the satraps of Lincoln, that the American people were ruled by felons.
Beyond that, is like to burst her. But mebbe they can make it. Cap'n Jim Trainor knows his work; and 'tis cut out for him this day." Gradually the seriousness of the situation began to affect all the lighter-minded spectators. Louise saw the group of moving picture actors at one side.
As though the half-conscious professor were a child, he lowered him to the slanting deck. "Only room for one o' you!" roared Cap'n Trainor. "Only one! We're overloaded as 'tis. Better wait." "You'll take him!" shouted Cap'n Abe, and dropped his burden at Lawford Tapp's feet. The next moment the lifeboat shot away from the side of the wreck, leaving the Man Who Was Afraid marooned upon her deck.
Pallid, shaking, panting for every breath he drew, he was slipping out of the unnoticing crowd when Cap'n Jim Trainor of the lifeboat crew called to him. "You pull a strong oar, I know, Cap'n Am'zon. We need you." For the space of a breath the storekeeper "hung in the wind."
When the waves sucked out from under her the keel of the lifeboat almost scratched the reef. Then it rose on a swell to the very rail of the wreck, wedged so tightly on the rock. The castaways came inboard rapidly, bringing their injured skipper with them. The lifeboat was quickly overburdened with human freight. "No more! No more!" shouted Cap'n Trainor. "We'll have to make another trip."
A strange thrill went through him, however. All these years he had shrunk from an unknown, an unexperienced, peril. Was it that Cap'n Abe had been frightened by a bogey, after all? He opened his eyes, pulling rhythmically with the oar never missing a stroke. His gaze rested on the face of that old sea-dog, Cap'n Jim Trainor. The fierce light of determination dwelt there.
In his deposition he stated after the usual preamble: 'That said Barney Trainor at said time and place threatened to send said deponent's soul to the lowest pit of Hell, and this deponent veribly believes that had it not been for the interference of the bystanders the aforesaid Barney Trainor would have accomplished his horrible purpose."
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