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"Why, by golly!" yelled the surfman. "This here's Cap'n Abe Silt!" "Ain't his brother Am'zon there?" "No, I don't see his brother nowhere." "Take a good look." "Trust me to do that," answered the surfman. But the search was useless. Nobody ever saw Cap'n Amazon again. He had gone, as he had come suddenly and in a way to shock the placid thoughts of Cardhaven people.
"That's his name," answered Tod. "Want to see him? He's inside." The surfman had not yet changed his position nor moved a muscle of his body. Tiger cats are often like this. Captain Holt's burly form stepped from the door. He had overheard the conversation, and not recognizing the voice had come to find out what the man wanted. "You lookin' for me? I'm Captain Holt.
That fellow with the twisted knee is out of it." Without getting in the men's way, the Captain watched his chance, and when it came time to man the whip that hauled the breeches-buoy out to the vessel he took a hand with the crew and pulled lustily. After that he worked right along with the men and they were glad of his help, for the loss of the one surfman was holding them back.
There were no dangers that the sea could unfold which this silent surfman had not met and conquered, and would again. Every fisherman on the coast knew Fogarty's pluck and skill, and many of them owed their lives to him. To-night, before this invisible power slowly closing about his child he was as powerless as a skiff without oars caught in the swirl of a Barnegat tide.
The light came when his glance fell upon Tod's lithe figure swinging along the road; the look kindled when he saw Tod stop and wave his hand triumphantly over his head. The letter had arrived! With a movement as quick as that of a horse touched by a whip, he started across the sand to meet the surfman. "Guess we got it all right this time, captain," cried Tod.
Archie had her hugged close to his breast and had started in to show her the cot where he slept, the kitchen where he was to cook, and the peg in the hall where he hung his sou'wester and tarpaulins every surfman had his peg, order being imperative with Captain Nat when that old sea-dog caught the child out of the young fellow's arms and placed her feet on the sand.
There was nobody on the clam flats, although the tide was just right at dawn. The surfman from the patrol station beyond The Beaches paced to the end of his beat dressed in his best, like a man merely taking a Sunday morning stroll. The people she saw seemed to be changed out of their everyday selves. Not only were they in Sabbath garb, but they had on their Sabbath manner.
He saw that the sea-water had not harmed him; it was the cordwood and wreckage that had crushed the breath out of him. In confirmation he pointed to a thin streak of blood oozing from one ear. The captain nodded, and continued chafing the man's hands working with the skill of a surfman over the water-soaked body.
At the sight of the surfman the man left the dune, struck the boat path, and walked straight toward the porch. "Kind o' foggy, ain't it?" "Yes," replied Tod, scrutinizing the man's face and figure, particularly his clothes, which were queerly cut and with a foreign air about them. He saw, too, that he was strong and well built, and not over thirty years of age.
To them the sky was always an open book each cloud a letter, each mass a paragraph, the whole a warning. "But I'm kind o' glad, Isaac." Again the captain forgot the surfman in the friend. "As long as it's got to blow it might as well blow now and be over. I'd kind o' set my heart on Bart's comin', but I guess I've waited so long I kin wait a day or two more.
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