LITMIR.BIZ

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sighs of relief as they saw a beating at the temples and a fluttering of the eyelids. A moment later the stranger opened his eyes and looked vaguely around him. He tried to speak, but no words came.

      “Don’t talk just now,” Teddy admonished him. “You’ve been in a tight pinch, but you’re all right. Just relax and go to sleep if you want to. We’re on the job and we’ll take care of you.”

      The eyes closed again, and the boys, seeing that the danger was past, stopped their “pump-handle work,” as Teddy called it, and set about making the stranger’s position more comfortable. They made a rough bed for him with some blankets that they dragged from the tiny cabin and put a coat beneath his head for a pillow.

      “The longer he stays asleep, the better it will be for him,” commented Bill.

      “It’s lucky for him it isn’t his last sleep,” said Teddy. “It would have been that, if it hadn’t been for that brother of mine,” he added with a touch of pride.

      “Fred surely is a plucky old scout and a quick thinker too,” agreed Bill. “He had his shoes off and was in the water before the rest of us fairly realized what had happened.”

      “He can swim like a fish,” said Teddy, “and with that rope in his hand, I didn’t fear but we could get him on board again. But my heart was in my mouth when I thought of that shark.”

      “It was taking a big risk,” declared Bill. “By the way, I don’t see anything more of that ugly fin. I guess he’s given us the go-by for to-day.”

      But even as he spoke, there was a rush in the water alongside, and they caught a glimpse of a dark body at least sixteen feet in length, and saw a wicked eye gleaming up at them. It was only for a second and again the shark vanished. But his sudden appearance, at the very moment they were talking of him, made the boys shudder.

      “He’s following us!” exclaimed Bill.

      “That’s what,” said Teddy. “He knows we’re in a small boat and that the storm may capsize it. If it were a canoe or a rowboat, he’d probably try to upset it himself.”

      “He couldn’t have been far off when Fred was in the water,” shivered Bill. “He may have been making for him at the very minute we hauled him out.”

      “We got both out just in the nick of time, I guess,” assented Teddy soberly, and his heart was full of thankfulness as he gazed at his elder brother.

      The latter just at present had his hands full. The storm had increased in fury and was now blowing half a gale. The sail threatened to split into ribbons, and the gunwale was constantly under water as the Ariel plunged along. Lester’s muscles were strained to the utmost to hold the rudder against the heavy waves that seemed bound to disable it.

      His face was set and worried, as he glanced alternately at sea and sky. He seemed to be debating a question that bothered him. At last he reached a decision.

      “It’s no use,” he said as he jammed over the tiller and changed the course of the Ariel. “We’ll never make Bartanet Shoals with the wind as it is now. We’d have to do too much tacking and beating up into the wind.”

      “What will you do then?” inquired Fred anxiously.

      “We’ll make for a cove I know of, where we can wait till the storm is over,” answered Lester. “And we’ll have to do some tall hustling to get there before night comes on. Here goes for a run before the wind.”

      CHAPTER III

      A WELCOME REFUGE

      The change of course had not been effected without shipping a considerable amount of water as the boat hung for a moment in the wind. Bill and Teddy bailed desperately, and an instant later the Ariel was heading in a new direction. The wind now, instead of striking her sail at an angle, was following directly over the stern, and the little craft fairly flew. The power of the wind made her careen at a dangerous angle, and Bill and Teddy had to climb up on the further side to keep her from capsizing.

      It was perilous sailing, but the bite of the salt spray on their cheeks and the swift pace at which they were moving filled the boys with wild exhilaration. They might have been four young Vikings out on a voyage of discovery, as they faced and dared the storm.

      “See how she foots it through the water!” exclaimed Lester. “Isn’t she a beauty?”

      “You bet she is!” responded Teddy with enthusiasm. “I don’t wonder that sailors get so fond of their boats that they’d rather go down with them than live without them.”

      “I can’t say that I’ve got so far as that,” laughed Lester. “But I’m sure I’d feel as bad about losing the Ariel as you boys would if you lost Star and Colonel.”

      “You’d feel mighty bad then,” responded Teddy, as he thought of the horses that he and Fred had brought with them from the West.

      At this moment, his attention was attracted by a movement on the part of the boy they had rescued. They had sheltered him as much they could, but they could not prevent an occasional dash of spray from striking his face and this had hastened his awakening. This time, his eyes were lighted with intelligence, and it was clear that he had largely recovered from the effect of his immersion.

      Teddy bent over toward him.

      “How are you feeling?” he asked with a friendly smile.

      “Better,” was the response in a faint voice. “I can’t remember yet, though, just what happened to me.”

      “A big wave threw you overboard,” broke in Bill. “We happened to be cruising near by, and we picked you up.”

      “I guess I must have hit my head against something when I went over,” said the stranger. “I don’t remember a thing that happened while I was in the water. Did I swim?”

      “You seemed to be swimming a little,” said Teddy, “but I guess it was more instinct than anything else. You went down before we got to you. But you’d better not talk any more just now. We’ll be on shore before long I hope, and then we’ll tell you all about it.”

      “There’s the shore now,” called out Bill in accents of relief, as he pointed to a long dark line ahead of them.

      On the right it seemed to be sandy and level, but a little to the left there was a rocky elevation, against which the waves broke with a thunderous roar, sending back sheets of crested foam.

      The boat kept on with unslackened speed and the boys grew somewhat uneasy as the tumbling breakers grew plainer to the sight. But that uneasiness became consternation, when Lester with a quick twist of the tiller headed the Ariel straight toward two immense rocks that seemed to stand out as sentinels on the coast.

      “Lester!” shouted Bill in warning and then stopped. A look at the strained intent face of the helmsman told Bill that he knew exactly what he was doing.

      They came nearer and nearer, and the faces of the boys blanched at the fearful turmoil of the breakers. Then Lester threw the tiller to port.

      “Sit tight!” he yelled, and the next moment the Ariel dashed straight for a point midway between the two giant rocks.

      There was an awful moment as she staggered through that seething turmoil of raging waters. But this was followed by an immense relief when they found themselves rocking on the waters of a sheltered cove, which, while rough, were like a mill pond compared to the sea outside.

      Before them stretched a sandy beach, which bore no trace of human habitation except a tumbled down hut which stood fifty feet inland. A few scrub pines were scattered here and there, and some dejected looking bushes grew in a little patch of green that the sand had not yet swallowed up. It was not an attractive landscape, but to the boys, after escaping the perils of the sea, it seemed a bit of Paradise.

      “Lower the sail, Fred,” directed Lester. “We’ll get out the sweeps and feel our way to a landing place.”

      The sail came down with a run, and Fred rose and stretched himself after having been so

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