"Pick up your coat, gal," Cap'n Jonah said firmly. "You come along o' me, if you will. I'll not leave you here to be hounded by these Pettys. Whether I've got money or not, I guarantee we can make a home together, an' 'twill be a peaceful one--that's whatever! "I ain't on my last legs yet. I'm as good a man as Washy Gallup is, barrin' when the rheumatiz gets me. I can airn a dollar yet--an' so can you. Will you come along o' me, Pearly--an' take potluck?" She was already struggling into her coat. She was laughing and crying together. "Oh, Cap'n Jonah! Oh, Cap'n Jonah. You make me happier than I've been for a long while back. I wouldn't be afraid to start out with you right now for a voyage around the world!" "That's the talk!" cried the stout-hearted old mariner. "We'll show 'em, Pearly--you an' me." He tore the door open. He pulled his southwester more firmly over his ears. He took Pearl's arm within the crook of his own. The two marched out of the Petty kitchen and were almost instantly swallowed in the smother of the storm. CHAPTER XXVII A RIFT IN THE CLOUDS This was no day to wander about out of doors, either for pleasure or exercise. Nor was Joe Helmford bent on either. Nevertheless he kept on along the deserted road on which the summer colony houses fronted, until he had passed the wall and gates of the Tapp estate. There, as he confronted the waste of the wind-swept bluff, he halted as 'Liphalet Truitt had halted, to peer ahead. Now and then a rift in the storm revealed to him the ugly, narrow pathway beaten hard by the feet of the life saving patrol. As 'Liphalet had caught a glimpse of a snow wraith in the storm, so Joe Helmford chanced to see a figure stand out clearly upon the brink of the cliff, and for a single moment. "What's that fellow doing there?" exclaimed the young man. And then: "Great heavens! he's gone over." For in that flash, before the snow curtain shut down again, he had seen 'Liphalet Truitt slide over the brink of the cliff and, clinging to Suz Montevedo's new line, drop out of sight. There was no hesitation in Joe Helmford's actions at this juncture. Putting away those troubles which had obsessed his mind, in an instant he was alive to the peril of the man--if it were a man--he had seen go over the edge of the cliff. He started for the spot, charging recklessly through the storm. He was familiar with this surfman's path. In this direction lay Salt Creek and the fish hatchery. In a few breathless minutes he came stumbling to the spot. He could not miss it, for he tripped and fell, sprawling across the taut halyard which was looped over the crowbar. The crowbar was canted forward toward the cliff's brink and the frozen ground all about it was broken and loose.