“He’s drowning, Joe!” shouted Frank, as he bent to his oar again. With a mighty effort they brought the boat close by the place where the man had gone down. Frank leaped to the side of the boat and peered down into the depths. He began taking off his coat, preparatory to diving to the rescue. Then the fellow came to the surface again, gasping for breath, but so weak that he could scarcely make a struggle. He emerged from the water, right beside the boat and Frank leaned over, grasping him by the hair. This sufficed to prevent the man from sinking for the second time, and Frank managed to get a grip on the collar of his coat. Then, with Joe helping and in imminent danger of upsetting the boat, he managed to drag the stranger to the side of the craft. The fellow was a dead weight, for he had lapsed into unconsciousness when Frank seized him, but somehow they contrived to get him into the boat, and there he lay, sprawled helplessly, more dead than alive. “We’d better get him to shelter some place and revive him,” said Joe. “We can’t do much for him here.” “How about that farmhouse down the bay?” “The very place. Where is it?” They finally located the farmhouse, a snug little building back off the main road some distance down the bay. It meant considerable rowing, but there was a life at stake. The blazing motorboat near by was a roaring mass of flames. Then it began to sink beneath the waves. There was a great hissing sound and a heavy cloud of steam as the craft sank lower and lower into the water, its blazing embers blackening to the touch of the sea. Swiftly, at last, the boat disappeared. Its stern seemed to hesitate for a moment, and then it slid quickly down into the waves and the only trace was a widening pool of oil and scattered wreckage on the surface of the water. But the Hardy boys were too busy to give more than passing notice to the spectacle. Their immediate problem was to get the stranger under shelter. Frank decided that there was no necessity for first aid. The man had been conscious when he rose from the water the first time, so there could not be much water in his lungs. He had simply given in to exhaustion and fatigue resulting from his long struggle in the waves. They headed the boat down the bay, in a direct line with the little farmhouse, which they could see nestling among the trees. They had already spent much energy in rowing out to the rescue of the stranger, but they fell to the new task with a will. Rowing with machine-like precision, they felt the little boat respond to every effort, and it fairly leaped along. This time they had the wind and the waves with them and they made good time. The man they had rescued lay face downward in the bottom of the boat. He was a slim, black-haired fellow. His clothes, which of course were soaked with water, were cheap and worn, the sleeves being frayed at the cuffs. They could not see his face, but they judged him to be young. He was still unconscious.