Keeper Downey was too good a captain to urge his crew to their utmost efforts at the beginning of the journey, lest he exhaust them before the task was accomplished. He also knew that their services were not needed immediately, otherwise Sam Hardy would have burned another signal, and again, a conclusion much to be desired, the vessel might succeed in working off from the dangerous situation. “Slow and sure is better than rapid and uncertain,” the keeper shouted cheerily, and Benny was surprised that the crew should appear almost eager for the work, which, under the most favoring circumstances in case the schooner struck, would be severe and attended with great suffering. He shivered as he realized that perhaps soon the clothing of these brave fellows, wet with spray, would be converted into an armor of ice, which they must wear as best they might on this bitter winter’s night until the task of life-saving was accomplished, or proven to be fruitless. The cheeriness of the men was by no means allied to mirth. They were setting out, perchance, to battle face to face with death, and realized to the utmost all the dangers and the suffering which awaited them. It could also be told, from a certain manner apparent in all, that their thoughts were with those poor fellows whose craft was drifting on to the cruel rocks, rather than upon the possible labor which might be demanded of them. Now and then as they paused for an instant, while making ready to haul the wagon over some miniature cliff, one of the crew referred to the anxiety which must be in the hearts of those aboard the schooner, and another expressed satisfaction that the imperilled mariners knew there were on the shore waiting to succor them, men who were provided with every known method for saving life under such circumstances. All the while as these men spoke one with another evincing anxiety for strangers, they were fighting against the furious wind and driving particles of frost, and even at times, when their way lay near the water’s edge, against the volumes of surf which were flung landward by the angry blasts. There was no moment when the progress was other than extremely difficult, and Benny was absolutely obliged at times to allow them to drag him at the tail of the cart, else he would have been left far behind; but yet those brave fellows had not a word, perhaps not a thought, concerning their own labor or peril. “Half-way to Skinner’s Point!” Joe Cushing shouted as they mounted a hill of brown rock from which the snow had been driven, and stood for a single instant to regain their breath. “Half-way to Skinner’s Point, and no signal from Sam! Who can see the schooner?” Every eye had been directed seaward when they first gained the elevation, but it was as if the wind drove the snow yet more compactly, and the oldest surfman among them failed to see objects at a distance of fifty feet.