"The wreck!" she cried. "We came for you! Hurry!" and without another word the men hurried on, leaving the girls to follow them more slowly. However, they accomplished the return trip in about half the time it had taken them to fight their way against the wind, and as the first bright rays of the sun gilded the country side, they found themselves back at the house, where Mrs. Ford was anxiously awaiting them. She had some breakfast prepared for them, which they ate standing, then rushed headlong down to the beach. The life-savers were already busily at work launching their sturdy boats, and as the girls followed the direction they were taking out to sea they suddenly saw the wrecked ship. Driven by the hurricane wind, it had been caught on one of those treacherous bars so common along this part of the coast. Part of the bottom had been torn away, and if the ship had not been so tightly wedged upon the bar it must certainly have sunk hours before. As it was, the starboard deck stood high in the air while the port side almost touched the water and was constantly swept by mountainous combers. The girls shivered as they looked. "If the waves should wash it loose--" Betty began, then checked herself. The possibility was too horrible to contemplate. "Look!" cried Mollie, clutching her arm, "They are filling the first boat. Oh, Betty, they'll certainly be swamped! I can't look!" She turned away but the next minute her eyes were fixed strainingly upon the wreck again. "They're gone! They're gone!" cried Amy, jumping up and down in her excitement as the boat sunk in the hollow between two huge combers and was lost to view. "No, they're not! They're up again," as the boat, looking pathetically tiny in comparison to the vastness of the ocean, rose gallantly on the crest of a big wave and came rushing toward them, reeling from side to side. The next moment they were lost to view again. "Oh, they'll never make it, they'll never make it," moaned Grace. "It isn't possible." But the gallant little boat came on and out fighting its bitter fight with the elements, till, rising on one last long comber, it swept magnificently in and grounded on the shore. The girls were already racing eagerly toward it, and a few minutes later were welcoming the poor bedraggled survivors back to safety. There were nine of them in all, four women, one young girl, three men and a little boy. The child was sobbing and clung to his mother's skirts, terrified. Betty drew Grace aside. "Some one will have to take them up to the house, let them dry out, and give them something to eat," she whispered. "Will you do that, Grace?" Grace nodded, and Amy, who had overheard the request, begged to go with her. Mollie and Betty remained behind to watch the rest of the rescue work.