“A strange fist,” grinned Harrigan; “soft
in the palm and hard over the knuckles—like
mine.”
They went down the hill toward the beach, Harrigan
singing and McTee silent, with downward head.
On the beach they started for some rocks which shelved
out into the water, for it was possible that they might
find some sort of shellfish on the rocks below the
surface of the water. Before they reached the
place, however, McTee stopped and pointed out across
the waves. Some object tossed slowly up and down
a short distance from the beach.
“From the wreck,” said McTee. “I
didn’t think it would drift quite as fast as
this.”
They waded out to examine; the water was not over
their waists when they reached it. They found
a whole section from the side of the wheelhouse, the
timbers intact.
On it lay Kate Malone, unconscious.
Manifestly she never could have kept on the big fragment
during the night of the storm had it not been for
a piece of stout twine with which she had tied her
left wrist to a projecting bolt. She had wrapped
the cord many times, but despite this it had worn away
her skin and sunk deep in the flesh of her arm.
Half her clothes were torn away as she had been thrown
about on the boards. Whether from exhaustion or
the pain of her cut wrist, she had fainted and evidently
lain in this position for several hours; one side
of her face was burned pink by the heat of the sun.
They dragged the float in, and McTee knelt beside
the girl and pressed an ear against her breast.
“Living!” he announced. “Now
we’re three on the rim of the world.”
“Which makes a crowd,” grinned Harrigan.
They started working eagerly to revive her. While
McTee bathed her face and throat with handfuls of
the sea water, Harrigan worked to liberate her from
the twine. It was not easy. The twine was
wet, and the knot held fast. Finally he gnawed
it in two with his teeth. McTee, at the same
time, elicited a faint moan. Her wrist was bruised
and swollen rather than dangerously cut. Harrigan
stuffed the twine into his hip pocket; then the two
Adams carried their Eve to the shade of a tree and
watched the color come back to her face by slow degrees.
The wind now increased suddenly as it had done on
the evening of the wreck. It rose even as the
day darkened, and in a moment it was rushing through
the trees screaming in a constantly rising crescendo.
The rain was coming, and against that tropical squall
shelter was necessary.
The two men ran down the beach and returned dragging
the ponderous section of the wheelhouse. They
leaned the frame against two trunks at the same instant
that the first big drops of rain rattled against it.
Overhead they were quite securely protected by the
dense and interweaving foliage of the two trees, but
still the wind whistled in at either side and over
and under the frame of boards. Of one accord
they dropped beside their patient.
