“Yes,” added Tony, “let’s do it.”

“A run up and down the beach to see what is going on, this stormy night?  You are enterprising boys.  Well, we will go.  Button up your coats snug, though.  Fold my cape about you, Charlie.  There, you look like a small monk off on a tare.  You fixed, Tony?  Come, boys,” said Will.

Bang!  How the wind slammed the door after them!  And how the sea thundered and roared; then roared and thundered again!  It seemed as if every throw of surf was heavier than that before, and yet none of this violence and wrath could be seen unless some one chanced to pass carrying a lantern.  Then this thing that raged along the sands, this creature, this dragon from the deep, would show an angry whiteness, as if it were the opening of his jaws.

Will and the boys may have tramped a quarter of a mile along the beach, when Will exclaimed, “Hullo, there’s a light!”

It was a lively twinkle upon the sands that came nearer and nearer, and then stopped before the party.

“Who’s this?” asked a voice, pleasantly.

Charlie lifted up his face toward the shining of this friendly light.

“Bub, is this you down here at this time of night?  Don’t you know the man who goes fishin’ from your Aunt Stanshy’s barn?”

“O yes, I know you.”

It was the junior member of the new firm, “Tyler & Fisher.”

“Are you a patrolman, Mr. Fisher?” asked Will.

“I am at spells, when a man at the station may be sick.  You see I can’t go fishin’ in this storm, and it comes handy to be employed as a substitute at the station.  But what are you here for?”

“We came down to find a wreck.  Up in town St. John’s bell was rung and we were told there was a wreck at Gull Point.  At the station, though, where we have been, a man said that he did not know of any.”

“I guess I know how that story got up to town.  A little fool was down here with a squeaky voice and sharp little eyes, and he wanted to know if there were any wrecks.  The fact is we had been looking for sich all day and through the evening and night.  There were one or two vessels off the mouth of the harbor as night came on, trying to get in, and, pizen! they could no more get in than my old tarpaulin, and they wouldn’t stand a hundredth part of the chance she would.  You see, a nor’easter rakes right across the mouth of our harbor and drives off any sail tryin’ to get in, and one of two things will happen—­either a ship will be swept out to sea or swept on to Gull P’int.  Well, that feller said to Joe Danforth—­Joe and me were together—­’Has there been a wreck?’ ‘No,’ said Joe, ‘I think not,’ meaning to answer him.  But I had said to Joe at that time, or just before that feller asked his question, ’Hadn’t we better go to the station and get a bite?’ ‘Yes,’ said Joe, meaning to answer me, and that person—­whoever it was, grabbed up the answer to me and thought it was for him, and went off accordingly.  That is how that bell came to ring.  It would be an awful night for a wreck, wouldn’t it?  Hullo!” exclaimed John Fisher, stopping in his explanation, “What’s that?  If that aint the crittur hisself!”