As the patrolman turned his face to the sea, the boys looked off in that direction, and they were quick enough to see a rocket exploding in the air, scattering down a shower of tinted stars.  This bright constellation faded away into the night, when suddenly up, up into the darkness, shot two vivid lines of fire, parting as they swept higher and higher, exploding in stars till the whole seemed like immense forks of gold with spreading, jeweled prongs.

“They let go a couple then,” said Will.

“O look, Tony!” cried Charlie.

While the boys were watching the rockets, John Fisher was eagerly handling his Coston light.  The design of this is to signal to any wreck, or to warn vessels away from an unsafe shore.  John now ignited his light and, holding it up, ran along the beach.  His big, burly form wrapped in a coarse, heavy suit, threw an immense shadow on the sands, while the light of his torch so colored the beach that he seemed to be trampling on red snow.  The foam of the waves, broken into patches, changed till it became clots of blood.  Beyond all, was that wrathful, howling, restless ocean.  Away ran John Fisher, swinging his light, flinging out his big boots till he looked like a sea-monster, with unwieldy limbs, plunging through an atmosphere blood-tinged.  At the station they had evidently become aware of the real situation of things, for there was a moving of lamps at the windows, then the opening of a door letting out a bright light.  As Will and the boys reached the station, they saw the big door in one end of the building swinging back, and out rushed two men pulling a cart.  John Fisher here came running up.

“Wreck is down at Gull’s P’int,” he said, “so some one told me, and that agrees with the place where the signals were seen.  I guess she is on the nub of the P’int, and our wreck-gun will reach her.”

“What is a wreck-gun?” Charlie wanted to ask, but every body seemed too busy to answer questions.

“It will be morning soon,” exclaimed Will.  “I fancy I see a whitish streak now in the east.”

Charlie was not looking at the sky, but, standing on his longest toe, was trying to get a peep into that mysterious cart dragged from the station.  A man now stood on the axle and lighted a lamp on a pole.  The lamp was inclosed so that the storm could not harm it.  Charlie saw a stout reel in the cart, about which went many turns of a stout rope.  Then there was the wreck-gun.  There were also shovels and various apparatus.

“Now, boys,” shouted Captain Peters, who had charge of the station, “all hands for the P’int!”

That slow-moving, clumsy man that Charlie had seen in the station when he called, was now changed to a very nimble-footed being, and his comrades were as active.  Away they went, threatening to leave Charlie and Tony far behind, but the boys grabbed Will by the hand and rapidly as possible pushed on after the enterprising apothecary.