“Getting to be morning,” shouted Will.  While the shadows were still thick on the beach, over in the east was a grayish, uncertain light.  There were occasional discharges of rockets from the vessel in distress.

“O dear!” said the breathless Charlie.

“I can’t hold out much longer,” thought Tony.

Will, though, pushed stoutly on, and it was manifest that a wreck excited him as much as a fire.  The distance to Gull Point from the station was at least a mile and a half.  The point itself was a rocky stretch into the sea measuring about six hundred feet in length.  Day was creeping over the water; finally, a thin, sullen light, revealing a wild, ghostly tumult of waves.  The surf that ordinarily broke near the shore seemed to whiten the water as far as the eye could reach.  It was the angriest tumult of foam possible, as if the frothing of millions of enraged creatures of the sea.

“Ah, there she is!” shouted John Fisher, as the cart neared the shore-end of the point.

“We will get her!” screamed Charlie, as he reached the cart.  The men laughed.

“It’s a three-masted schooner,” bawled Captain Peters, “and she’s where the life-boat can’t reach her, but our wreck-gun will.  That craft has keeled over on Deep Rock, near the very P’int itself!  Get out the gun!”

The men now took from the cart a small cannon, then a mass of rope, and then a rope of larger size.

“Take out that life-car, too!” shouted Captain Peters.  Charlie watched every thing that was done with an intense curiosity.  He sat down on the cannon to rest his short, fat legs.

“Sonny!” shouted John Fisher—­the roar of the surf compelled every one to shout—­“do you know what we are up to?”

Charlie shook his head.

“Well, that cannon is loaded, and—­”

Up sprang Charlie.  He did not want a seat like that.

“And the shot has a light but strong line hitched to it.  A man will p’int the gun so that when the shot goes out it will fall over the vessel, and carry the line with it.  Now watch him.”

Charlie watched.  “Bang!” went the gun.  Away went the shot, the long rope wriggling after it.

“Good!” cried John.

“What is good?” bawled Charlie.

“A good shot!  The man sent the shot so that the rope has fallen across the vessel, I think.”

Others thought so, too, and a man quickly shouted, “They’re pulling on it! 
Hurrah!”

Then they all cheered.  The crew on board the wreck were steadily drawing the rope through the water.  Charlie looked intently with both eyes, and he wished that his ears also could be eyes for a little while.

“Come here!” shouted John to Charlie, and he led the boy around to a coil of rope, one end of which was attached to the line going through the water.

“See there, Bub!  There is a block, what they call a single pulley-block, and this stouter rope is doubled through it.  It will soon go to the wreck.”