beam from which they had to pry loose two half-naked, water-logged, but living men.
Day was breaking when the crew of the schooner, a full muster roll, were helped into the station. The weary surf men gave their bunks to the rescued, and the black cook made strong coffee and corned-beef hash with incredible speed. Brainard fell on the floor like a dead man. But he could not sleep, for the night had been too crowded with racking events. His hurts and exhaustion were forgotten as the evening at the Coquina Beach Hotel came back to him, dimly at first, then focusing more sharply, as if he were recalling things far distant in time and place.
Amid this welter of impressions loomed the fact that magically the means had been provided for him to go back to his own, and more than this, to see her whose message had come as from the dead awakened. As if in a dream, he fumbled for his trousers pockets. Then it came to him that he had been forced to put on Jim Conklin's oilskin breeches while that comrade was half dragging him home
