NAT TO THE RESCUE. There followed moments of the most intense and thrilling anxiety. Clouds of salt water broke thunderously over the plucky little Nomad as she battled her way on the path of rescue. Her framework quivered and groaned, and she was flung upward on mountains of water and dashed into liquid abysses till the boys’ heads began to swim. But still Nat, with cool, steady eyes, gazing straight ahead through all the wildly flying smother, held her toward the spot where an occasional high-leaping wave surged and showed the little craft that they were following. Down below Ding-dong had returned to his engines and was urging them to their best efforts. Nat crept up to windward of her and then shouted that he would stand by. The wind hurled away any reply that might have come, but Nat was pretty sure that the men on the other boat could hear him, which was all that he wanted. “We dare come no closer,” he bellowed, “but we’ll chuck you a life-ring on the end of a rope. Jump overboard and grab it, and we’ll haul you aboard!” A wave of the arm from one of the three figures crouched under the bulwarks of the other boat for protection against the breaking seas showed him that his message had been heard and Joe worked like a beaver getting them loose and chucking them out toward the storm-battered crew. They were heavy, but the wind helped in propelling them, and they drifted down in the right direction. “Now!” yelled Nat, as the first of them came close alongside the distressed launch. Without hesitation, except to shake his comrades’ hands, one of the men mounted the bulwarks and dropped into the boiling sea. He fought for a few seconds and finally succeeded in reaching the bobbing, dancing life-ring. The way in which he got into it, by pressing on one edge and then tipping it till it encircled his head, showed that he was familiar with the trick of getting into a life-ring so as to make it most efficient. “For heaven’s sake,” he panted, as he was hauled to safety on the Nomad’s bridge, “lose no time in getting Doc Chalmers off. Nate,” he added excitedly, turning to the roughly dressed young fellow, “the gasolene tank is leaking. The whole boat reeks of the stuff.” “Look, he’s on the rail now!” cried Joe, as the third figure, the one of the man still remaining on the launch, was seen to mount the coamings. There was a sudden flash of flame and the roar of an explosion. Flames shot up from the launch and the lead-colored waters grew crimson under the angry glare. “The doctor! Nate, do you see the doctor?” asked the other survivor of the sailor. “No, sir, Mr. Anderson! Land o’ Beulah, I don’t!” wailed the other. “There he is! Look! Off there!” cried Joe suddenly. He pointed to a black speck, the head of a human being, in the midst of the blood-red waves. “Is he a good swimmer?” demanded Nat anxiously. “No, he can only handle himself in the water a little,” was the reply. They all gazed as if fascinated at the struggle on the flame-lit waters surrounding the blazing launch. The face of the castaway was toward them now and they could see his agonized features as he struggled amidst the surges. “Joe, take the wheel. One of you throw another life-ring after me!” came suddenly in Nat’s voice. “Bear down after me, Joe, and look lively to chuck the second ring if I miss the first!” Before they could lay hands on him or utter one word of remonstrance, Nat was overboard. On the bridge lay his oilskins, shoes and outer garments. While they had been gazing, horror-stricken, at the struggle for life going on apparently beyond the power of human aid, Nat had acted. But it was a chance so desperate as to seem suicidal. “Stand by with those life-rings!” he ordered curtly to the two men already rescued, who did not appear to be so much the worse for their immersion. The sailor and the man addressed as Anderson each picked up a life-ring, and, leaning over the starboard rail, eagerly scanned the water for the moment when they were to fling them out. Suddenly the man who had been battling for life in the glare of the burning launch was seen to throw up his hands, and, with a wild cry of despair on his lips, which was echoed by his friends on the Nomad, he vanished. “Good heavens!” cried Joe in an agonized voice. “Has Nat sacrificed his life in vain?” He scanned the waters for a glimpse of his chum, but not a sign of the plucky young leader of the Motor Rangers rewarded him. Like the man he had set out to save, Nat Trevor, too, was apparently engulfed by the seething waters. |