Rick and Ruddy

n vacation, save for a captain and one man at each station to patrol the beach. The summer months are seldom marked by storms and wrecks, and there is not often need of the services of the life-savers. When such occasion arises the station captain, or his one helper, calls for volunteers.

Stronger blew the wind, and the rain came down harder, mingling with the salty spume and spray from the ocean. The place where Rick Dalton had sat on the beach that afternoon, and wished for a dog, was now a seething caldron of white foam, and the sand dunes were under water.

"High tide and a north-easter!" mused the coast guard. "Shouldn't wonder but what a lot of bulkheads would be torn loose to-night. Bluefish and moss bunkers! That was a fierce one!"

A stronger force of the gusty wind fairly stopped him in his tracks, and he actually had to lean forward to keep his balance. It was hard walking on the sand. Part of the shore of Belemere was marked by a board walk, for the place was visited by a small