Here we sat, after a hearty luncheon with Alice and her
three boys and half-a-dozen others who were with them in a kind
of summer camp-school; and while we smoked our pipes, Will Hermann
told this story.
"You see, Alice and I have a mania for things that have been
salvaged. We don't like the idea of the wrecks, of course. But they
would happen any way, whether we were here or not. And since that
is so, we like to live here on the point and help save what we
can. Sometimes we get a chance to do something for the crews of
the little ships that come ashore--hot supper and dry clothes and
so forth. But the most interesting salvage case that we ever had
on the point was one in which there was really no wreck at all.
"It was a bright September afternoon ten years ago--one of those
silver-blue days when there is a little quivering haze in the air
everywhere, but no fog. We were sitting up here and looking out to
sea. Just beyond the end of Dunker Rock a large motor-boat came in
sight through the haze. She was about sixty feet long, with a low
cabin forward, a cockpit aft, and a raised place for the steersman
amidship--a good-looking craft, and evidently very speedy.
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