Larry Dexters Great Search | Page 3

asked, of the conductor.
"Well, you can get off at Sea Isle City, or Sackett's Harbor. Both stations are about five miles from where the ship lies, according to all accounts. Then you can walk."
"He can do better than that," interposed a brakeman.
"How?" asked Larry.
"There's a station, or rather what remains of it, half way between those places," the brakeman said. "It used to be called Miller's Beach. Started to be a summer resort, but it failed. There's nothing there now but a few fishermen's huts. But I guess that's nearer the wreck than Sea Isle City or Sackett's Harbor."
"Is there a place I could stay all night?" asked the young reporter.
"You might find a place. It's pretty lonesome. Sometimes, in the summer, there are campers there, but it's too late in the fall now to expect any of 'em. We'll stop there for water, and you can get off if you like."
Larry hardly knew what to do. Still he decided he was sent to get a story of the wreck, and he felt it would be well to get as near to it as possible. But there was another thing to think of, and that was how to get his news back into the Leader office. He must be near a telegraph station. Inquiry of the trainmen disclosed the fact that the nearest one was three miles from Miller's Beach.
"Guess I'll chance it," concluded Larry.
"We'll be there in an hour," went on the brakeman. "It's the jumping-off place, so to speak, and it's not going to be very pleasant there when the storm breaks."
That a heavy storm was gathering was all too evident from the mass of dark, rolling clouds in the east. They hung low, and there was a rising wind.
"I wouldn't want to be on that vessel," remarked the brakeman as the train, having stopped at a small station, started off again. "It's beginning to rain now, and it will blow great guns before morning."
Several men, their faces bronzed from exposure to the weather, had boarded the train. They talked quietly in one corner of the car.
"Who are they?" asked Larry, of the brakeman.
"Life savers, from the Anglesea station. Going to Tatums, I guess."
"What for?"
"Tatums is the life-saving station nearest where the vessel is ashore. Maybe they are going to help in case she breaks up in the storm. Tatums is about three miles below where you are going."
Larry began to see that he would have no easy task in getting news of the wreck, or in transmitting it after he had it. But he was not going to worry so early in the undertaking. So, when the brakeman warned him that the train was nearing the water tank, which was all that remained of interest to the railroad people at Miller's Beach, the young reporter prepared to alight.
As he went out on the platform the wind increased in violence, and then, with a rush and a roar, the rain began to fall in torrents.
Larry wished he could stay in the train, as he had no umbrella, but there was no help for it. He leaped off the platform of the car almost before it had stopped, and looked for a place of shelter. He was surprised to see several large buildings in front of him, but even through the mist of rain he noted that they were dilapidated and forsaken. He was in the midst of a deserted seaside resort.
He hurried on, being wet through before he had gone a dozen steps. Then he heard the train puffing away. It seemed as though he was left all alone in a very lonesome place.
"Hi! Where you going?" a voice hailed him.
Larry looked up, to see a man clad in yellow oilskins and rubber boots standing in front of him.
"I came down about the wreck," was the young reporter's reply.
"Got any folks aboard? If you have I'm sorry. She's broken her back!"
"No; I'm a reporter from New York. What do you mean about breaking her back?"
"Why, she ran away up on the bar at high tide. When it got low tide a while ago the bows and stern just sagged down, and she broke in two. They've got to work hard to save the passengers."
"That's a good story," was Larry's ejaculation, but it was not as heartless as it sounds, for he was only speaking professionally. "I must get down after it."
"What? With night coming on, the wreck almost half a mile out, and it coming on to blow like all possessed?" asked the man in oilskins. "Guess you don't know much about the sea, young man."
"Very little," answered Larry.
A sudden gust of wind, which dashed the rain with great force into his face, nearly carried the reporter off his feet. He looked about for a place of shelter.
"Better