"Oh, this is dreadful!" sobbed one of the women writers. "Those brave,
splendid boys--such a fearful fate!"

"Must they be asphyxiated down there, below?" cried another woman.

"Don't," choked Jacob Farnum. "I must rush for the telegraph station and
get off a message for a diver--also for a wrecking company to send tugs
and floats here for raising the 'Pollard.' Yet it will take a wretchedly
long time."

"And the boys? Rescue will come too late to save them?" asked a newspaper
man, with a decided choke in his voice.

Jacob Farnum made a wild dash for his office, telephoning for a messenger
boy. While waiting he wrote two telegrams in feverish haste.

Several of the newspaper people wrote hasty, excited dispatches to their
papers for the evening editions. The messenger boy, when he arrived on
a run, was all but loaded down with paper. Then the yard's owner and
the newspaper folks dashed back to the shore.

Out on the harbor the water lay unruffled. There was not a sign of the
suspected tragedy that lay beneath the waves.

"It's an hour and a half since the boat sank," called one of the
correspondents.

"What were the boys supposed to do, anyway?" insisted another.

Jacob Farnum opened his mouth, as though to speak, then closed it again.