| The Gleam That Brings Hope | [Frontispiece] |
| FACING PAGE | |
| The Light That Never Sleeps | [10] |
| The Lonely Watcher of the Coast | [20] |
| Where Patrols Meet. The Half-way Point | [20] |
| Breaking a Death-Clutch from Behind | [32] |
| Breaking a Death-Clutch from the Front | [32] |
| The "Eddystone" of America | [42] |
| Lighthouse Tender Approaching Buoy | [54] |
| Refilling Pintsch Gas Buoy | [54] |
| Sliding Down to Work | [64] |
| The Defier of the Pacific | [76] |
| A Beacon Masked in Ice | [86] |
| Wrecked! And the Ice Between! | [100] |
| Laying the Lyle Gun | [110] |
| Firing the Shot and Line | [110] |
| Gold Life-Saving Medal | [118] |
| Life-boat Capsize-Drill | [138] |
| Rushing the Apparatus-Cart | [146] |
| Breeches-Buoy Drill. Firing | [158] |
| Breeches-Buoy Drill. Rescuing Survivor | [158] |
| The Lightship That Went Ashore | [168] |
| Guarding the Graveyard of the Deep | [168] |
| Coast Guard Cutter, Miami, on July Fourth | [194] |
| The Bear in the Ice Pack | [202] |
| The Bear Breaking Free from the Ice | [202] |
| Reindeer Messengers of Rescue | [210] |
| Reindeer That Saved Three Hundred Lives | [210] |
| Signals That Guard Our Coast | [224] |
| Going to Pieces Fast | [234] |
| "We Saved 'Em All" | [234] |
| Native Refugees from Katmai Eruption | [244] |
| "The Iron Rim Rolling Savagely" | [256] |
| "The Boat Went into Matchwood" | [266] |
| Man's Waterspout. A Derelict's End | [280] |
| Preparing to Blow Up a Derelict | [280] |
| The Greatest Menace of the Seas | [290] |
| Burned to the Water's Edge | [290] |
| Foam—The Derelict's Only Tombstone | [300] |
| Mining a Lurking Peril | [300] |
| Stranded! After Storm Has Ceased and Tide Has Ebbed | [310] |
| The Signal of Distress That Was Never Seen | [320] |
| Iceberg with Miami in the Background | [330] |
| The Ghostly Ally of Disaster | [330] |
| A Rescue on the Diamond Shoals | [340] |
THE BOY WITH THE U. S. LIFE-SAVERS
CHAPTER I
A RESCUE BY MOONLIGHT
"Help! Help!"
The cry rang out despairingly over the almost-deserted beach at Golden Gate Park.
Jumping up so suddenly that the checker-board went in one direction, the table in another, while the checkers rolled to every corner of the little volunteer life-saving station house, Eric Swift made a leap for the door. Quick as he was to reach the boat, he was none too soon, for the coxswain and two other men were tumbling over the gunwale at the same time.
Before the echoes of the cry had ceased, the boat was through the surf and was heading out to sea like an arrow shot from a Sioux war-bow.
Although this was the second summer that Eric had been with the Volunteers, it had never chanced to him before to be called out on a rescue at night. The sensation was eerie in the extreme. The night was still, with a tang of approaching autumn in the air to set the nerves a-tingle. Straight in the golden path of moonlight the boat sped. The snap that comes from exerting every muscle to the full quickened the boy's eagerness and the tense excitement made everything seem unreal.