CHAPTER III
HEROES OF THE UNDERGROUND
Knowing that his father had spent many years on Tillamook Rock, Eric was eager to see every nook and cranny of the building, and he importuned his uncle to go with him over the structure. But, although the inspector and the light-keeper were brothers, the trip was an official one, and his uncle deputed one of the assistant light-keepers to show the lad around.
Eric was not slow in making use of his time. He climbed up to the lantern and saw for himself close at hand the lens he had so often heard described, astonishing his guide with all sorts of questions. Most of these showed an extraordinary knowledge of lights and lighthouses, in which a mass of information was combined with utter ignorance of detail. This was due to the boy's long acquaintance with the Lighthouse Service through the several members of his family who had served in it.
"You know," said Eric, "I had the idea that Tillamook Rock would seem a lot higher, when one was on top of it. When you look at it from the sea, it stands up so sheer and straight that it seems almost like a mountain."
"Well, lad," the assistant-keeper answered, "it is tolerable high. It's nigh a hundred feet to the level o' the rock, an' the light's another forty. It's none too high, at that."
"Why? The sea can't hurt you much, this high up!" said Eric, leaning over the railing of the gallery around the light and looking down. "Even a twenty-foot wave's a big one, and you're six or seven times as high up as that."
"You think we're sort o' peacefully floatin' in a zone o' quiet up here? You've got to revise your notion o' the Pacific quite a much! Neptoon can put up a better article of fight right around this same spot here than anywheres else I know. Maybe you didn' hear o' the time the sea whittled off a slice o' rock weighin' a ton or so and sort o' chucked it at the light?"
"No," said Eric, "I never heard a word about it. When was it?"