Darry would never forget that hour.
The impressions he received then would remain with him through life; and in his eyes the calling of a life saver must always be reckoned the noblest vocation to which a young man could pledge himself.
He thought he would like nothing better than to become one of the band, and in some way repay the great debt he owed them by doing as he had been done by.
Presently he had so far recovered that he could get up and move around.
All of the sailors had not been equally fortunate; indeed, two of them would never again scour the seas, having taken out papers for that long voyage the end of which no mortal eye can see.
As each new arrival was carried in the boy would be the first to hasten forward, but as often his sigh echoed the heavy feeling in his heart as he discovered a face other than the familiar one he had grown to love.
One of the surfmen who had manned the lifeboat seemed to be particularly interested in the rescued boy, for he came into the station several times to ask how he was feeling, and if there was not something more he wanted.
He was a tall, angular fellow, with a thin but engaging face, and Darry had heard some of the others call him Abner Peake.
Somehow he found himself drawn toward this man from the start; and it seemed as though in losing one good friend he had found another to take the place of the kind captain.
Abner was a native of the shore, and spoke in the peculiar dialect of the uneducated Southerner; but as a water-dog he knew no superior, and it is this quality that Uncle Sam looks for when making up his crews to man the life-saving stations that dot the whole coast from Maine to Florida.