But he little knew under what circumstances he would see his uncle’s vessel once more.
CHAPTER XI
RAY’S FIND
For some time following their adventure with Warden Williams’ lobster patrol and their subsequent chase by the Fish Hawk, Ray and Jack were kept rather busy about the construction camp, for the lighthouse builders were working at full speed and taking advantage of the excellent August weather. Mr. Warner was staying awake all hours of the night, working out construction problems in his little office, and of course the two lads had to keep his place in order and do a great deal of checking up after these sessions of activity.
They paid daily visits to Cobra Head, also, to watch the progress of the work there, and during each of their visits they learned something new about the problems of erecting a sea-swept lighthouse. In spite of the excellent weather that the workmen had been blessed with, it seemed to the two lads that they were making unusually slow progress. In truth, though they had been laboring a little more than six weeks there were but four courses of stone laid. Jack remarked about this to Mr. Warner on one occasion when the engineer had accompanied the boys to the rocks.
“Huh,” said Mr. Warner, “if you think that is slow just look up the construction records made on other lighthouses and you will understand what slow work is. We’ve been particularly fortunate here in being so well above the water. Why, there are some jobs where the tide and waves will only allow the men to work a few hours every month, and then they have to accomplish their task with one hand on a life-line, so to speak.
“Look at the conditions that the workmen were forced to contend with while building Minot’s Ledge light, for instance. The old rock was but three feet out of water at the best tide and the engineers had to build a steel structure over the ledge and attach life-lines to it and station a lookout to watch for big waves. When the lookout saw a large one coming which he knew would curl over the rock he shouted a warning and every man grabbed his life-line and threw himself flat upon the rock to keep from being washed overboard. They always worked in wet clothes and they were mighty lucky to have whole legs and arms after a wave had passed. Why, they didn’t get in but 130 hours’ work the first year and it took five whole years to build the beacon.”
“Jiminy, that must have been some job,” said Jack.
“You bet it was,” assured Mr. Warner. “Why, they had to think of all sorts of tricks to keep old Neptune from beating them. When they were building the foundation on the ledge, they had to bring bags of sand out and construct veritable cofferdams about the spot that had been pared down to hold a building block. Then every time they put cement onto a block to hold the next one in place they had to put cheese cloth over the cement to keep stray waves from sneaking up and licking the block clear before the new block could be put in place.”
“Did they take the cheese cloth off before they put the next stone in position?” asked Ray.