“But we find it in spots down here,” Joe Cushing interrupted. “Back of the rocks the wind packs it into sheltered places, and although there’s none to be seen from the station door, we often come upon drifts three or four feet deep. It’s precious hard work draggin’ the beach-wagon then.”
Benny soon had an illustration of his companions’ statements. They had been walking over land whereon not a single fleck of white could be seen, when suddenly, coming upon a gully which was sheltered from the wind by the cliffs, they were floundering in a deposit of snow so deep that only with the greatest difficulty could the boy force his way through.
“It’s always a feast or a famine out here, lad,” Sam Hardy said grimly. “No snow whatever, or too much of it.”
Then he led the way across what might have been mistaken, save for the dead grass, for a summer landscape.
The little party were not far from the station when the men halted in front of a post to which was attached a small iron receptacle containing a key, fastened to a chain, and Sam said, as, removing his mittens, he took this out:
“Now you shall see, my son, the meaning of this ’ere bit of furniture we’re obliged to carry. A dishonest surfman might go a short distance from the station, find a snug loafing-place, and spend his time of duty there instead of patrolling the coast, if it wasn’t for the little telltale inside this case. We must be at certain places in order to get at the keys which fit the lock—in this wise.”
As he spoke Sam turned the key in what was seemingly a tiny lock on the leathern case.
“Inside is a sort of clock which makes a record whenever I turn the key. After we are back at the station Tom Downey can tell if I have visited all the points where the key is kept, and exactly what time I was there. It makes a record for him to look up, and is a satisfaction to me, because it proves I have done my whole duty.”
At nearly every point along the rugged coast Sam and Joe had some story to tell of disaster, or of saving life from the raging waters by the crew of which Benny had good reason now to consider himself a member.
Here, a schooner, having been dismasted, was thrown up on the hidden reef which makes out some distance from the land, and, during a furious storm when the sleet and hail cut into the flesh like needles, the life savers were forced to drag their apparatus through the snowdrifts from two to four feet deep, after which, by aid of the gun and the breeches-buoy, every man was saved.