“Meaning this little bundle of hair?” the keeper asked with a laugh, laying his hand on the dog’s head.
“Yes, sir; she thinks very much of him, an’ I promised to keep him close in my arms if it so happened that we had to come ashore lashed to the spar.”
“I reckon you couldn’t have done different, tied together as you two were,” Surfman Dick Sawyer said with a laugh, and the keeper added kindly:
“There’s no need to fret about the dog; he shall have the run of the station, and there’s nothing to harm him while old Maje is in the boat-house—Maje is our dog,” Downey added as he read the question in the boy’s eyes. “He’s large enough to swallow two or three like this little one here; but I’ll answer for it your Fluff isn’t in any danger, and to set your mind at rest he shall stay close by you till morning. We’ll put you to bed now, I reckon; there’s other work for us outside.”
“I can take care of myself, sir,” the lad said bravely, as he attempted to struggle to his feet, the dog meanwhile barking furiously as if cautioning his young master against being too venturesome.
“I thought you couldn’t do it,” Keeper Downey said, catching the boy in time to prevent a fall, and without further parley he carried him to the sleeping-room above.
When the rescued lad was tucked snugly between a generous supply of blankets, the dog curled himself up on the outside of the bed with his nose close beside the boy’s cheek, and Keeper Downey muttered to himself as he descended the stairs:
“If all the ship’s crew had been put away as safe and comfortable as those two, we should have done a night’s work of which we might well be proud.”
Then out into the howling, wintry blast went the men who had brought the lad and the dog to the station, and during the remainder of that terrible night every man did patrol duty, pacing to and fro along the rocky shore, or keeping faithful watch over the narrow strip of beach, in the faint hope that there might be other survivors, although there was little chance that such could be the case.
To continue the official report: “Only remnants of spars and cargo, however, were cast at their feet, and when daylight finally dawned all eyes were intently turned toward the wreck with a vague hope that, by some altogether improbable possibility, there might be some signs of living men on board. But there were none.