“As any feller of honor would, key or no key,” growled Tom Walker.
“Oh, sartin, sartin, Tom,” replied the keeper. “They didn’t get it up for you, but for the fellers in some—some—other station.”
And Tom’s growl changed to a pleasant laugh. “Where’s my Coston signal?” he asked.
“Here it is,” replied the keeper.
“What’s that?” asked Walter.
“It is for signaling to anybody on the water in the night, and this burns a red light.”
The Coston signal was a few inches long, marked on the bottom with the word, “Patrol.”
“This,” said the keeper, “fits into a socket on one end of this wooden handle which you see I have. At the other end is that brass knob. When I want to use my signal, I strike that knob, and it forces a rod up into a little hole in the end of the signal. That strikes a percussion cap, and ignites a fusee, and out flashes a red light. That is my explanation of it.”
Out into the cold, shadowy night, they went. Tom led off, slouching along heavily, carelessly yet doggedly; as if he had a duty before him which he did not wholly relish, but meant to put it through, like a horse in a treadmill, whose greatest concern is to put one foot before the other, and to keep putting until lunch time. There was a bright glitter of stars in the sky, and the land was white with the pure snow; but where the sea stretched toward the east, was one vast mass of blackness. Out of this blackness, came a voice, that shouted all along the shore, “Ho—ho—ho—ho!” The sea was very smooth, and the sound of the surf was not heavy enough to interrupt the conversation between Tom and Walter.