THE BOY WITH THE
U. S. LIFE-SAVERS

Courtesy of Outing Magazine.

The Gleam that Brings Hope.

Coast Guard patrol burning the Coston Light as signal to wrecked vessel that help is at hand.

U. S. SERVICE SERIES.

THE BOY WITH
THE U. S. LIFE-SAVERS
BY
FRANCIS ROLT-WHEELER

With Forty-eight Illustrations, nearly all from Photographs Loaned by Bureaus of the U. S. Government

BOSTON
LOTHROP, LEE & SHEPARD CO.

Published, August, 1915

Copyright, 1915, By Lothrop, Lee & Shepard Co.
All rights reserved
THE BOY WITH THE U. S. LIFE-SAVERS

Norwood Press
BERWICK & SMITH CO.
NORWOOD, MASS.
U. S. A.

PREFACE

Upon the hungry rock-bound shores of Maine, and over the treacherous quicksands of Cape Hatteras, the billows of the Atlantic roll; the tropical storms of the Gulf of Mexico whip a high surf over the coral reefs of Florida; upon the Pacific coast, six thousand miles of sea fling all their fury on the land; yet no one fears. Serene in the knowledge that the United States Coast Guard and the Lighthouse Bureau never sleep, vessels from every corner of the world converge to the great seaports of America.

The towers that stand sentinel all day, or flame their unceasing vigilance all night, hold out their message of welcome or of warning to every ship that nears the coast, and not a point of danger is unprotected. Should an unreckoned-with disaster cast a vessel on the breakers, there is not a mile of beach that the Coast Guard does not watch.

Far in the northern Bering Sea, a Coast Guard cutter blazes the hidden trail through Polar ice for the oncoming fleet of whalers, and carries American justice to where, as yet, no court has been; out in the mid-Atlantic, when the Greenland icebergs follow their silent path of ghostly menace, a Coast Guard cutter watches and warns the great ocean liners of their peril; and when, in spite of all that skill and watchfulness can do, the sea claims its toll of wreck, it is the Coast Guard cutter that is first upon the scene of rescue. To show the stern work done by the U. S. Coast Guard, to depict the indomitable men who overcome dangers greater than are known to any others who traffic on the sea, to point to the manly boyhood of America this arm of our country's national defense, whose history is one long record of splendid heroism, is the aim and purpose of

The Author.

CONTENTS

ILLUSTRATIONS

THE BOY WITH THE U. S. LIFE-SAVERS

CHAPTER I
A RESCUE BY MOONLIGHT

"Help! Help!"

The cry rang out despairingly over the almost-deserted beach at Golden Gate Park.

Jumping up so suddenly that the checker-board went in one direction, the table in another, while the checkers rolled to every corner of the little volunteer life-saving station house, Eric Swift made a leap for the door. Quick as he was to reach the boat, he was none too soon, for the coxswain and two other men were tumbling over the gunwale at the same time.

Before the echoes of the cry had ceased, the boat was through the surf and was heading out to sea like an arrow shot from a Sioux war-bow.

Although this was the second summer that Eric had been with the Volunteers, it had never chanced to him before to be called out on a rescue at night. The sensation was eerie in the extreme. The night was still, with a tang of approaching autumn in the air to set the nerves a-tingle. Straight in the golden path of moonlight the boat sped. The snap that comes from exerting every muscle to the full quickened the boy's eagerness and the tense excitement made everything seem unreal.

The coxswain, with an intuition which was his peculiar gift, steered an undeviating course. Some of the life-savers used to joke with him and declare that he could smell a drowning man a mile away, for his instinct was almost always right.

For once, Eric thought, the coxswain must have been at fault, for nothing was visible, when, after a burst of speed which seemed to last minutes—though in reality it was but seconds—the coxswain held up his hand. The men stopped rowing.

The boy had slipped off his shoes while still at his oar, working off first one shoe and then the other with his foot. It was so late in the evening that not a single man in the crew was in the regulation bathing-suit, all were more or less dressed. Eric's chum, a chap nicknamed the "Eel" because of his curious way of swimming, with one motion slipped off all his clothing and passed from his thwart to the bow of the boat.

A ripple showed on the surface of the water. Eric could not have told it from the roughness of a breaking wave, but before ever the outlines of a rising head were seen, the Eel sprang into the sea. Two of those long, sinuous strokes of his brought him almost within reach of the drowning man. Blindly the half-strangled sufferer threw up his arms, the action sending him under water again, a gurgled "Help!" being heard by those in the boat as he went down.

The Eel dived.

Eric, who had followed his chum headforemost into the water hardly half a second later, swam around waiting for the other to come up. In three quarters of a minute the Eel rose to the surface with his living burden. Suddenly, with a twist, almost entirely unconscious, the drowning man grappled his rescuer. Eric knew that his chum was an adept at all the various ways of "breaking away" from these grips, a necessary part of the training of every life-saver, but he swam close up in case he might be able to help.

"Got him all right?" he asked.

"He's got me!" grunted the Eel, disgustedly.

"P'raps I'd better give you a hand to break," suggested the boy, reaching over with the intention of helping his friend, for the struggling swimmer had secured a tight grip around the Eel's neck. The life-saver, however, covering the nose and mouth of the half-drowned man with one hand, pulled him close with the other and punched him vigorously in the wind with his knee.

"Now he'll be good," said the Eel, grinning as well as he could with a mouth full of water. He spat out the brine, shook the water out of his eyes, and putting his hands on either side of the drowning man's head, started for the shore. Using a powerful "scissors" stroke, the Eel made quick time, though he seemed to be taking it in leisurely fashion. Eric, although a good swimmer, had all he could do to keep up.

"How do you think he is?" the lad asked.

"Oh, he'll come around all right," the Eel replied, "I don't believe he's swallowed such an awful lot of water. I guess he's been able to swim a bit."

The rescued man was a good weight and not fat, so that he floated deep. The sea was choppy, too, with a nasty little surf on the beach. But the Eel brought the sufferer in with the utmost ease.

As soon as they reached shore, Eric grabbed the drowning man's feet while the Eel took him by the shoulders and lifted him on a stretcher which two other members of the Volunteer Corps had brought. As soon as the rescued man was placed on this, the bearers started at a quick pace for the life-saving station, and artificial respiration was begun.

In spite of the fact that the boy had seen dozens of half-drowned persons brought back to consciousness, the process never lost to him its half-terrible fascination. He always felt the lurking danger and he had been well-trained never to forget how much hung in the balance. Always it was a human life, flickering like a candle-flame in a gusty wind. Always the outcome was unknown.

Once Eric had worked for a solid hour over a man who had been brought in from the beach before he had been rewarded by any sign of life. The U. S. Volunteer Corps had drilled into him very thoroughly the knowledge that tireless patience and grim persistence will almost work miracles. Accordingly, when it came his turn, he joined readily in the work of restoration. The swim had tired him a little, and he was glad to quit when another member of the station took his place over the half-drowned man's body.

"Why do we use the Schaefer method, Doctor?" Eric asked.

"It's the best system for our work," was the reply, "because it can be done by one person. Quite often, a fellow may make a rescue and bring some one to shore, so that he will have to work alone. You're not going to be right at a station always."

"That's true," the boy said meditatively.

"Watch, now," continued the doctor, pointing to the life-saver, who was at work and who was kneeling astride the prone figure of the unconscious man. "You see Johnson's hands are pressing right between the short ribs, aren't they?"

"Yes, that's the base of the lungs, isn't it?" Eric queried.

"It is," the doctor answered. "Now when a man brings down the weight of the upper part of his body on his hands—the way Johnson is doing there—it means that about one hundred pounds of pressure is applied to those lungs, doesn't it?"

"Sure; fifty pounds on each lung," agreed the boy.

"You can see how that forces out nearly every bit of air in the lungs. Then, as soon as he leans backwards again, and takes off the pressure, the air rushes in to fill the lungs. That makes artificial breathing, doesn't it?"

"Of course."

"That's the whole secret of restoration; that, and keeping everlastingly at it."

"But if the Schaefer method is the best way," protested Eric, "I don't see why everybody doesn't use it."

"Such as—"

"Well, the Life-Saving end of the Coast Guard doesn't!"

"I don't say the Schaefer is the only good method," answered the doctor; "nothing of the kind. It's the one that suits us best." He stepped over to the prostrate man, never relaxing his vigilant watch for the first sign of life. Then, returning to Eric, he continued, "The Coast Guard uses the Sylvester method, doesn't it?"

"One of the forms of it, Father told me," the boy answered. "He showed me how. It's quite different from what we do here."

"How did he show you?" asked the doctor interestedly; "there are so many different ways."

"Father told me to stand or kneel at the head of the chap who had been rescued, then, grabbing hold of the arms above the elbows, to draw them up over the head, keep them there a couple of seconds, then force them down and press them against the sides of the chest. I suppose the principle is about the same."

"Exactly the same," the doctor said, "but of course every one has his preference. I like the Schaefer method best, myself, because in it the tongue hangs out and the water runs from the mouth naturally, while in the Sylvester method, the tongue has to be tied."

"But which is the better?" persisted Eric.

"There really doesn't seem to be much difference in the result," was the reply, "it's the man behind the gun, not the system. The Coast Guard so far holds the record for the most wonderful cases of recovery and theirs is the older method. The important thing is to know exactly what you're doing, and to do it with everlasting perseverance. Never give up! I've seen some wonderful examples of fellows just snatched back to life long after we thought they had gone. There was one, I remember—"

"Doctor!" called Johnson, "I think he's coming to!"

The rescued man gave a gasp and his eyelids fluttered. The doctor was beside him in an instant, but instead of seeming satisfied by his examination he shook his head doubtfully as he rose from the side of his patient.

"Going all right?" queried Eric.

"No," was the answer, "he's not. I think he's got smokers' heart. You'd better watch him a bit closely, boys! One can't ever tell in these cases."

"You mean he's not out of the woods yet, Doctor?" the lad asked.

"Not by a long shot," was the reply. "You can't play any monkey-shines with the heart. Judging by the shape that fellow's heart is in, I should be inclined to say he's been smoking for nearly ten years, smoking pretty heavily, too. And he can't be a day over twenty-three!"

"Do you suppose that had anything to do with his drowning?"

"Of course it had," the doctor answered. "Swimming is a real athletic exercise and you've got to keep in shape to swim well. What's more, you've got to have a decent heart to start with. But if a youngster piles into cigarettes, it's a safe bet that he's going to cripple himself for athletics in manhood."

"But you smoke, Doctor!"

"Sure I do," the other rejoined. "And I swim, pretty nearly as well as any of you young fellows. But I didn't start any cigarette business when I was a kid, the way lots of boys do now. It wasn't until I was in college that I smoked my first pipe."

"Then you think it's all right for a chap to smoke after he's grown up?"

"I wouldn't go as far as to say that," the doctor said, "but there's no doubt that the cases which have turned out worst are those in which the habit began early. Nature's a wise old scout, Eric, and you're apt to find that a man who's likely to be hurt by smoking won't develop a craving for it unless he started too young, or unless he forced himself to excess."

The boy wanted to question the doctor further, for he was thoroughly interested in finding out that smoking prevents an athletic manhood, when the speaker was interrupted by a cry from the half-conscious man.

"Jake!" he called.

The doctor was beside him in a second.

"What is it, son?" he said, bending his head down so that his grizzled mustache almost brushed the man's face.

Courtesy of U.S. Bureau of Lighthouses.

The Light that Never Sleeps.

A powerful automatic beacon on Richardson's Rock, Cal., that burns half a year without attention.

"Jake! Where's Jake?"

A sudden silence swept over the station. Only the Eel moved. With that queer sliding step of his that was almost noiseless, he went to the door of the little house that faced the sea.

"Jake!" again the cry came. "Where's Jake?"

The man was relapsing into unconsciousness when the doctor quickly took a powerful restorative from his medicine-bag, which lay beside the cot, and held it to the man's nose. The fumes roused him.

"Where did you leave him?" queried the doctor.

"I—I couldn't get him," gasped the rescued man, breathing heavily.

There was a general rustle and every man half-turned to the door. In the silence a man's boot, being kicked off, clattered noisily on the floor.

"How do you mean you couldn't get him?" the doctor persisted. "Was he swimming with you?"

"He went down—sudden—" came the answer, weakly, "and when I tried ... to help ... he pulled at my legs."

The words were hardly out of his lips before the station-house was empty save for the doctor and the rescued swimmer. As the door slid back behind them, Eric heard the man cry in a quavering voice,

"I've drowned him! I've drowned him! I had to kick him free to save myself!"

Outside, not a word was said. The men knew their work and their places. The coxswains were ready and the three white boats were sliding down the beach, the big boat down the runway, as the men heard that cry again,

"I've drowned him! I've drowned him. I had to kick him free to save myself!"

The words rang hauntingly in Eric's ears as his boat hit the first incoming billow. The former rescue in the moonlight had held a quick thrill, but it had been nothing like this tense eager race in the darkness. Nearly a quarter of an hour had passed in the station-house before the rescued man had recovered consciousness and the rescue had taken at least five minutes. Almost twenty-five minutes had elapsed, then, since the first cry of help had been heard.

The boats leapt forward like swift dogs released from leash. The oars were made to resist extreme strain, but they bent under the terrific strokes of the life-savers. Over six thousand miles of sea the Pacific rolled in with slow surges, and out in the darkness, somewhere, was a drowning man, probably beyond help, but with just the faintest shred of possibility for life if he could be found immediately.

With that uncanny intuition which made him so marvelous in the work, the coxswain of Eric's boat steered a course fifty feet away from that of the larger boat.

Not a word was spoken until, above the swish of the water and the rattle of the rowlocks, the Eel said quietly,

"We picked him up a little to wind'ard of here!" Three men, among them Eric, slipped into the water. Almost at the same moment, five or six men plunged in from the other boats. The lieutenant stopped Eric's chum.

"You'd better stay aboard, Eel," he said; "you've already had quite a swim."

The Eel shrugged his shoulders disapprovingly, but, after all, orders were orders, and the captain of the Golden Gate station was a disciplinarian to his finger-tips.

In the broken gleams of the moonlight flickering on the tumbled water, the forms of the dozen members of the corps could be seen. Ever and again one would disappear from sight for a deep dive to try to find the body.

This was a part of the work in which Eric was particularly good. He had a strong leg-stroke and was compactly built, although large-boned for his age. Tired though he was from swimming ashore with the Eel on the first rescue, he went down as often as any of his comrades. Looking back at the boat, he saw the Eel wave his hand in a direction a little south of where he had dived before.

Following out the suggestion, Eric took a long breath and went down. It was a deep dive, and he thought he saw a gleam of white below him. The boy tried to swim down a foot or two farther, but his breath failed him, and he shot up, gasping, to the surface. Not wanting to give a false alarm, yet knowing well that every second counted, the boy merely stayed long enough to get his breath, then, putting every ounce of power he possessed into a supreme effort, he went down again. This time he got a foot nearer, but not near enough to be quite sure. Again he darted up to the surface.

"Here, fellows!" he shouted.

The boat shot up beside him.

"Found him, Eric?"

"I think so, sir," the boy answered, "but he was too far down for me."

The Eel had stripped. He stood up and looked pleadingly at the lieutenant.

"Sure you're not tired?"

The Eel smiled.

"Overboard with you, then!"

He dived.

Dozens of times though Eric had seen the Eel dive, and often as he had tried to imitate him, the boy never ceased to envy his comrade his extraordinary power of going into the water without the slightest splash. Powerful dive though it was, scarcely a drop of water seemed to be displaced as the Eel went down.

During the few seconds that passed while these sentences were being interchanged, three or four others of the life-savers had rallied to Eric's call and were headed for the boat. One man, especially, a big, burly fellow who looked as though he would be too heavy to swim, but who possessed an astounding amount of endurance and who could hold his breath longer than any one else in the station, followed the Eel to the bottom. Eric was game, and although he was beginning to feel thoroughly done up, he joined the quest in the depths of the sea.

Moonlight gives no reflections beneath the water, and the sea was dark. The Eel was already out of sight below him, but as the boy made his way down, the powerful figure of the heavy swimmer came past him like a shadow.

A few seconds later, the Eel shot up by him, bringing an unconscious man in his grasp. The other swimmer followed. By the time Eric reached the boat he was exhausted and had to be helped in. The rescued man had been lifted into the large boat, and before the boy was even aboard, the other craft was half-way to the shore, racing like mad. The other boats followed.

As soon as the surf-boat touched the beach, the big man jumped out, two other members of the corps threw the unconscious figure across his shoulders for the "fireman's carry," and while the keel of the boat was still grinding on the beach, the rescued man was well on the way toward the house.

The doctor was waiting. The victim of the drowning accident, apparently dead, was put into hot blankets. His arms and legs were stiff. The lips were quite blue and the whole of the face discolored. At the sight of him, and the little slimy ooze from his lips, the doctor looked grave. The big life-saver who had carried the sufferer in was already at work in an attempt at resuscitation.

A moment or two later, the first man who had been rescued and who was feeling a little stronger, turned over on the stretcher. He saw the swollen and discolored face of his friend and sent up a piercing cry,

"He's dead!"

Then, after a pause and a silence broken only by the rhythmic beat of the regular motions of the process of causing artificial respiration, came the cry again,

"I've drowned him! I've drowned him! I had to kick him free to save myself!"

Although the house was kept empty save for the four men, the doctor beckoned to one of the officers standing outside—so that there should be as much air as possible in the station—to come in and try to quiet the frenzied man.

"Bromides, Doctor?" queried the lieutenant, who had come in.

"Yes. Give him just one of the triple. No, that won't hurt him," he continued in answer to a look; "it's excessive stimulation that a man with smokers' heart can't stand."

The life-saver gave the required dose and succeeded in soothing the poor fellow, who was still terribly weak. The men sat on the steps outside, talking in low tones. Every one of them was keenly conscious of the strain. For twenty minutes there was no sound from within the station except the hard breathing of the man who was putting in all his strength to give the recumbent figure the motions of respiration.

"Ryan!" the doctor called suddenly.

A strapping young fellow jumped up like a shot and darted into the station to take the place of the exhausted worker. Wiping his forehead and breathing hard, the latter came out to his companions.

"Do you think there's any change, Jim?" one of them asked.

"Not so far as I can see," the other answered, shaking his head.

"How long do you suppose he was under?" queried another.

Close comparison of watches gave the actual time as between nineteen and twenty-one minutes.

"Has any one ever been saved who has been under water as long as that?" asked Eric.

"Eighteen minutes is the longest I've ever seen," answered Johnson, the veteran of the corps, "but, of course, there's the Mooney case."

The boy listened a moment, but no sound came from the station. It was less nerve-racking to talk than to listen, so he went on,

"What was the Mooney case?"

"That was a Coast Guard job, in the days when the United States Life-Saving Service was a separate bureau. It was quite a queer case in a good many ways."

"How long was Mooney under water? Half an hour, wasn't it?" questioned another of the men.

"Thirty-one minutes, according to general reports," Johnson replied, "but to make sure that they weren't stretching it, the official report made it 'twenty minutes or over.' One of my pals worked on the man."

"How was it?" queried Eric. "In a storm?"

"Beautiful sunny Fourth of July," was the reply. "And, what's more, it was in shallow water, near shore, and the man could swim!"

"But how in the world—"

"That's exactly what I'm telling," Johnson continued, resenting the interruption. "It was during a boat race on Point Judith Pond in Rhode Island. My pal, who was a surfman, had been assigned to duty there. Naturally, he was watching the races. On the other side of the pond a small flat-bottomed skiff, carrying one sail, capsized. There were three men in her. Streeter, that's the fellow I know, saw the boat capsize, but he knew that the water was shallow and noted that it was near shore. Just the same, he kept an eye on the boat. As soon as he saw two men clinging to the sides of the skiff, he started for the scene of the accident. He was about a third of a mile away.

"What had happened was this. When the boat capsized, the swinging boom struck Mooney on the head, making him unconscious. He was swept under the sail and pinned down by it. The other two men, neither of whom could swim, managed to scramble on to the capsized skiff. They saw no sign of Mooney, and knowing that he was a swimmer, thought he had struck out for the shore. It wasn't until several minutes later that it occurred to one of them that their comrade might be pinned under the sail.

"With a good deal of personal risk, for his hold was insecure and he couldn't swim, this chap managed to get hold of the canvas and somehow—he said he didn't know how, himself—succeeded in getting Mooney out from under the sail. He gripped Mooney's collar, but could not lift his head above water. All that he could do was barely to hold on."

Courtesy of Outing Magazine.

The Lonely Watcher of the Coast.

Courtesy of Outing Magazine.

Where Patrols Meet. The Half-Way Point.

"Showed a good deal of grit to do even that, it seems to me," said one of the life-savers. "It's an awful feeling to be nearly drowned."

"It did show grit," agreed Johnson. "If it had been a drowning woman with long hair, she could have been held up all right; but a grip on the collar, when the head is hanging forward, means a dead lift out of water. I don't wonder that the young fellow wasn't able to do it.

"When my pal reached there, he got Mooney aboard, the other two clambered in and they started for the shore. Mooney was as purple as a grape and his arms were so stiff that two men, one on each side, could barely move them. Nearly a quart of water was got out of him, and they had an awful job prying open his jaws.

"They worked over him for an hour and twenty minutes before there was the slightest sign of life. Not until twenty-five minutes more did the heart begin, and Mooney did not regain consciousness until nine hours later. As his watch had stopped at 4:20 P.M. and it was 4:53 when Streeter got ashore, that man's heart had stopped, his breathing had stopped and he had been practically dead for more than two hours."

"Just goes to show," said one of the others, "that it isn't merely swallowing water that drowns a fellow."

"It isn't swallowing water at all, as I understand," rejoined another member of the group. "Drowning's a kind of poisoning of the blood because the lungs can't get oxygen. It's just like choking to death or being hanged."

There was a call from within.

"Murchison!"

The life-saver who had just been speaking, got up quickly and went in to relieve Ryan.

"Any luck?" Johnson asked, as the latter came out.

The Irishman shook his head.

"There's nothin' yet, but he moight come round anny minute," was his reply, with the invincible optimism of his race.

Eric had been thinking of Murchison's description of drowning.

"Why did they roll half-drowned people on a barrel in the old times?" he asked.

"Sure, they were ijits," Ryan answered cheerfully.

"But what was the idea? To get the water out?"

"Just that. They used to think the lungs were a tank."

"Murchison was saying that people drowned because they couldn't get oxygen. Isn't there oxygen in water?"

"Av coorse there is," the Irishman replied. "But ye've got to have the gills of a fish to use it. Annyhow, a man's got warm blood an' a fish has cold. It takes a lot of oxygen to get a man's blood warm. An' if he doesn't get it, he dies.

"Ye see, Eric," he continued, "that's why ye've got to go on workin' over a drowned man. Ye can't tell how badly he's poisoned. An' it's honest I am in tellin' ye that I think we've got a chance in there."

"You do?"

"I do that," was the cheery answer. "There's no tellin'."

Again came that cry from the station, a cry whose very repetition made it all the more nerve-racking,

"I've drowned him! I've drowned him! I had to kick him free to save myself!"

Eric shivered. There was something gruesome in the monotony of the same words over and over again. The noises on the beach died down. Several of the men, who did not live at the station-house, went to their cottages. The boy gave a jump when he heard a step behind him and saw the old doctor standing there.

The night was very still. Nothing could be heard but the roar of the surf on the beach. Eric, who was imaginative, thought that the surf seemed to be triumphing in having snatched another life. Feeling sure that the doctor would understand him, the boy turned and said,

"Doctor, shall we be able to beat out the sea?"

The Highland imagination of the doctor instantly caught the lad's meaning.

"You've heard it, too!" he said. "Many and many's the time I've thought the sea was skreeling in triumph when a drowned man was brought ashore. But I've snatched a many back."

"Will you—" began the boy.

"Doctor!" came a cry from within.

"Well?" he answered eagerly, stepping to the door.

"I thought I caught a breath!"

The doctor's keen eyes glinted as he knelt beside the prostrate figure.

Nine, ten, eleven times the weight of the life-saver was brought forward and released. At the twelfth, there was a slight respiration.

"Did you see, Doctor?" he cried, pausing in his work.

"What the mischief are you stopping for?" was the doctor's impatient answer. Then he added, "You're doing splendidly, Murchison; just keep it up!"

Five more minutes passed without a single sign. Both men had begun to feel that possibly they had been mistaken, when there was a definite flutter of an eyelid. The surfman would have given a triumphant shout but for the doctor's rebuke a moment or two before.

Quietly the old Scotchman began to promote circulation by rubbing the legs upward, so as to drive the venous blood to the heart and thus try to start its action. Almost ten minutes elapsed before the doctor's patience was rewarded with the faint throb of a heart-beat, then another. It was soft and irregular at first, but gradually the blood began to move through the arteries and in a few minutes a pulse could be felt. The lips lost a little of their blue color and breathing began.

"He's got a grand heart!" said the old doctor, ten minutes later, as the pulse-beats began to come with regularity. "I hardly believed that we could bring him round. It's a good thing it was this chap and not the other. We could never have saved yon man if he had been half as long submerged."

"You really think that we shall save him?" queried Eric, more to hear the doctor's assurance than because of any doubt of the result.

"We have saved him," was the reply. "In a day or two he'll be as well as he ever was. And, to my thinking, he'll be wiser than he was before, for he'll never do such a silly thing as to go out for a swim at night-time after dinner with—well, after a heavy dinner."

"Seems too bad that we can't tell his friend," the boy suggested. "It's just awful to hear him accusing himself all through the night."

"If he's asleep," the doctor answered, "that's better for him than anything else. Oh, I don't know," he continued, "he seems to be stirring. Do you want to tell him?"

Eric flashed a grateful glance at the doctor.

"If I might?"

"Go ahead!"

"Mr. Willett," said the boy, coming close to the stretcher. "Mr. Willett!"

"Well?" said the rescued man, waking out of a remorse-haunted dream.

"Jake has been saved. He's all right."

In spite of his exhaustion and his sudden awakening from sleep, the first man who had been rescued sat up on the stretcher and craned his head forward to see his friend. In spite of the sufferer's bruised and swollen appearance, it was evident to the most inexperienced eye that life was not extinct. The convalescent looked at the doctor and tried to find words, but something in his throat choked him.

He reached out and grasped the boy's hand, holding it tightly. Then, looking around the station, he said softly,

"A man's world is a good world to live in!"

CHAPTER II
THE LIGHTS THAT NEVER SLEEP

It was a happy awakening in the life-saving station the next morning, for both the rescued men were well on the road to recovery. Eric had intended to be the first to tell Willett the entire story, but the events of the night had been a heavy strain on him and he had slept late. Indeed, he did not waken until the gang of boys came round for their morning drill. Drill was scheduled at nine o'clock, but it was seldom that there failed to be at least half a dozen urchins around the station by eight, or even earlier.

"What's all this drill the kids are talking about?" Willett asked Eric, as the boy came back from breakfast. "To hear the way they go on, you'd think it was the only important thing that had been scheduled since the world began!"

"That's the Commodore's doing," replied Eric, with a laugh. "He's got us all going that way. You know Hailer is one of those chaps who believes so much in what he's doing that everybody else has to believe in it, too."

"But I thought Hailer was commodore in New York, not out here in 'Frisco."

"So he is," agreed the boy. "But a mere trifle like a few thousand miles doesn't seem to weaken his influence much. Of course the biggest part of his time is given to superintending the New York end, but the work's spreading in every direction and all our reports go to headquarters. After all, organization does make a heap of difference, don't you think? How about it? Are you fit enough to come and see the youngsters at their work?"

"I'm a bit wobbly," the rescued man answered. "I suppose I ought to expect that. But I feel all right. I can get as far as that bench, anyway, and I'd like to see the drill. You teach them all to swim?"

"We try to teach everybody we can get hold of," replied Eric. "Hailer has an idea that every man, woman, and child in the United States ought to be able to swim, even when asleep. I've heard him say that it was as much a part of our job to prevent accidents as to do the best we can after accidents have happened. I think he's about right. Everybody ought to swim, just the same way as they know how to walk. Then we wouldn't have to fetch out of the water a lot of people who are already half-drowned."

"You do that in great shape, too," said Willett gratefully, "I can testify to that! I was a goner last night, sure, if you fellows hadn't been there. And the way you brought Jake around—I wouldn't have thought it possible."

"We were mighty lucky," agreed the boy.

"You were!" exclaimed Willett. "I think we're the lucky ones."

"I suppose you are," said Eric. "But, after all, if both your chum and you had been A No. 1 swimmers, just see how easy it would have been! You could have got ashore in a few minutes. That's what we want to do with the kids. We want to teach them to swim so that if they tumble off a dock with their duds on they can strike out for shore like so many frogs. We manage to break in nearly every youngster who comes down to this beach. Most of them want to get the hang of it, anyway, and when there's a bunch of youngsters to start with, it's a cinch to get the rest to join in."

"But still I don't see how you can teach them on land," Willett objected.

"Why not?"

"You're supposed to swim with your legs as well as your hands, aren't you?"

"Of course. It's the legs that you really do the swimming with."

"That's what I thought. But how can you kick out with both legs when you're standing on them?"

"Oh, that's what's troubling you," said Eric laughing. "But there's nothing difficult in that. The idea in the leg motions of swimming is to bring the legs to the body, isn't it?"

"That's what I always thought."

"It doesn't make any difference if you bring the body to the legs, does it?"

"I—suppose not," the other said, dubiously.

"Of course it doesn't. That's just the idea. You watch the kids going through the drill and you'll get on to it. Why, I can put a bunch wise to swimming, though they're a thousand miles away from any water deep enough to drown in."

Eric had hardly got outside the station when the boys flocked to him in a body. He answered their fusillade of greetings with equal heartiness and then called them to attention.

"Get to business, now!" he called, and the group lined up in fours, each boy about six feet from his neighbor. "Ready!" he called. "One! Hands together, palms to each other. Swing 'em around a little behind the level of the shoulders turning 'em palm outward as you go. This way!" He showed the motion. "At the word 'Two'—bring the hands in to the breast. At 'Three' put the hands forward. All together, now: One! Two! Three!"

The boys followed the motions, some doing it well, but others looking very clumsy and awkward. A dozen times or more the boys went through the drill until a certain amount of regularity began to appear.

"Leg motions next," Eric called briskly. "At the word 'One!' bring the body down to the heels in a sitting position. At the word 'Two' straighten up and jump with both legs wide apart. At the word 'Three,' jump and bring the legs close together. That's the one that shoots you ahead."

This was repeated a dozen or more times and then Eric started the youngsters doing both the arm and leg motions together. It was really hard work, but when he let the urchins go at the end of about half an hour, some of them could do it like clockwork.

Courtesy of U.S. Volunteer Life-Saving Corps.

Breaking a Death-Clutch from Behind.

Courtesy of U.S. Volunteer Life-Saving Corps.

Breaking a Death-Clutch from the Front.

Teaching life-saving at its best, the Commodore [the tallest man in uniform] watching.

"How much real swimming do you suppose the kids learn from that stuff?" Willett asked.

"About one-third of them can swim right away," Eric answered. "It's mostly in getting used to it. After all, if a kid gets hold of the right stroke and practises enough so that he can do it automatically, he can't do anything else but that when he gets into the water. The more scared he is, the surer he is to do the thing he's got used to doing. What sends people down in the water, is that they've got a wrong idea. They wave their arms about, and as soon as your arms are out of the water, it just alters the balance enough to put your mouth under."

"Seems to me I might learn something from that myself—" Willett was beginning, when a long-continued whistle blast sounded from the station. Eric was off like a shot. Quick as he was, however, he was only just in time to scramble into the first boat.

"What is it?" the boy asked.

"Motor-boat on fire," answered the coxswain, "an explosion, most likely. I guess the boat's done for, but the Eel saw the trouble the minute it happened, so we oughtn't to have any trouble picking the people up. He said there were girls, though, and probably they can't swim."

As the life-saving boat cut through the water, it passed three or four swimmers who had started out from the beach on seeing the accident. There was a great deal of excitement on shore, as, being a fine Sunday morning, the beach was crowded.

"We'll be with you in a minute," shouted one of the intending rescuers as the boat swept by.

As usual, the Eel was the first man overboard, and his queer snake-like stroke showed to full effect. There had been five people in the boat, three men and two girls, one of them just a child. One of the men and one of the women couldn't swim a stroke. The woman had already given up and the Eel took care of her. Another of the life-savers tackled the struggling man.

It was evident that there was no need for more help there, so Eric swam to where the little girl was striking out bravely for the shore.

"Can I give you a hand?" he asked.

The child, though swimming pluckily, evidently was hampered by being fully dressed.

"Can't swim a bit with my boots on," she gurgled. The boy smiled with genuine appreciation of her grit.

"You're the real thing," he said. "But it is hard swimming with boots on. Suppose you let me take you to shore. It's just as easy!"

He swam in front of the child.

"Put your hands on my shoulders," he said, "and keep your feet well up. Are you all right now?"

"Quite all right," she answered, dashing the water out of her eyes.

"I see they've put the fire out," said Eric, swimming quietly and easily, for the girl's touch was like a feather on his shoulder. "I don't believe the boat's much hurt."

"I'd be awfully glad if it wasn't," she answered, "because Jack just borrowed it for the day and I'm sure he's feeling terribly. We were just going to buy one this week."

"Perhaps this will scare him off."

In spite of her fatigue and fright the girl laughed brightly as Eric's feet touched bottom and he stood up.

"It might him, but it won't me," she said, with a joyous disregard of grammar. "And Jack's buying the boat mainly for me. I really can swim quite well, but I suppose the explosion scared me. I don't believe I'd have been frightened a bit if I had jumped in of my own accord. But it was all so sudden!"

"Well," said Eric, "it's a good thing for you it didn't happen a long way from shore. And I'm glad I was able to help a bit, too, because this is my last day on duty and having helped you is about the best way of celebrating it that could have happened."

"Your last day?" she said, with a note of regret in her voice. "You're going away?"

"Yes," Eric replied, as they came to the water's edge and the crowd began to congregate to meet them, "I'm just getting ready to join the Coast Guard!"

"Great!" she exclaimed, her eyes sparkling, as she shook back her wet hair. "But how can I thank you?"

"You have thanked me," the boy answered, as he took her to the beach where the lifeboat had landed and where her friends were anxiously awaiting her, "you've given me a chance to quit in a sort of 'blaze of glory.' Don't you think that's something?"

"But won't you tell me who you are?" she pleaded.

"United States Volunteer Life-Saving Corps," he answered with a smile, as he turned to go back to the station, "that's where the credit ought to go."

"So this is your last day, Eric," said the Eel, an hour or so later, as the boy stood on the platform of the life-saving station, looking regretfully at the strip of beach.

"Yes, Eel," Eric rejoined thoughtfully. "I hate to leave here, too."

"I always hate to go, of course," his chum agreed, "but then it's different with me. This is my vacation. When I quit here, it means that I've got to get back to work. You're only going back to school."

"Not my fault," was the half-rueful answer; "I'd a heap sooner be going into the Coast Guard right away. But I'm not ready yet."

"You will be, next year," said his friend, sympathetically.

"I know. But next year's a long way off and I wanted to stay here until I was sure of my appointment. If Father were only going to stay another year on the coast, I could finish my work here and then get ready for the exams in June."

"Is he leaving?"

"Of course. Don't you remember I told you before!"

"Yes, so you did. I'd forgotten."

"We're hiking off at the end of this month. Father's been put in charge of one of the districts on the Great Lakes."

"But I thought he was inspector here?"

"He's been acting-inspector for quite a while. But that was a temporary appointment, while the inspector was ill."

"And you're going home a couple of weeks ahead to help pack, eh?"

"Ye-es," Eric answered, "of course that's a part of it. But I'm going now because I want to see Uncle Eli before I go East. He's on Tillamook Rock, you know."

"I knew he used to be," the Eel said, "but I thought when he made that big real estate haul, he quit."

"He tried to," the boy agreed, "but he found he couldn't. Uncle Eli's an old-timer, Eel. I used to be jealous of the Tillamook Light. He's just as fond of it as he is of me, more, I think. I can quite see how he would feel that way. It's always been just like his child. He was there when the light was born."

"You mean its designing?"

"I mean its being born," Eric insisted. "Nearly all my people have been in the Lighthouse Service, you know. They all have that way of thinking of the lights as if they were real folks. It's something like a captain's idea about his ship. She's always alive. And lights are just as responsive. Some way, I've a bit of that same feeling myself."

"Yes," the Eel said thoughtfully, "I can see that, in a way. They do seem a bit human, don't they? And it must be deadly lonely for the keepers, out of reach of everybody, with nothing to do."

"What?" shouted Eric, so loudly that the Eel jumped. "With nothing to do?"

"Except just attend to the light," his chum said apologetically. "What else is there?"

"I suppose you think they just light the lantern when they have a mind to and then snore all night long?"

"N-no, of course they can't," the Eel replied, humbly, "I hadn't thought of that. I suppose they have to keep watch."

"You bet they do," Eric said emphatically, "and a mighty close watch at that. And when it comes to discipline—the Lighthouse Service has every civilian organization in America beaten to a frazzle."

"I didn't know it was so strict."

"Strict! Carelessness means dishonorable dismissal, right off the bat! Not that there's ever much chance of such a thing ever being needed. The Commissioner has built up such a sense of pride in the service that a chap would do anything rather than neglect his duty. I'll tell you a story of a woman light-keeper, a woman, mind you, Eel, that'll show you. You know Angel Island?"

"Right here in San Francisco Bay?"

"That's the one. You know that there's a light and a fog signal there?"

"I hadn't ever thought of it," the other replied. "Yes, I guess there is."

"There's a new fog-horn on that point now, Eel, but when I was quite a small shaver, in 1906, the fog signal was a bell, rung with a clapper. In July of that year the clapper broke and couldn't be used. A heavy fog came down and blanketed the island so that you couldn't see anything a foot away. That woman light-keeper stood there with a watch in one hand and a nail-hammer in the other and struck that bell once every twenty seconds for twenty hours and thirty-five minutes until the fog lifted. She didn't stop for meals or sleep. Two days later, the bell not having yet been fixed, another fog came down at night and she did the same thing the whole night long. That's what I call being on the job!"

"Yes," the Eel agreed with admiration, "you can't beat that, anywhere."

"And you spoke of light-keepers being idle!" continued Eric, warming to his subject. "Keeping a lighthouse in the shape that the Commissioner insists on isn't any easy chore. I tell you, the operating room of a hospital isn't any cleaner than the inside of a lighthouse. They tell a story in the service of a hot one that was handed to a light-keeper by one of the inspectors. The keeper hadn't shaved that morning. The instant the inspector saw him, he said:

"'If the lamp doesn't look better kept than you do, you're fired!'"

"That's swift enough!" the older boy answered, with a whistle.

"Nothing saved that light-keeper but the fact that everything else about the place was in apple-pie order. I've heard Father tell how some of the inspectors go around with a white handkerchief, and if they find any dust—there's trouble for somebody!"

"Don't you think that's carrying it a bit too far?" queried his chum.

"I used to think so," Eric said, "but I don't now. I've got the idea that's behind the rule. Everybody isn't cut out to be a light-keeper. The work calls for just one thing, a tremendous conscientiousness. There's no one to keep constant tab on men in isolated stations. Men who haven't got the right point of view won't stay in the service, and those who have got it, get it developed a lot more. The way it looks to me, the Commissioner has built up an organization of men who do their work because they believe in it, and who naturally have a liking for regularity and order."

"You're sure stuck on the Lighthouse Service, Eric," said his chum with a laugh.

"Why wouldn't I be?" the lad replied. "If all my folks are in it, I've probably got some of that same sort of feeling in my blood. But I'm different, too. The same thing to do over and over again, day after day, month after month, would get my goat. I want to do something that's got more variety and more opportunity. That's why I'm going to join the Coast Guard—if I can get in."

Courtesy of U.S. Bureau of Lighthouses.

The "Eddystone" of America.

Minot's Ledge Light, off Boston, one of the most important lighthouses on the American coast, a triumph of engineering.

"Well," the Eel said, sighing, "I envy you. So far as I can see, I'm like your lighthouse-keeper. I'm stuck at a desk for the rest of my life. You go ahead, Eric, and do the big stuff in rescue work, with uniform and epaulets and all the rest of it. I'll stay right on my job in the city and—on Saturdays, Sundays, and vacations—I'll do my little best in the volunteer job on this beach."

"It's bully work here, all right," agreed Eric, "and I'm only sorry I can't be in two places at once. Good luck, old man," he continued, shaking hands with his chum heartily, "I'll drop you a line written right on Tillamook Rock, and maybe it'll have the real sea flavor to it!"

Eric was quite excited in joining his father at Astoria, where they were to take the lighthouse-tender Manzanita to Tillamook Rock. During all the years his father had been connected with the light, both as light-keeper and as inspector, he had never taken his wife or son there. Of course, under no circumstances would they have been allowed to stay over night, but Eric had never even visited the rock. The boy had begged for a chance to stay over one night, just to stand one watch in the lighthouse, but—rules were rules. The utmost privilege he could get was permission to go to the lighthouse with his father, when the latter was making his final inspection before transfer to another district.

"I hear you've been distinguishing yourself, Eric," the veteran said, when the Manzanita had cast off from the wharf.

"How do you mean, Father?"

"Rescues, and that sort of thing. It made me feel quite proud of my son."

"There were a few," the lad answered, with a quick flush of pride at his father's praise, "but at that I don't think I got my full share. We had a fellow there we called the 'Eel.' Nobody else had a chance to get anything when he was around."

"Good swimmer, eh?"

"He was a wonder! Why, Father, he used to swim under water nearly all the time, just putting his nose out to breathe once in a while, and at the end of his side stroke he had a little wiggle that shot him ahead like greased lightning. Funniest stroke you ever saw!"

"Couldn't you pick it up?"

"Oh, I got the stroke all right," Eric answered confidently, "but I can't do it the way he did. And you should have seen him dive!"

"I always was glad you took kindly to that work," said the inspector thoughtfully, "because I believe it is pretty well handled, now that it's on an official basis. It certainly supplements the government's life-saving work very well. I've wondered, sometimes, whether it oughtn't to be taken hold of by the nation."

"I don't think it's necessary, Father," Eric replied. "You see, if it was a government station, the regular crew would have to be on duty all the time. There's no need for that. There aren't any accidents there, except when the beach is crowded, and that's just for Saturdays and Sundays, mainly, and a couple of months in the summer."

"That may all be true, but when an accident does occur, experts are needed in a hurry. Amateur work doesn't amount to much as a rule."

"This isn't amateur!" protested the boy. "Why, Father, do you know what a chap has to do before he can even enlist?"

"No," the other replied. "I never heard the requirements, or if I did, I've forgotten them. What are they?"

"A fellow who applies has got to show that he can swim at least a hundred yards in good style, and twenty yards of that must be in coat, trousers, and shoes. He's got to be able to dive and bring up something from the bottom, at a depth of ten feet. He's got to swim twenty yards carrying a person his own weight and show that he knows three different ways of carrying a drowning person in deep water. He's got to show that he can do at least three of the ways to 'break' death-grips made by a drowning person. And besides that, he's got to know all about first aid, especially resuscitation."

"You mean that an applicant has to pass that test before entering the volunteers at all?"

"He sure has, and he's got to show that he can do it easily, too!"

"That's good and stiff," said the old inspector. "You can do all that, Eric, eh?"

The boy smiled.

"I've got a Proficiency Medal, Father," he said, not a little proudly.

"What's that for?"

"That's the test to show you're really A 1. To get that medal you've got to swim under water for over thirty-five feet, you've got to know all the 'breaks,' and you've got to show a 'break' to be made by a third party if you're rescuing a rescuer who has got into the clutch of a drowning man in any way that he can't shake loose. Besides that, you've got to swim back-stroke sixty feet with the hands clear out of water, and sixty feet side, using one arm only. Then, just to show that it isn't exhibition stuff but the real goods in training for life-saving, you're made to swim sixty feet fully dressed and back forty feet, on the return carrying a man your own weight; dropping him, you have to start right off for another sixty feet out and forty feet back, this time carrying the man back by a different method."

"It's real swimming!" exclaimed the veteran of the sea.

"You bet," said Eric, "and I'm not nearly through. There's another sixty-foot swim, and at the end of it you've got to dive at least twelve feet and bring up from the bottom a dead weight of not less than ten pounds and swim ten feet carrying that weight. I tell you, Father, that's quite a stunt! And then, besides all the swimming stuff, you've got to show that you're Johnny-on-the-spot in throwing a life-buoy, to say nothing of a barrel of tests in first aid, and in splicing and knot-tying of nearly every sort and shape. You don't get any chance to rest, either. All that swimming business has to be done on the same day. It's a good test of endurance, all right."

"And you passed it, son?"

"I got ninety per cent.," Eric answered. "I thought I'd told you all about it. No, I guess it came off when you were on one of your trips. I don't go much on boasting, Father, but I really can swim."

"Well, my boy," the other said, "I'll take a little credit for that. Don't forget I was your first swimming teacher! But I couldn't do all those things you've been telling me about, now. I'm glad to know they've got as high a standard as that in the Volunteer Corps. I shouldn't wonder if the Coast Guard would be able to get some of its best men from the volunteer ranks. Take yourself, for example."

"It's done me a lot of good," said the boy.

"Of course it has. It would do anybody good. But I've been wanting to ask you, Eric, what effect the formation of this new Coast Guard will have on your plans?"

"It won't hurt them a bit," the boy answered. "I wrote to the Captain Commandant about it and he sent me the dandiest letter! I'll show it to you when my trunk gets home. You see, Father, when the Life-Saving Service and the Revenue Cutter Service joined together under the name of the Coast Guard, it was arranged that every member of both services might reenlist without examination. And my application was in last year. So that there's nothing special, I'm just going through the regular order of things. That is, if I can make the Coast Guard Academy."

"You ought to manage it, I think," said his father. "I'm really glad you have made up your mind to it, Eric," he continued; "it's a good full-size man's job. And you have quite a bit of the salt in your veins, my lad, for, after all, most of your kin are seafaring folk."

"You never had anything to do with the old Revenue Cutter Service, had you, Father?"

"I was never a member of it," the other replied, "but I've seen it at work, many times these forty years. No, I got into the Lighthouse Service when I was about your age and I've given every bit of myself to it ever since. I'm glad I did. I think the last fifty years has shown the greatest development of safety at sea since the days of the discovery of the compass."

"Yet you didn't want me to join!"

"Not now," the old inspector answered. "Conditions have changed. The Lighthouse Service of to-day is a complete and perfected organization. Every mile of United States territory is covered by a beacon light. We were pioneers."

"I see," said the boy thoughtfully.

"It's a good deal the same sort of development that's struck the cattle country," the Westerner said, meditatively. "When I was a youngster, a cattle-puncher was really the wild and woolly broncho-buster that you read about in books. In the days of the old Jones and Plummer trail, when there wasn't a foot of barbed wire west of the Mississippi, a cowboy's life was adventurous enough. A round-up gang might meet a bunch of hostile Indians 'most any time, and a man had to ride hard and shoot straight. But now the ranges are all divided up and fenced in. The range-runner has given way to the stock-raiser. It's like comparing Dan'l Boone to a commercial traveler!"

"I don't quite see how that fits the Lighthouse Service," said Eric, smiling at the Daniel Boone comparison.

"Well, it does to a certain extent. When I first went into the Service, half the coast wasn't protected at all. And even the important lights we had were weak, compared with what we have now. Why, Eric, we've got lights so powerful now that we can't even tell how strong they are!"

The boy looked up incredulously.

"It's an absolute fact," the old inspector continued. "The most powerful light we have is on Navesink Highlands, near the entrance of New York Harbor. It's reckoned at between two million and ten million candle-power. Nobody's been able to measure it. The United States Bureau of Standards was going to do it, but so far, they've left it severely alone."

"How far can that be seen, Father?"

"All depends on the height of the ship's deck from the water," was the reply. "The curvature of the earth determines that. Say, thirty miles on a vessel of moderate size. But the reflection of the Navesink Light on the sky has been seen as far away as eighty miles."

"White light?"

"Yes, white flashing," was the reply.

"I've noticed," the boy said thoughtfully, "that red is only used for the smaller lights. I wanted to ask you about that the other day. Now there's Point Adams Light," he continued, pointing off the starboard bow as the lighthouse-tender steamed out of the mouth of the Columbia River, "it looks just as big as this light on the other side, on Cape Disappointment, but it's a lot harder to see. When I've been headed for home, on a misty night, after a day's fishing, I've missed Point Adams when Cape Disappointment was as clear as could be."

"But you could see other lights?"

"Oh, yes, there wasn't any difficulty in making the harbor, either in or out. I was just wondering whether the color of the light had anything to do with making it seem dim?"

"Of course," his father answered; "a red glass cuts off sixty per cent, of the light. You can't see the Point Adams Light for more than about eleven miles, but, in ordinarily clear weather, you can see the fixed white light of Cape Disappointment for all of twenty-two nautical miles."

"I don't quite see why," said the boy, puzzled.

"That's because you're not taking the trouble to think," was the impatient reply. "You know that light is made up of all the colors of the rainbow?"

"Of course."

"And red is only a small part of that, isn't it?"

"Yes."

"Well, don't you see? Red glass only lets the red rays through and cuts off all the rest. How could it help being a lot fainter? And, what's more, red doesn't excite the nerves of the eye as much as white does, so that if there were two lights of equal power, one red and one white, the red would be less easily seen."

"Why do the railroads use red for danger signals, then?"

"Habit, mainly. It's wrong, of course, and a good many of the railroads are changing their danger signals from red to yellow. So far as we're concerned in the Lighthouse Service, however, we're getting rid of all the fixed red lights wherever a long-range warning is needed."

"How do you distinguish the different lights, then?"

"Using flashing lights, with flashes of different duration."

"Why didn't you always do that?" asked Eric.

"Didn't know enough," was the simple reply. "It's only lately that we've found out how to work a flashing light without any loss of power. In the old days we used to depend on occulting lights, but now, flashing lights are much more powerful. You know the difference?"

"Sure! An occulting light means that some of the time the light is shut off, and at others it isn't. Wasn't it worked by a revolving shutter with wide slits in it?"

"That was the old idea. We use it still as a cheap way of changing a fixed light to one with a definite character. It works all right, only it's a waste of power to have the light darkened part of the time. Then, too, if the shutter revolves too quickly, the light is like little flashes of lightning, while, if it goes too slowly, a lookout might happen to scan that point on the horizon at the instant it was dark. In that way the value of the warning would be lessened."

"I know the flashing light is quite different, Father, but just how is it worked?" asked the boy. "It's because of some arrangement of the lens, isn't it?"

"Exactly. Light travels in straight lines in every direction. One of the problems of illumination in lighthouse work is to make all these beams come to one focus. We don't want to light the sky, nor the sea at the foot of the lighthouse. So a first-order light is built up of rows on rows of prisms so arranged that the light will be refracted from every direction to one point. An ordinary student's reading lamp, inside a big lighthouse lens, would give a light that could be seen a good many miles!"

Courtesy of Safety Car Lighting Co.

Refilling Pintsch Gas Buoy.

Courtesy of Safety Car Lighting Co.

Lighthouse Tender Approaching Buoy.

"That is, if it were high enough up."

"Of course."

"Just how quickly does the earth's curve come into play, Father? I know the earth is round, of course, but, somehow, it seems so big that one never thinks of taking it into any practical account."

"It works mighty rapidly, my boy," said the old inspector. "You put a light right at sea level, on a day when there isn't a ripple on the sea, and five miles away, at sea level, you won't see a sign of it! Fifteen feet is the unit. Fifteen feet above sea level, you can see a light fifteen feet above sea level, seven miles away."

"Then why not build lighthouses like the Eiffel Tower, a thousand feet high!"

"Once in a while, Eric," his father said, rebukingly, "you talk absolutely without thinking. Didn't I just show you that the rays of a lantern had to be sent out in a single beam?"

"Yes, but what of that?"

"Can't you see that if your light is too high, the beam will have to strike the water at such an angle that its horizontal effect would be lost? That would mean that a ship could see the light seventy miles away, and lose it at fifty or forty miles from the lighthouse. No, boy, that wouldn't work. Tillamook Rock is quite high enough!"

"It does look high," agreed the boy, following his father's gaze to where, over the port bow, rose the menacing and forbidding reef on which the light stood.

"It's the meanest bit on the coast," said the inspector. "Wouldn't you say the sea was fairly smooth?"

"Like a mill-pond," declared Eric. "Why?"

"That just shows you," said his father. "You'd have to nail the water down to keep it from playing tricks around Tillamook. Look at it now!"

The lad's glance followed the pointing finger. There was hardly a ripple on the sea, but a long slow lazy swell suggested a storm afar off. Slight as the swell was, it struck Tillamook Rock with a vengeful spirit. Long white claws of foam tore vainly at the grim reef's sides and the roar of the surf filled the air.

"Mill-pond, eh?" said the inspector. "Well, I can see where I get good and wet in that same mill-pond."

He slipped on a slicker and a sou'wester.

"You'd better dig up some oilskins, Eric," he said. "Any of the men will let you have them."

The boy slipped off part of his clothes, standing up in undershirt and trousers.

"I like it better this way," he said.

The old inspector looked at his son with approval and even admiration. Considering his years, the lad was wonderfully well developed, largely as a result of swimming, and his summer with the Volunteer Corps had sunburned him as brown as a piece of weathered oak.

"I think I'd rather go in that kind of a costume myself," his father said, with a chuckle, "but I'm afraid it would hardly do for my official uniform on an inspection trip!"

As he spoke, the rattle of the boat-davits was heard.

"Come along then, lad," said the inspector. "Just a moment, though. Don't get any fool idea about showing off with any kind of a swimming performance. You just be good and thankful to be hauled up by a crane!"

The boy took another look at Tillamook Rock, frowning above the surf.

"I'm not hankering after a swim there," he said; "I don't claim to be amphibious, exactly. As you say, it's calm enough on the open water, but I don't think anything except a seal or a walrus or something of that kind could land on that rock. Not for me, thank you. I'll take the crane, and gladly."

The ropes rattled through the davit blocks, and, as the Manzanita heeled over a little, the boat took water, the blocks were unhooked, her bows given a sharp shove and she was off.

Down at water level, the slight swell seemed considerably larger. Indeed, it actually was increasing. And, as they pulled in toward the entrance of the reef, the boat met a rip in the current that seemed to try to twist the oars from the hands of the boat-pullers. But lighthouse-tender sailors are picked men, and though the little boat was thrown about like a cork, she fairly clawed her way through the rip. As they neared the entrance in the reef, the surf rushed between the rocks, throwing up spume and spray as though a storm were raging. Eric had to look back out to sea to convince himself that the ocean was still as calm as it had seemed a moment or two before. In among the crags to which the boat was driving, there was a turmoil of seething waters, which came thundering in and which shrank away with a sucking sound, as though disappointed of a long hoped-for vengeance.

"It's like a witches' pot!" shouted Eric to his father.

"This is about as calm as it ever gets," was the inspector's unmoved reply. "You ought to see Tillamook when it's rough weather! I've seen it with a real gale blowing, when it seemed impossible that the rock could stand up five minutes against the terrific battering. Yet it just stands there and defies the Pacific at its worst, as it has, I suppose, for a hundred thousand years or more, and the light shines on serenely."

With consummate steering and a finer handling of the oars than Eric had ever seen before—and he was something of an oarsman himself—the boat from the lighthouse-tender neared the Rock. It was held immediately under the crane and a rope was lowered with a loop on the end of it. The inspector swung himself into this and went shooting up in the air, like some oilskin-covered sea-gull. He took it as a matter of course, all a part of the day's work, but, just the same, it gave Eric a queer sensation. It was his turn next.

In a moment the loop was down again for him. The rest of the boat's crew were busy getting ready the mail bag, the provisions and the other supplies that they had brought with them, so the boy stepped unhesitatingly into the loop.

Swish! He was on his upward flight almost before he knew it. The back curl of a breaker, baffled in its attack on the rock, drenched him to the skin. He laughed, for this was just what he had bargained for. Beneath him, already but a small spot on the sea, was the boat he had left; above him the grim nakedness of the barren rock, and below, snarling with impotent fury, was the defeated surf.

The crane above him creaked as it swung inboard. Drenched, cold, but thoroughly happy, Eric stood on Tillamook Rock. For the moment, at least, he was one with that little band of men which is Uncle Sam's farthest outpost against the tempest-armies of the western seas.

CHAPTER III
HEROES OF THE UNDERGROUND

Knowing that his father had spent many years on Tillamook Rock, Eric was eager to see every nook and cranny of the building, and he importuned his uncle to go with him over the structure. But, although the inspector and the light-keeper were brothers, the trip was an official one, and his uncle deputed one of the assistant light-keepers to show the lad around.

Eric was not slow in making use of his time. He climbed up to the lantern and saw for himself close at hand the lens he had so often heard described, astonishing his guide with all sorts of questions. Most of these showed an extraordinary knowledge of lights and lighthouses, in which a mass of information was combined with utter ignorance of detail. This was due to the boy's long acquaintance with the Lighthouse Service through the several members of his family who had served in it.

"You know," said Eric, "I had the idea that Tillamook Rock would seem a lot higher, when one was on top of it. When you look at it from the sea, it stands up so sheer and straight that it seems almost like a mountain."

"Well, lad," the assistant-keeper answered, "it is tolerable high. It's nigh a hundred feet to the level o' the rock, an' the light's another forty. It's none too high, at that."

"Why? The sea can't hurt you much, this high up!" said Eric, leaning over the railing of the gallery around the light and looking down. "Even a twenty-foot wave's a big one, and you're six or seven times as high up as that."

"You think we're sort o' peacefully floatin' in a zone o' quiet up here? You've got to revise your notion o' the Pacific quite a much! Neptoon can put up a better article of fight right around this same spot here than anywheres else I know. Maybe you didn' hear o' the time the sea whittled off a slice o' rock weighin' a ton or so and sort o' chucked it at the light?"

"No," said Eric, "I never heard a word about it. When was it?"

"Nigh about twelve years ago," the light-keeper said reminiscently. "It was the winter I got sick, an' I've got that night stuck good an' fast in my think-bank. There was a howlin' nor'wester comin' down. She'd been blowin' plenty fresh for a couple o' weeks, but instead o' letting up, the sea kep' on gettin' more wicked. The way some o' the big ones would come dashin' in an' shinnin' up the rock as if they were a-goin' to snatch the buildin' down, was sure wearin' on the nerves. That winter, there was more'n once I thought the sea was goin' to nip off the lighthouse like a ball takin' off the last pin in a bowlin' frame."

"Dashing up against the lighthouse!" exclaimed the boy. "Aren't you putting that on a bit? Why you're over a hundred feet above sea level."

"In 'most any big storm the surf dashes up to the top o' the rock. But on this day I'm talkin' of, there was one gee-whopper of a sea. It broke off a chunk of rock weighin' every ounce o' half a ton, the way you'd bite off a piece o' candy, an' just chucked that rock at the lantern, breakin' a pane of glass, clear at the top of the tower."

The boy whistled incredulously.

"It's a dead cold fact," the other confirmed. "If you think I'm stretchin' it a bit, you read the Annual Report an' you'll find it's so."

"What did you do?"

"We put in a new glass," said the keeper.

"During the storm?"

"We haven't got any business to worry about storms, we've only got to keep the light goin'," was the reply. "If the End o' the World was scheduled to come off in the middle of the night, you can bet it would find the Tillamook Rock Light burnin'! Storm! Takes a sight more than a sixty mile gale an' a ragin' sea to stop a Lighthouse crowd. You know that yourself, or you oughter, with your folks. No, sir! There's no storm ever invented that can crimp the Service. We had that broken glass out and a new one in place, in just exactly eighteen minutes. It was some job, too! The chaps workin' on the outside had to be lashed on to the platform."

"Why, because of the wind?"

"Just the wind. That little breeze would have picked up a two-hundred-pound man like a feather."

"Weren't you scared?"

"No," said the light-keeper, "didn't have time to think of it. Cookie was scared, all right."

"Have you a cook on the rock?" said Eric in surprise, "I thought you all took turns to cook."

"The men do, in most o' the lighthouses," was the reply, "but Tillamook's so cut off from everything that we've five men on the post. That means quite a bit o' cookin', an' so we have a chef all our own. Didn't you ever hear the story o' Cookie?"

Sliding Down to Work.

Lighthouse-builders on cableway from top of cliff to platform beside reef, unapproachable by boats.

"Never," said the boy, "go ahead!"

"Quite a while ago," the light-keeper began, "the Service hired a cook for Tillamook. He was a jim-dandy of a cook an' could get good money ashore. But he'd been crossed in love, or he'd lost his money, or something, I don't remember what, an' so he wanted to forget his sorrows in isolation."

"Sort of hermit style?" suggested Eric.

"That's it, exactly. Well, Cookie took the job, an' the tender tried to land him here. Three times the tender came out, an' each trip the sea was kickin' up didoes so that he couldn't land. He got scared right down to his toes an' they couldn't make him get into the boat. But each time he went back to town, after having renigged that way, his friends used to josh the life out of him.

"So, one day, when it was fairly calm, he said he would go. He'd been teased into it. The captain o' the tender chuckled, for he knew there was quite a sea running outside, but they started all right. Sure enough, soon as they rounded the cape, the sea was runnin' a bit. It didn't look so worse from the deck o' the tender, an' Breuger—that was the cook's name—was telling the first officer how the world was going to lose the marvelous cookin' that he alone could do.

"But, as soon as Tillamook Rock come in sight, Cookie's courage began to ooze. He talked less of his cookin' and more o' what he called 'the perils of the sea.' As soon as the tender come close to the rock, he fell silent. The boat was swung out an' Cookie was told to get in. As before, he refused.

"'That's all right,' said the skipper, who had been expectin' him to back out. 'We'll help you. It's a bit hard climbing with the rheumatism.'"

"Did he have rheumatism?" asked the boy, grinning in anticipation.

"You couldn't prove he didn't have it!" responded the light-keeper with an answering flicker of a smile. "The captain turned to a couple of sailors. 'Give him a hand,' he said, 'he needs it.'

"Two husky A.B.'s chucked Breuger into the boat, an' before Cookie realized what was happenin', the boat was in the water an' cast off from the side o' the tender. But he had some sense, after all, for he saw there was no use makin' a fuss then. It was a bad landin' that day, four or five times worse than this afternoon, an' I guess it looked dangerous enough to a landsman to be a bit scarin'. One of the men went up with him, holdin' on to him, so he wouldn't get frightened an' drop, an' in a minute or two he was swung in to the landin'-place.

"There was one of our fellows here who was as funny as a goat, an' we had an awful time to keep him from raggin' Cookie. But we knew that Breuger was goin' to fix our grub for quite a spell and keepin' him in a good humor was a wise move. Anyway, when you're goin' to live in quarters as small as a lighthouse, you can't afford to have any quarrelin'. A funny man's all right, but he needs lots of room.

"So, instead of hazin' him for showin' the white feather so often, I praised Cookie for having made so brave a landin' on such an awful day. Quick as a wink, his manner changed. He just strutted. He slapped himself on the chest an' boasted of his line of warlike ancestors—seemed to go back to somewhere about the time of Adam. It never once struck him that every one else on the rock had had to make a landin' there, too. He gave himself the airs of bein' the sole hero on Tillamook. There were days when this was a bit tryin', but we forgave him. He could cook. Shades of a sea-gull! How he could cook! We used to threaten to put an extra padlock on the lens, lest he should try to fricassee it!"

"Easy there!" protested Eric.

"Well," said the other, "you know the big Arctic gull they call the Burgomaster?"

"Yes, I've seen it in winter once or twice."

"Breuger could cook that oily bird so's it would taste like a pet squab. He used to take a pride in it, too, an' he liked best the men who ate most. Now I was real popular with Cookie. Those were the days for eats!" and the light-keeper sighed regretfully.

"How long did he stay?" queried the boy.

"That's just the point," the other answered. "He never went back."

"Never?"

"Not alive," responded the light-keeper. "He'd had one experience of landin' an' he'd never risk another. He stayed on Tillamook for over eighteen years, never leavin' it, even for a day. An' he died here."

"Well," the boy commented, "this is where I'm going to differ from Cookie, for there's Father coming down." He looked over the edge. "It would make a great dive," he said, "if it weren't for the surf."

"It'd be your last," was the response. "Nobody could get out alive from that poundin'. More'n one good man's been drowned there. The first man that ever tried to build a lighthouse on this rock got washed off. That was the end of him."

"Tell me about it?" pleaded the boy. "There's just time enough!"

"Ask your dad," said the other; "he's got the early history o' Tillamook by heart. Meantime, I wish you all sorts of luck, lad, an' if ever you're in a Coast Guard vessel on this coast and see Tillamook flashin', don't forget the boys that never let a light go out!"

"Father," said Eric, a little later, when they had boarded the lighthouse-tender and got into dry clothes, "tell me the story of the building of Tillamook Lighthouse. They told me, over there, that you knew all about it."

"I ought to," the inspector replied, "I helped build it. And it was a job! I suppose Tillamook would be classed among the dozen hardest lighthouse-building jobs of the world."

"What would be the others?"

"Well, in America, on the Pacific Coast there's St. George's Reef. Spectacle Reef in the Great Lakes, and Minot's Ledge off Boston, were bad. There are a lot around England and Scotland, like Eddystone, Wolf Rock, the Long Ships, and Bell Rock—that's the old 'Inchcape Rock' you read about in school—and there was a particularly bad one called Or-Mar, in the Bay of Biscay. It took the engineer one year and a week before he could make the first landing on Or-Mar."

"Over a year!"

"A year and a week," the inspector repeated. "And Tillamook wasn't much better. It was in December 1878 that we got orders for a preliminary survey of the reef for the purpose of choosing a lighthouse site. After a dozen or more attempts, the engineer returned baffled. In the following June, six months later, the rock was still unviolated. No human foot had ever trodden it.

"Then the Department began to make demands. Washington got insistent. Urgent orders were issued that the rock would have to be scaled. The engineer was instructed to make a landing. Fortunately, toward the end of the month there came a spell of calm weather."

"Like the calm to-day?"

"Just about. That's as calm as Tillamook ever gets. After several more attempts, lasting nearly a week, the boat was run close to the rocks and two sailors got ashore. A line was to be thrown to them. No sooner were they ashore than the boat backed away, to keep from being stove in. Remembering that it had been six months before the boat had a chance of getting as near the rock as it had the minute before, the two sailors became panicky at seeing the boat back away. Both being powerful swimmers, they threw themselves into the sea and the boat managed to pick them up before the surf caught them.

"This had been enough to show that landing was not impossible. With the evidence that two sailors had ventured, the engineer could not withdraw. He was a bold and daring fellow himself. Two days later, although the sea was not nearly as calm, the boat was brought up to the rock again, and at almost the same landing-place as before, he succeeded in getting ashore.

"One of the things that makes Tillamook so dangerous is that you can never tell when it is suddenly going to change from its ordinary wildness to a pitch of really savage fury. A ground swell, hardly perceptible on the surface of the sea, will kick up no end of a smother on the rock. The engineer lost no time in his survey. He had already made a study of the rock from every point of the sea around it, so that he was able to do his actual survey ashore quickly. Less than an hour was enough. By that time he had every detail needed for his report.

"But when he was ready to go, Tillamook was less ready to loose her capture. The waves were dashing over the landing place and the sky was rapidly becoming beclouded. Yet, for the engineer, there was no question of choice! To stay there meant being marooned, death from exposure and starvation. There was nothing to do but dare. The engineer, beckoning for the boat to come in as near the rock as possible, cast himself into the sea. It was touch and go, but we picked him up, although he was nearly done for when we got him. The report was duly sent into Washington and approved.

"The next thing was to arrange about the actual building. For this a man of skill and experience was needed. John W. Trewavas, a famous lighthouse expert, one of the constructors of the Wolf Rock Light off the English Coast, came to America to pit his knowledge and his strength against the Pacific Ocean. Although it was summer weather, he hung around Tillamook for a month before there was even a chance to make a landing. Then, on September 18, 1879—I was steering the boat—Mr. Trewavas thought he saw his opportunity. I took the boat right in, so that her nose almost touched the rock. He leaped ashore, and, at the same instant, with a tremendous back-water stroke, the oarsmen jumped the surf-boat back out of danger. One second's—yes, half a second's—delay, and the boat would have been in splinters.

"The slope on which Trewavas had landed was wet and covered with slippery seaweed. Experienced and cautious, he waited for a moment to make sure of his foothold, well knowing the dangers of slipping. Peril was nearer him than he knew. A roller came breaking in, sending a spurt of water right over the spot where he was standing. So precarious was his footing that he did not dare move away quickly. Trewavas had just shuffled his feet a few inches further on that slippery slope when a comber heaved its great length along the rock. Almost without a curl it struck just below the landing and a boiling torrent of spume and spray hid the daring man from sight. Just for a second, but when the wave receded, he was gone. The rock was empty."

"Couldn't you pick him up, Father?"

"We never even saw him again, in that whirlpool of currents. The undertow dragged him down immediately and he never came to the surface. The body was never found."

"Who was the next to land?" asked Eric.

"I was," his father said, "and I landed on exactly the same spot. I had taken off my boots, but even so, the seaweed was slippery and dangerous. Remembering poor Trewavas' fate, in a jiffy I was off the slope and on the level platform of the rock. They threw me a line from the boat, and I pulled ashore some tools and supplies. With a rope to help them, several of the men joined me. That was the beginning of the conquest of Tillamook."

"And did that sort of business last all through?" queried the boy.

"Pretty much. Once, when the lighthouse was about half built, the schooner on which the men lived, and which was anchored a little distance off the rock, was blown from her moorings. A revenue cutter picked her up and brought her back. I tell you the men who were still on the rock had a sure-enough scare when they saw the schooner gone. They made sure they were marooned and done for. I had a job to keep them at work.

"Then there was another time, just when we were finishing the house, a terrific storm came up and the seas washed clear over the lower part of the rock. In the middle of the night there was an awful crash. Some of the men wanted to rush out to see what it was. I had to stand by the door with a revolver and threaten to shoot the first man who left."

"Why?"

"If they'd gone out, it's more than likely that some of them would have been washed or blown away, and I was responsible. In the morning we found that one of the tool-houses had been blown in. I watched those men like a hen does her chickens, and we didn't have a single accident in the building of Tillamook Rock Light after the work of actual construction was begun."

"You're sorry to say good-by to the old light, Father," said the boy sympathetically.

The old inspector roused himself from a reverie into which he had fallen.

"Yes," he admitted, "I am. But what the Commissioner says, goes! Of course it's always interesting to face new problems, and I'll have a freer hand on the Lakes. It'll be easier for you to get home from the East, too, when you're at the Academy."

"That's providing I get there all right," agreed Eric. "Winning into the Coast Guard is just about the one thing I want most in the world."

"And like everything else in the world that's worth getting, you've got to work for it," his father added. "Well, here we are at the wharf again. This is probably the last time you'll smell the old Pacific, Eric, for in another week it'll be a case of 'Go East, young man, go East!'"

"I hope it isn't going to be too cold for Mother," the boy suggested.

"It'll be cold enough, don't you worry about that," the other answered, "I've heard enough about the Great Lakes. But it's a clear cold, not damp like it is out here. The cold won't hurt you, anyway. It'll give you a chance to harden up."

When, ten days later, Eric helped the family to settle in its new home in Detroit, the headquarters of the Eleventh Lighthouse District, he thought his fears of cold would be unfounded. The unusual beauty of the city of Detroit in the haze of an autumn afternoon, gave no sense of a rigorous winter. This feeling received a jolt, however, when, strolling along the river front next day, he came across two of the huge ice-breaker car ferries, awaiting their call to defy Jack Frost. He was standing watching them, and trying to picture 'the Dardanelles of America' under the grip of ice, when a boy about his own age, with one arm in a sling, slapped him on the shoulder.

Courtesy of U.S. Bureau of Lighthouses.

The Defier of the Pacific.

Tillamook Rock, against which six thousand miles of ocean surges beat in vain.

"Ed!" exclaimed Eric. "Who'd have thought of seeing you here!"

"Why not, old man?" said the other laughing, "I live here."

"Do you? Bully! So do I. The folks moved here yesterday."

"Your father, too?"

"Sure."

"I thought he'd never leave the Coast."

"He didn't want to," said Eric, "but he was appointed inspector in charge of this district, so he had to come. But what's happened to you," the lad continued, "what have you been doing with yourself?"

"Got my arm broken in a mine rescue," the other said.

"What kind of a mine rescue? An accident?"

"Coal-mine explosion."

"But what are you doing with coal mines?"

"I'm trying to qualify as a mining expert. You're not the only one who thinks Uncle Sam's the best boss there is. I'm going into the government, too."

"You are? In the Geological Survey?"

"Bureau of Mines," the other answered. "How about you? Still thinking of the Revenue Cutter Service—no, Coast Guard it is now, isn't it?"

"Yes, Coast Guard," Eric agreed. "You bet I'm going in, if I can make it. But the exams are the stiffest things you ever saw! I'm going to cram for them this whole winter."

"Isn't that great! I'm doing special work here, too. What's your end? Mathematics and navigation, I suppose?"

"Mostly mathematics," Eric replied. "What's yours?"

"Mineralogy and chemistry," his friend replied. "I'm going to try to specialize on the prevention of accidents in mines. I've got a good reason to remember my subject." He nodded with a certain grim humor to his bandaged arm.

"How did you do it?"

"I was down with a rescue party," said the older lad, "and we got caught. That was all."

With his characteristic impetuosity, Eric took hold of his friend's unbandaged arm and led him to a seat in Owen Park, just facing Belle Isle, the most beautiful island park in the United States. With his love of lighthouses, the Light at the northeast corner seemed to Eric like an old friend.

"There," he said. "Now you're going to sit right there, Ed, and tell me all about it. I've only had two or three letters from you since you left 'Frisco, and we were in First-Year High together."

"That's so," his friend agreed. "All right, if you've got to have the yarn, here goes." He leaned back on the bench, and began his story.

"You remember that Father was interested in mines?"

"Of course," Eric answered; "he showed me that little model of a colliery he kept in his study."

"You do remember that," the other said, his eyes kindling. "I helped him make it. It was a lot of fun. Dad was a crank on conservation. He was one of the first men in America to take it up. You know it was his influence that swung Washington into line? The waste in coal really used to worry him. He was always afraid of a coal famine, and he spent a lot of time doping out ways to stop the waste in mining. He was just daffy about it, then."

"I can remember that, too," the boy said reminiscently. "He had pictures showing how quickly the coal was being used up, and how much coal every person in the United States was consuming, and all that sort of stuff. It was always mighty interesting to me. Your dad and I got along finely together."

"You did," his friend agreed. "Well, after a while, Dad decided to drop his business in 'Frisco and go mining. He'd always kept close tabs on the coal question, so that, when he got ready to start, nothing would satisfy him but small holdings in half a dozen parts of the country."

"What for?"

"You see, Dad wasn't trying to make a pile of money out of mining; he wanted to experiment with all sorts of coal and find some way to use it so that there wouldn't be so much waste. The locomotive, for instance, only converts about thirty per cent. of the coal into power. The other seventy per cent. goes up the smokestack. Same thing with an ocean liner."

"I know," said the boy.

"All right. So Dad bought a mine in Illinois, and one in Manitoba, and took a half-share in some Minnesota mines and another in a Michigan mine. Then he joined a company in Pennsylvania, and I don't know what all. Anyhow, he's got stuff all over the place. It was out of the question for the rest of us to be traveling from mine to mine all the time, the way Dad jumps around, and so we settled here. It's sort of central for him.

"Being mixed up in such a lot of mines, Dad had a chance to work out some of his pet schemes. He'd always been enthusiastic over the government's relations with the miners, and when it started rescue work, he was one of the first to equip a rescue car and ask some of the experts to come out and instruct his miners how to handle it. You know Dad—everything he does, every one else has got to do?"

"He always was like that," Eric agreed.

"He's that way still. So, of course, I was elected to that first-aid business right away. I had to know it all! There's nothing half-way about Dad. Cæsar's Ghost! How I slaved over that stuff! Luckily for me, they sent out a cracker-jack from Washington, and it was such good sport working with him that I soon picked it up. The next move was that I should go from one to another of Dad's mines and organize the rescue work. I've been doing that for the last year."

"I should think that was bully!" exclaimed Eric. "But how do you do it?"

"It's easy enough to start." The young fellow laughed. "I'm a regular rescue 'fan' now. I usually get two or three teams together and have a match. Talk about your kids on a baseball diamond in a vacant lot! Those miners' rescue teams have the youngsters skinned a mile for excitement when there's a rival test."

"But I don't see how you could have a fire-rescue match," said Eric, puzzled, "you can't set a mine on fire just to have a drill!"

"Scarcely! At least, you can't set a whole mine on fire. Once in a while, though, you can use an old mine shaft. But we generally do it in the field. There the entries and rooms are outlined with ropes on stakes. Across the entrances of these supposed rooms crossbars are laid, just the height of a mine gallery.

"The contest is to find out how good the men are, individually, and to teach them team work. Each man has a breathing apparatus, and a safety and electric lamp, while each crew has a canary bird."

"A what?"

"A canary bird!"

"What kind of a machine is that?" asked Eric, thinking the other was referring to some name for a piece of rescue apparatus.

"A canary bird? It's a yellow machine with feathers, and sings," said Ed, laughing.

"You mean a real canary bird?"

"Yes, a live one."

"But what the crickets do they need a canary bird for?"

"To give them a pointer as to when the air is bad. You see, Eric, there's all sorts of different kinds of poisonous gases in coal mines. Some you can spot right off, but there's others you can't."

"I thought gas was just gas," Eric answered, "'damp,' don't they call it?"

"There's several different 'damps.' Take 'fire damp' or just plain 'gas' as the miners call it. That's really methane, marsh gas, the same stuff that makes the will-o'-the-wisp you can see dancing around over a marsh. It'll explode, all right, but there's got to be a lot of it around before much damage'll be done. 'Fire damp' is like a rattlesnake, he's a gentleman."

"How do you mean?" queried the boy.

"Well, just the same way that a rattler'll never strike before giving you warning, 'fire damp' always gives you a chance ahead of time."

"How?"

"You know every miner carries a safety lamp?"

"Yes."

"'Fire damp' makes a sort of little cap over the flame of the lamp, like a small sugar-loaf hat. As soon as a miner sees this, he knows that there's enough 'gas' around to make it dangerous. As it's a gas that it doesn't do much harm to breathe, you see he can always make a get-away. Isn't that being a gentleman, all right?"

"Yes, I guess it is."

"Then there's 'black damp.' That's ordinary carbon dioxide, or carbonic acid gas."

"Isn't that just the stuff we breathe out?" questioned Eric.

"Exactly," his former schoolmate replied. "In an old mine, though, you've got to remember, nearly all the oxygen is absorbed by the coal. That gives a lot less chance for a leak of carbonic acid gas to mix with enough oxygen to keep the air pure. For 'black damp' though, the lamp's a good guide again. When a miner sees that his lamp is beginning to burn dim, it's a sign the air's short of oxygen."

"Of course," said Eric, "we used to have that experiment in our high school chemistry."

"We did. But do you remember just how much oxygen a lamp has to have?"

"No," the boy was forced to admit, "I've plumb forgot."

"A safety lamp will go right out with less than seventeen per cent. of oxygen, while a man can live fairly comfortably on fifteen or sixteen per cent. So the flickering out of a lamp is a sure sign that the danger line's not far off."

"It's a gentleman, too, then," said Eric with a laugh.

"Yes," the other assented dubiously, "but there's less margin. Now, 'white damp,' or carbon monoxide, is a horse of a different color. That's the real danger, Eric. Pretty nearly all the cases of poisoning in mines are due to 'white damp.' Just the other day, in Pennsylvania, two hundred men were killed—whouf!—just like blowing out a match. But 'white damp' hasn't got any effect on the flame of a safety lamp. If anything, it may hit it up even a trifle brighter. So the lamp isn't any good. That's where the mice come in."

"Mice? I thought you said canaries!"

"We use both mice and canaries. When you haven't got a canary, take a mouse."

"Which is the better?"

"Canary! 'White damp' catches him quicker. That means he gives an earlier warning. A canary will fall off his perch in four minutes when the air's only got one-fifth of one per cent, of 'white damp.'"

"And how long could a fellow stand that much of the gas?"

"About ten minutes, without being really put to the bad, though twenty minutes of it would make him mighty sick. You see, that gives a party six minutes clear before any harm's done. Any time a canary gives a warning, if the miners turn back right then and there, nobody'd be hurt. Isn't that a great little alarm, though?"

"It is that," Eric agreed. "But what happens to the canary?"

"Oh, he comes around again in about five minutes. If a bird gets too much 'white damp,' though, he loses some of his value, because he gets immune and can stand almost ten minutes. So you see, Eric, the 'yellow machine with feathers' can be a real help sometimes."

Courtesy of U.S. Bureau of Lighthouses.

A Beacon Masked in Ice.

Racine Reef Light, in the Great Lakes, where navigation has perils unknown to the open sea.

"Great!" said Eric, "I'll always look at a canary with respect after this. But I've been taking you away from the yarn, Ed, with all my questions. You were telling about the drill."

"So I was. Well, as soon as all the men are fitted up and the teams are ready, a signal is given. All the men are examined for their general health, their heart, pulse, breathing and all that sort of thing, and then they are made to get into the special helmet and sent into a smoke-house filled with the worst kind of fumes. They have to be there ten minutes. When they come out, the doctor examines them again. If any man shows poor condition, his team is penalized.

"Then all the lights are fixed up and examined, and there's a sure enough penalty if any one slips up on the lamp test. After that, a team is sent on the run to fetch a miner who is supposed to be lying unconscious in a working. No one knows where he is. The team to find him quickest and bring him back counts one point. Then the unconscious man is supposed to be revived. The team that does that best gets another point and so on."

"Real first-aid stuff," said Eric.

"You bet. We question the miners swiftly on accidents and they have to know bandaging and everything else. Running stretchers in a working that's only three feet or three feet six high isn't any joke."

"Are the galleries as small as that?" said Eric in surprise. "How can you stand up?"

"You can't. In lots of mines the men work all day long and never get a chance to straighten their backs. Then, in a really big drill, a miner is supposed to be imprisoned by a fall of roof. The team has to find him, to inspect the roof, to show how it should be timbered, and to put out a supposed fire in one of the workings. I tell you, a man who has a certificate from the Bureau of Mines as a trained mine-rescue man is trained all right. It was in one of those drills that I got hurt."

"Oh," cried Eric, disappointed, "I thought it was a real accident!"

"It was," his friend answered. "I said it was during a drill, not at one. It was in Central Pennsylvania. The contest was going ahead in good shape, when a chap came tearing down the road in a wagon, his horses on the gallop.

"'Explosion in the Eglinton, Shaft Three!' he called as soon as he got within hearing. 'There's hundreds of men caught!'

"Everybody looked at me. I wasn't a government man, and I was only there because I had trained most of the teams. I'm willing enough to be the whole thing, but after all I've got some gumption, and I wasn't going to take hold of something that needed an experienced man's handling. There was one old operator there, on one of the judging committees. He'd been watching me closely. 'Mr. Barnett,' I said hurriedly, 'will you take charge?'

"I tell you, Eric, you should have seen his face change! He jumped forward with a cheer. With a word here, an order there, in two minutes' time he had that wagon off again with two rescue teams fully equipped, himself leading, and I was heading all the rest of the men on a steady dog-trot to the place. Old man Barnett was a leader, all right!

"When we got to the mine shaft, it was surrounded by women, some crying, but most of them silent. The two rescue crews had been working like fiends, and work was needed, too.

"I didn't see how I could be much use, anyway. The miners were 'way ahead of me. I haven't had enough experience underground. Just the same, as soon as Barnett saw me, he shouted,

"'Down with you, boy!' and down I had to go.

"As I passed him, I said,

"'Mr. Barnett, I don't know much about the practical end of this!'

"'I know ye don't,' he answered grimly, 'ye don't have to. But men always need a leader. Get on down!'

"As soon as the bucket rattled me to the bottom of the shaft, I fixed on my apparatus, ready to start with the rest of my team. I'd been through that mine once and the comment I'd heard at the pit mouth had told me where the trouble was, so we started off boldly.

"We went 'way in and met one of the parties coming out with a stretcher. We were near enough to make signs to them, just visible in the dull gloom of dimly burning safety lamps when, woof! down came a mass of roof. I saw it coming and dodged back, but not quite in time, for a chunk of coal caught my shoulder. It twisted me round so that I fell with my left arm stretched out, and then a big chunk rolled full on me, just above the wrist."

"Broke it?"

"Yes, quite a nasty smash,—a comminuted fracture, the doctor called it. My boys snaked that coal off and got me up in a hurry, but the party with the stretcher was cut off. That fall of the roof had choked up the passage solid. The men were already at work at it, using their pickaxes like demons. Seeing I couldn't do any good with a broken arm, I ran back for reënforcements."

"Didn't your arm hurt like blazes?"

"I suppose it did, but I don't remember noticing it much at the time. I got back to the mine entrance and steered another gang to where the cave-in had occurred. But what do you suppose I found when we got there?"

"What?" called Eric, excitedly.

"My men were poisoned!"

"How?"

"White damp."

"You mean they were dead?" exclaimed the boy, horror-stricken.

"No, they were all at work," said the other, "but they were pickaxing the rock in a listless sort of way that I recognized at once. You see, I'd done quite a bit of reading along those lines—Dad was so keen on it—so I could tell at once that they'd had a dose of carbon monoxide, and a bad dose at that.

"'Come back, boys!' I cried. 'Come back! The place is full of 'white damp'!

"But they were a plucky lot of fellows. Their comrades were entombed on the other side of the cave-in and they wouldn't quit. And all the while they were breathing in the fumes."

"So were you!" exclaimed Eric.

"Yes, but I wasn't working. I couldn't do much, with my arm all smashed up, and so I wasn't breathing in as deeply and taking in as much of that stuff as they were. I urged them to come back, but they were Americans, and wouldn't give in as long as there was any hope of rescue.

"Then I ordered them back. I think they thought I was crazy. I picked up a shovel and threatened to smash it across the face of the first man who didn't follow orders. They grumbled, but, after all, they'd been well trained and they knew that they had to do what the leader ordered. The second gang that had come up had its own leader, you see, and he told them to go on. That made my men all the harder to handle, but I brought them back.

"Just as we got near the mine entrance, one of the men collapsed. That gave me an awful scare. I sent one of the men up to tell Barnett, while I ran back into the workings."

"What for?"

"To try to get that second gang back, anyway."

"But wasn't it an awful chance to take, to go back into that stuff?"

"Who bothers about chances?" exclaimed the other. "But I took the canary!"

"Well?"

"I wasn't more than half-way to the gang when the bird began to quiver and just as I reached them, it fell off the perch. I held out the cage. That was all the proof I needed."

"'Guess the kid's right,' the foreman of the gang said. 'Go back, boys.'

"They raised a howl with him the same way that my own men did with me. But he was an old-timer, and without wasting any words, he smashed the foremost of the workers across the jaw. Under a torrent of abuse, the men fell back. I was half-way to the entrance when everything turned black before me. Next thing I knew, I was in the Mine Superintendent's house with a trained nurse."

"White damp?" queried Eric.

"That's what the doctor said."

"What happened to the imprisoned bunch?"

"Old Man Barnett had just reached the entrance to the working with a large rescue party all equipped with breathing apparatus, when I collapsed. He got the trapped men out."

"I should think they'd have been poisoned for fair," said Eric.

"Not a bit of it," his friend replied. "The leak of white damp had all come on the outside of the roof-fall, and there was hardly any of it on the other side. Some of the men were pretty weak from lack of air and that sort of thing, but not seriously hurt. It was the rescuers who suffered."

"How was that, Ed?"

"Three of the five men who were in my gang died," said the other mournfully.

"Great guns! Died?"

"Yes," the young miner said, "poor fellows, they went under. Another man and I were the only ones who got over it."

"Died in saving others! That's sure tough!" There was a pause, and Eric added, "What got you two clear?"

"The other chap had been lying full length on the ground, while working, and as white damp rises, he had breathed less of the gas than the others. I wasn't able to work, so I didn't have to breathe deep." He looked down at his broken arm. "It's a queer thing," he said, "but it was breaking my arm that saved my life."

CHAPTER IV
SNATCHED FROM A FROZEN DEATH

"Father! Father! What do you think?" cried Eric, bursting into the sitting room at breakfast one morning, a couple of weeks after his encounter with his young mining friend, "I'm going into the Life-Saving work right away!"

"What's the excitement?" his father asked, speaking for the rest of the family. "Cool down a bit, my boy, and tell us all about it."

"I've—I've just got a letter from the Captain Commandant," replied Eric, fairly stuttering in his haste to tell the good news, "and he says I can enlist in one of the lake stations until the close of navigation. I'll get some real practical training that way, he says, and then I can take up prep. work for the Academy all winter."

In view of the fact that there had been considerable correspondence between the ruling head of the Coast Guard and Mr. Swift, the old inspector was less surprised than the boy expected. Not for the world would the lad's father have let him think that there had been any consultation about this plan. He wanted the boy to have the sense of being "on his own"!

"I remember now," he said, "you said something about writing along that line a couple of weeks ago."

"I did write, Father, I did want so awfully to get a chance. But I hardly believed that they'd actually let me do it."

"I don't see why they wouldn't. After all you told me about your swimming, they ought to have made a special bid for you," he added smiling.

"You don't mind my going, do you?"

"I'm perfectly willing, my boy," his father said. "I'm sufficiently on to your curves, Eric, to know that it isn't much use trying to pin you down to books while there are a few weeks of summer left. You'll be out of mischief at a Coast Guard station, that's one sure thing. I think I'll take you out to meet old Icchia, the veteran of the Lakes. He holds the record for one of the most sensational rescues in the history of the service. I've often heard your Uncle Jim tell the story, but I won't spoil the yarn for you by telling it myself, I'll let Icchia do that."

"When can we go to see him, Father?"

The old inspector smiled at his son's enthusiasm.

"It happens that I've got to start off on an inspection trip to-morrow, which will take me away for a week or so," he answered, "so, if you have no other plans, we might go to-day."

"I'll get ready now!" cried Eric, jumping up from the table.

"You'll do nothing of the kind," his father said rebukingly, while his mother smiled at the boy's impetuosity, "we won't go until after lunch, that is—if you can wait so long!"

"All right, but isn't it bully!" and, unable to contain himself, Eric launched into a panegyric of the Life-Saving Service, most of the history of which he knew by heart.

The lad's excitement increased tenfold when, that afternoon, they approached the little cottage of the old keeper. It was right on the seashore in an outlying suburb looking out over the peaceful stretch of Lake St. Clair.

"Mr. Icchia," said the old inspector, after greetings had been exchanged, "my boy here is going to join one of the lake stations and, to give him an idea of what the service can do, I want you to tell him the story of that night off Chocolay Island."

"It's a deal like beatin' a big drum," began the old keeper in a quavering voice, "to bid an ol' fellow like me tell of his own doin's!"

"But you're not doing it to show off," Mr. Swift said, "I wouldn't ask you to do that. It's because I know you think a good deal of the Service that I wanted my boy to meet you, and to hear a real story of life-saving told by one of the men who was in it."

"It wasn't so much at that—" the old man began. But the lighthouse inspector interrupted.

"Spin the yarn, Icchia," he said, "it's a poor trick to make a lot of excuses! Besides, it spoils the story."

Now the old keeper had a firm belief in his own value as a story-teller and it piqued his pride to have it thought that he was spoiling a good yarn, so without further preamble he began.

"I don' know what the world is comin' to," he said, after he had filled his pipe and lit it, "but there's no sech winters to-day as there was in my young days. I kin remember, when I wasn't no older'n that bub there, there was more snow in one winter 'n we have in five, now; an' Lake Huron was always friz up. Life-savin' was a lot harder in them days, ye'd better believe me, an' not only in the winter but all year round."

"Why?" asked the boy.

"There wasn't no sech lights then as there is now, for one thing, an' a skipper had to keep his eyes peeled an' his lead goin'. An', for 'nother thing, in the days I'm talkin' of, they was mostly all sailin' craft. Now I'm not sayin' nothin' in favor of steamers—I was raised on an ol'-time clipper. I will say that when a gale ain't too bad, a steamer kin handle herself more easy-like 'n a sailin' craft, when there ain't but a little seaway. But when she's blowin' good an' strong, an' the gale's got more heft 'n a steamer's screws, what use is her machines to her?"

"Not much," said the boy.

"Ye're sayin' it," the old keeper continued. "An' in the ol' days, when steamers first run on the Lakes, they weren't no such boats as ye see now. Our worst wrecks in them days were the steamers. This one, that your pappy wants me to tell ye 'bout, was a steamer an' a three-masted fore-an'-after she had in tow.

"This yarn I'm a spinnin' reely begins down at Marquette Breakwater. It was on the seventeenth day of November, an', let me see, it must have been in 'eighty-six, the same year my youngest was born. The winter had broke in early that year, not with any reel stormy weather, but jest a bunch o' pesky squalls. An' cold! We was in the boat mighty near every day, an' I used ter forget what bein' warm felt like. There was allers somethin' hittin' a shoal or tryin' to make a hole in the beach. It was squally an' shiftin', ye see. An' the mush-ice set in early."

Courtesy of U.S. Bureau of Lighthouses.

Wrecks! And the Ice Between!

Steamer ashore near St. Joseph, Mich., under conditions all but impossible for life-saving, yet not a soul was lost.

"What's mush-ice?" interrupted Eric.

"Mush-ice," said the old keeper, "is a mixture of frozen spray, an' ice, an' bits o' drift, an' everythin' that kin freeze or be friz over, pilin' up on the beach. It's floatin', ye understan', an', as a rule, 'bout two or three foot thick. Owin' to the movin' o' the water, it don't never freeze right solid, but the surf on the beach breaks it into bits anywheres from the size of 'n apple to a keg. An' it joggles up 'n' down, 'n' the pieces grin' agin each other. It's jest a seesawin' edge o' misery on a frozen beach."

"That's as bad as Alaska!" exclaimed the boy.

"It's a plumb sight worse," the other answered. "I ain't never been no further north 'n Thunder Cape, jest by Nipigon. An' what's more, I ain't goin'! But even up there, the ice freezes solid 'n' you kin do somethin' with it. Mush-ice never gits solid, but like some sort o' savage critter born o' the winter, champs its jaws of ice, waitin' for its prey."

"How do you like that, Eric?" asked his father. "That's some of the 'fun' you're always talking about."

"Can't scare me, Dad," replied Eric with a laugh. "I'm game."

"Ye'll need all yer gameness," put in the old life-saver. "Wait till ye hear the end o' the yarn! As I was sayin', it was in November. The fust big storm o' the winter broke sudden. I never see nothin' come on so quick. It bust right out of a snow-squall, 'n' the glass hadn' given no warnin'. We wa'n't expectin' trouble an' it was all we c'd do to save the boats. Ye couldn't stand up agin it, an' what wasn't snow an' sleet, was spray.

"All mornin' the gale blew, an' in the middle o' the afternoon the breakwater went to bits. The keepers o' the light at the end o' the breakwater lighted the lantern, 'n' you take my word for it, they were takin' their lives in their hands in doin' it. Jest half 'n hour later, the whole shebang, light, lighthouse, 'n' the end o' the breakwater, went flyin' down to leeward in a heap o' metal 'n splinters.

"Jest about that time, some folks down Chocolay way, lookin' out to sea, took a notion they saw what looked like white ghosts o' ships 'way out on the bar. She was jest blowin' tiger cats with the claws out! 'Twa'n't a day for no Atlantic greyhound to be out, much less a small boat. But I tell ye, boy, when there's lives to be saved, there's allers some Americans 'round that's goin' to have a try at it. Over the ice 'n' through the gale, eight men helpin', the fishermen o' Chocolay carried a yawl an' life-lines to the point o' the beach nearest the wreck. Four men clumb into her."

"Without cork-jackets or anything?" asked Eric.

"Without nothin' but a Michigan man's spunk. Well, siree, those four men clumb into that yawl, an' a bunch of others jumped into the mush-ice an' toted her 'way out to clear water. With a yell, the fisherman put her nose inter the gale an' pulled. But it wa'n't no use. No yawl what was ever made could have faced that sea. The spray friz in the air as it come, an' the men were pelted with pieces of jagged ice, mighty near as big 's a bob-cherry. Afore they was ten feet away from the mush, a sea come over 'n' half filled the boat. It wa'n't no use much ter bail, for it friz as soon's it struck. They hadn't shipped more'n four seas when the weight of ice on the boat begun to sink her."

"Fresh water, of course," said Eric. "It would freeze quickly. I hadn't thought of that."

"In spite o' the ice," continued the veteran of seventy Lake winters, "two o' the men were for goin' on, but the oldest man o' the crowd made 'em turn back. He was only jest in time, for as the yawl got back to the edge o' the mush she went down."

"Sank?"

"Jest like as if she was made o' lead."

"And the men?" asked the boy eagerly.

"They was all right. I told you it was nigh the beach. The crowd got to the yawl 'n' pulled her up on shore. They burned a flare to let 'em know aboard the wrecks that they was bein' helped an' to hold out a hope o' rescue, but there wasn't no answer. Only once in a great while could any one on shore see those ghosts o' ships 'way out on the bar. An' every time the snow settled down, it was guessin' if they'd be there next time it cleared away, or not.

"Seein' that there was nothin' doin' with the yawl, the crowd reckoned on callin' us in to the deal. We was the nearest life-savin' station to Chocolay bar, an' we was over a hundred miles away."

"A hundred miles!"

"All o' that an' more. We was on Ship Island, six miles from Houghton. As I was sayin', seein' that nothin' could be done from their end, Cap'n John Frink, master of a tug, hiked off to the telegraph office at Marquette, 'n' called up Houghton. That's a hundred 'n' ten miles off, by rail. He told 'em o' the wrecks 'n' said he thought as we could get 'em off if we could come right down. The wires were down between Houghton 'n' Ship Islan' and there wa'n't no way o' lettin' us know. The operators sent word all over, to try an' get a message to us, an' mighty soon nigh everybody on the peninsula knowed that we'd been sent for.

"The skipper of a big tug in Houghton heard about it, jest as he was goin' to bed. He come racin' down to the wharf an' rousted out the crew. His engineer was still on board an' they got steam up like winkin'. The gale was blowin' even worse up our way, but the old tug snorted into it jest the same. Out into the dark an' the snow an' the storm she snubbed along, tootin' her whistle like as if it were the Day of Jedgment. An' if it had been," continued the old man in parenthesis, "no one would've known it in that storm!"

"When did you see the tug?" queried the boy.

"Couldn't see nothin'," was the answer, "we jest heard that ol' whistle toot. One o' the men guessed it was the big tug all right an' wondered if she was ashore somewheres with a tow. But, fust thing we know, she come up out o' the muck o' snow an' sleet an' the ol' skipper bellered to us through a speakin'-trumpet that he was come to take us to a wreck. We snaked the gear on to that tug in about half no time, takin' the big surf-boat an' all the apparatus. The tug was a blowin' off steam, like as if she was connected to a volcaner. I tell you there must have been some fire under them boilers. An' when we started—I'm an old hand, boy, but I'm tellin' ye that I never thought to see Houghton. The ol' skipper sent that tug through at racin' speed like as if it was a moonlight summer night an' he had all the sea-room in a couple of oceans.

"'Air ye goin' to stop at Houghton?' I asks him, sort o' sarcastic, 'or are ye gittin' up speed enough to run on a mile or two after ye hit the shore?'

"'Don't ye worry,' he said, with a short laugh, 'ye c'n tie my ears an' eyes up doorin' a hurricane, 'n' I can smell my way to port!'

"An' I'm tellin' ye he did. Without nary a light nor nothin' to guide him—for the snow was worse 'n any fog—he went full speed ahead. An' when he tinkled that little telegraph bell to the engine room, I was wonderin' if he was within ten miles o' the place. But as that craft slowed down, ye can b'lieve me or not 's you like, she glided up to her own pier like as if it was a ferry-boat in a dead calm.

"'I've got to hand it to you, Cap'n,' I says to him, 'I wouldn't ha' believed it unless I seen it.'

"'That's my end,' say the cap'n, 'I know my work, same's you know yours. I'm bettin' my pile on you fellers makin' good 'most any ol' time.' Made me feel good, all right."

"It sure does make a difference," put in Eric, "when you know that people have confidence in you."

"Right you are, boy," said the old keeper, and continued his story. "That pier was jest a mass o' folks, thick as they c'd stand. An' when they saw the tug with us on board, they cheered, 'n' cheered, 'n' cheered. There was a dozen to grab the lines 'n' make 'em fast, 'n' before she was even tied up, a mob grabbed our boat an' apparatus an' rushed it to the railroad.

"While we was a-comin' over the strait, the superintendent o' the railroad division was got up, 'n' told all about the wreck. He was a spry man, too, 'n' by the time the tug was in, he had orders out to clear the track 'n' a special train was waitin' in the station. She was ready fitted up with a couple of open cars for the boat an' apparatus, an' one coach for us.

"They didn't let us touch nothin'.

"'Keep your strength, men,' the superintendent said to the crew, 'my boys will put your stuff aboard.'

"They did. That boat an' the apparatus an' everything else was aboard that special, jest about as quick as we could climb into the cars. We had a special train all right! She jest whizzed along that track, not worryin' about nothin'. Signals didn't matter, for the track had been cleared in advance. The superintendent had come on the train with us. He'd wired ahead to Marquette, an' when we slowed up there was another bunch in the station to welcome us. The train was covered in ice an' snow, an' the front of the locomotive looked like a dummy engine made out o' plaster o' Paris.

"The station was alive with men, all just on edge with waitin'. They had sleighs but no horses, the footin' was too bad. An' so the boat an' the apparatus-car was put on the sleighs, an' the men dragged it along themselves at a whole of a clip! They wouldn't even let us walk, but toted us along in a sleigh, too."

"Why?" asked Eric.

"To keep us from bein' tired. We needed all the strength we had. An' we made good time, I'm tellin' ye. They carried out the boat an' the cart to the beach an' then their end of it was done. It was up to us, now. An' I tell ye, I was anxious. There was somethin' mighty thrillin' in that wild train ride through the night. I've often run big chances in a boat, but this was different-like. Usooally no one knows what we're doin', but this time, the news was bein' flashed all over the country.

"When we actooally got on the beach it didn't look so bad. The boats were lyin' right on the bar 'bout two hundred 'n' fifty foot, off shore. We rigged the gun, loaded her, 'n' fired. I dropped a line jest abaft the pilot-house, where we figured the men must be waitin'. It was a good shot an' I reckoned that there wa'n't goin' to be no trouble at all. It heartened me right up. We'd got there in time, an' first crack out o' the box, there was a line, right across the steamer. The path o' rescue had been made!

"But there was one thing I hadn't figured on."

"What was that?" queried Eric excitedly.

"The weather 'n' the cold. The seas had come up, over 'n' over that steamer, ontil the decks were one straight glare of ice. There wa'n't nothin' a man could get hold of. If a sailor stepped out on that ice, he couldn't stand, for she was heelin' over to port like the side of a hill. An' the lee bulwark was torn away. Worst of all, the waves kep' a dashin' over 'n' over without stoppin'. Our line wa'n't more'n fifteen feet from the pilot-house, but no one couldn' get to that line without bein' washed off.

"In a way, we'd done all that was necessary. We'd dropped a line where they'd ought to be able to get it. We couldn't know there wa'n't no way for 'em to do it. But when the minutes went by 'n' there was no sign from the steamer, it begun to look bad. If it hadn't been for the ice on the decks they was as good as rescued, but with the way it was, they wa'n't no better off, even with rescue fifteen feet away, than when our crew was a hundred miles off in Ship Island. There wa'n't nothin' for us to do but tackle the job ourselves.

Courtesy of U.S. Coast Guard.

Laying the Lyle Gun.

Courtesy of U.S. Coast Guard.

Firing the Shot and Line.

Note line being paid out from the faking-box. This shot carried a sixth of a mile.

"The fishermen, the ones that had been out in the yawl, came aroun' an' said it couldn't be done. My coxswain agreed it couldn't be done, but we'd do it just the same."

"And you?" asked the boy.

"I jest started gettin' the boat ready," the old keeper said, simply. "It was 'way after midnight, reckon it was nearly one o'clock, an', if anything, the sea was wilder. An' I felt nothin' so cold afore in all my life. The women o' Chocolay, they was out that night, bringin' steamin mugs o' coffee. There's a deal o' credit comin' to them, too, the way I look at it."

"I don't see that they could have done much less," said Eric.

"Maybe aye, maybe no," said the veteran, "but I reckon, no matter how little a woman does, the right kind o' man's goin' to think it's a lot. Well, as I was sayin', I turned to the boys to launch the boat. We got hold of her by the rails an' waded in through the mush-ice, same as the fishermen had done. I tell you, it guv me a big sense o' pride in men like our Michigan fishermen when I tackled what they'd tackled. They hadn't no cork-jackets, and they wa'n't rigged up for it. Their boat wa'n't built for no such work but they didn't stop to think o' their own lives or their own boat. An' a fisherman's boat, like's not, is all he's got to make a livin' with. It makes a man feel good to think there's other men like that!

"That mush reached two hundred yards f'm land. I don't know how them fisher chaps ever got through the ice at all. It took us nigh half 'n hour to make the last hundred yards. When the water deepened so's we could get into the boat, every man's clothes was drenched an' they friz right on to him. Every time we dipped the oars in that mush they'd stick, 'n' onless we'd pulled 'em out mighty fast they'd have friz right there. 'Bout every ten yards we had to chop the oar-locks free of ice an' the only part of our slickers what wa'n't friz was where the muscles was playin'. The cox'n, he looked like one of them petrified men ye read about.

"At last we got through the mush. All the way through it, with the load o' floatin' ice 'n' muck, the sea wa'n't tossin' much. But jest the very minute we got clear of it an' started out, the sea hit us fair. I was pullin' stroke an' it didn't git me so hard, but the cox'n, who was facin' bow, got it full. The wind was dead ahead an' the sea was a-tumblin' in as if there wa'n't no land between us an' the North Pole.

"The blades o' the oars got covered with ice, makin' 'em round, like poles, instead of oars, an' we couldn't get no purchase. I hit up the stroke a bit, exhaustin' though it was, 'n' maybe we made about twenty feet further. She was self-bailin' or we'd ha' been swamped right away. Every sea that come aboard left a layer of ice, makin' her heavier to handle. Then, suddenly, along comes a sea, bigger'n any before, an' it takes that lifeboat 'n' chucks us back on the mush-ice, bang! The shock smashes the rudder 'n' puts us out o' business. I forces the boat ashore for repairs.

"'Too bad,' says the railroad superintendent, to me; 'for a minute, there, I thought you were going to make it.'

"'We jest are goin' to make it,' says I, 'if we have to swim!'

"Then one o' those fisher chaps had a good idee. While we was a-fixin' up the rudder an' gittin' ready for another trip, the rest o' the crowd chops the ice off'n the boat, 'n' off'n the oars. Then this fisher chap I was a tellin' about, he comes back with a can of tallow an' smears that thick all over the boat an' the oars an' our slickers an' near everything that he c'd find to put a bit o' tallow on."

"What was that for?" queried Eric.

"So as the water'd run off, o' course," the old man answered. "It worked, too. In about twenty minutes we was off again, in the mush-ice, jest as afore. We hadn't had no chance to get warm, an' our clothes was wet an' friz. I thought sure some o' the men would be frost-bit. But I guess we was all too tough.

"The second trip started jest the same. As soon as we got out o' the ice a breaker come along 'n' hove that boat 'way up, 'n' then chucked it back on the ice, smashin' the new rudder same's the old one.

"I wa'n't goin' to have no monkey-business with rudders any more, 'n' I yelled to Brown, he was the cox'n,

"'Take 'n oar, Bill!'

"He grabs a spare oar 'n' does all he knows how to steer with that. Again we druv our oars into it an' got out o' the ice, 'n' again it threw us back. We did that five times 'n' then one of the fellers got hurt, when his oar struck a chunk of ice, 'n' we went ashore again. I reckon we'd been at it nigh four hours, then."

"I suppose you hadn't any trouble finding a volunteer?" the boy said.

"We could ha' got nigh every man on the beach. But we took one o' the fishermen who had gone out on his own hook afore. If we was goin' to do any savin' it was on'y fair he should have a share o' the credit. An' then, any chap who was willin' to resk his life in a bit of a yawl in that weather was worth puttin' in a boat.

"So we'd had to make three starts afore we really got away an' clear o' the ice. I never see no such gale in all my days. It was an hour an' more, steady pullin' with every pound o' muscle in the crew, before we got in reach o' the tug. An' then, when we was right up on her, there wa'n't one man aboard who come out to catch a line. We found out why, arterwards. The gale took us by her like we was racin', 'n' the boys had to work like Sam Patch to get back. I guess it took nigh half 'n hour to creep up to wind'ard of her again.

"One o' my crew, a young fellow from Maine, as lively a little grig as ever I see, volunteered to board her. We ran under her bow, an' somehow or other he clumb up on board, I swear I don't see how he ever done it, an' snaked a line round her funnel. I went aboard an' one other o' the crew, a man we used to call Ginger.

"Then we found out why the men aboard the steamer hadn't come out to pick up our line. The door o' the pilot-house was smothered in ice, more'n an inch thick. Every window was friz in. We was sure up against it. We couldn't stand on the glassy deck, 'n' there was no way to get the men out. The surf-boat was a-ridin' twenty fathom behind, we'd let her out on a long line, an' there was another cold wait while we hauled her up an' got an ax out of her. We lashed ourselves fast or we'd ha' gone over the side, sure.

"When Ginger, who was an old lumber-jack, gits the ax, he slides along to the pilot-house, an' starts to chop. He'd been choppin' jest about a minute when along comes a sea, smashes one o' the ventilators an' hurls it along the deck. The cussed thing hits Ginger jest as he's swingin' the ax, 'n' sweeps him overboard.

"The crew in the surf-boat see him go an' they cast off the line an' picked him up. But, with two men shy, it was a full hour afore the boat worked back to place to catch our line. They must ha' pulled like fiends to git thar at all. By the time they'd made it, we'd managed to get through that door an' the crew o' the tug was ready to be taken in the boat. It was jest six hours from the time we landed on the beach at Chocolay before we got the first man ashore."

"And the crew of the schooner?" queried the boy.

"We got them off without no trouble. They was sailors! We jest hove a line aboard 'n' got 'em into the boat. They hadn't suffered much. The schooner was higher on the shoal 'n the tug, bein' lighter, 'n' the men'd been able to stay below. They'd kep' a couple o' lookouts on the job, relievin' 'em every hour shipshape and Bristol fashion."

"How many men did you rescue?" the boy asked.

"Nine men from the steamer 'n' six from the schooner. It was nigh eight in the mornin' before they was all ashore, drinkin' coffee an' gittin' eats. The women o' the commoonity was still on the job. I'm doubtin' if we could ha' ever made it without somethin' like that. We wa'n't any too soon, neither."

"Why not?"

"In less 'n an hour after we got 'em ashore the tug capsized 'n' went to pieces. The old schooner stood it out better, but she was pretty much a wreck, too, when the weather cleared. We'd our work to do, 'n' we done it. Jest the same, I've allers had a feelin' as if there was as much to be said for the fishermen, 'n' the train-hands, 'n' the cap'n o' the tug, 'n' all the rest that j'ined in.

"It's the biggest rescue on the lakes, but there's nothin' more wonderful in it to me than the way it shows how everybody gets in 'n' gives a hand when help is needed. Don't ye ever forget, in times o' need, that ye've only got ter call, 'n' some one's goin' to hear. An' ye're like enough ter need help in the life-savin' business. I ain't saying as storms is as bad now as they was, but there's enough of 'em still ter keep any crew right on the jump."

"I'll remember, Mr. Icchia," the boy replied, "and I'll be mighty proud if I can ever do half as well. I'm proud enough, now, just to be given the chance."

The old man knocked the ashes from his pipe on his horny and weather-beaten hand and answered,

"As long as there's life-savin' to be done, there's goin' ter be life-savers to do it. I don' hold with none o' this nonsense ye hear sometimes about the world gittin' worse. If ever I did get that idee, I'd only have to go 'n' look at a surf-boat, 'n' I'd know different. It's a good world, boy, 'n' the goodness don't lay in tryin' to be a hero, but jest in plain bein' a man."

Courtesy of U.S. Coast Guard.

Gold Life-Saving Medal.

Given only in recognition of heroism wherein loss of life was risked by the rescuer.

CHAPTER V
SAVED BY THE BREECHES-BUOY

The last words of the old keeper, "Goodness don't lay in tryin' to be a hero, but jest in plain bein' a man," rang through Eric's mind, many and many a day after, when, on his own Coast Guard station, he had to face some difficulty. His post chanced to be in a somewhat sheltered spot, and thus gave him an opportunity to become a good oarsman. His work with the volunteer corps had made him a first-class swimmer and a fair boatman. The government service, however, he found to be a very different matter. There, efficiency had to be carried to the highest degree.

He snatched every opportunity, too, to get ahead with his studies, and luck came his way in a most unexpected shape. It happened that quite near the Coast Guard station was the hut of a queer old hermit sort of fellow, called "Dan." He had been a life-saver many years before, but in a daring rescue had injured his back, and could never enter a boat again. In those days there were no pensions, so for forty years and more he had made a living by inventing riddles and puzzles, tricks of various kinds, and clever Christmas toys. His especial hobby was mathematical puzzles. He used to drop into the station quite frequently, for he was very popular with the men.

"Dan," said Eric to him one day, "I don't see how you can be so interested in that stuff. It's the bane of my life. I'm nailing as hard as I can to try and get in shape for a Coast Guard exam., and I simply can't get hold of the mathematics end of it."

"Why for not?"

"Don't know enough, I guess," the boy answered. "I'm right up on everything but mathematics, but that gets me every time. I know there's some sense in it, but I can't see it. Everything else I've got to study I can find some interest in, but mathematics is as dull as ditch-water. How you can find any fun in it, I can't see!"

This was like telling a painter that color had no emotion, or a scientist that science had no reasonableness. The old puzzle-maker gasped.

"No fun!" he exclaimed. "It is the mos' fun in the world. I show you!"

Pulling from his pocket a pencil and an old envelope he drew a baseball diamond, and marked the positions of the players. Eric's interest arose at once, for he was a keen baseball fan. As the sketch grew the old man talked, describing a queer entanglement of play.

"Now!" said the old man, "what shall he do?"

The boy, judging from his knowledge of the game, made a suggestion, which the other negatived. As soon as the boy made a guess, the other showed him to be wrong. Eric, really interested in the baseball problem, cudgelled his brains, but could find no way out.

"I show you!" the old man repeated.

Using a very simple rule of algebra, which the boy knew quite well, but giving an application he never would have thought of, Dan brought the solution in a second. Hardly believing that mere mathematics could be of any service in a baseball game, Eric tested the result. It was exactly as the old man had said.

"Gee," he said, "that's great!"

The puzzle-maker smiled, and showed him how mass-play in football was a matter of science, not strength, and how lacrosse was a question of trajectory.

"Not only in games," he said. "'Rithmetic, geometry—in everything. You know Muldoon."

"Sure I know Muldoon," the boy said.

"Have you seen him shoot?"

"With the Lyle gun, you mean? Isn't he a dandy at it?"

"That is what I would say," the old man continued. "How does he fire him?"

"Why, he just fires it! No," he corrected himself, "he doesn't either. I see what you're driving at. That's right, I did see him doing some figuring the other day."

"I teach Muldoon," said the old man. "I show him how to tell how much wind, how to tell how far away a ship, how to tell when a line is heavy or light. He figure everything, then fire. Bang! And the line to bring the drowning men home falls right over the ship. It is?"

"It is, all right," the boy agreed. "Muldoon gets there every time. I always thought he just aimed the gun, sort of naturally."

"It is all mathematics," said the old man. "You have guns in the Coast Guard?"

"Rapid-fire six-pounders," the boy answered. "At least I know that's what the Itasca's got. She's the practice-ship at New London, you know."

"Do you have to learn gunnery?"

"Rather," said the lad. "Every breed of gunnery that there is. You know a Coast Guard cutter becomes a part of the navy in time of war, so an officer has got to know just as much about big guns as an officer in the navy. He might have to take his rank on a big battleship if the United States was at war. You bet I'll have to learn gunnery. That ought to be heaps of fun."

"But gunnery is ballistics," the old man said. "And ballistics is trigonometry. Big gun is fired by figuring, not by looking."

"I'm only afraid," the lad replied, "that I'll never have a chance at the big gun. Everywhere I go, it's nothing but figuring. And I simply can't get figures into my head."

"You really want to learn?"

"You bet I do," said Eric. "I'm working like a tinker at the stuff every chance I get, but I don't seem to get the hang of it somehow."

"If you come to me, I teach you."

"Teach me all I want to know?" said the boy in amazement.

The old man shook his head.

"Teach you to want to know all you have to know. Teach you to like figures."

Eric looked at him a minute.

"All right, Dan," he said, "I'll go you. I've still got some of the money I saved up from my work this summer and I was going to spend part of it on tutoring this winter, anyway. I'll tutor under you, whenever I'm off duty, and if you can teach me to like figures, you're a good one. Any way, your cottage is so near that I can get right on the job if the station calls."

True to his word, a few days later Eric appeared at the tiny little cottage—it was scarcely more than a hut—which was the home of the eccentric old puzzle-maker. The top part of it was a home-made observatory, and the whole building looked a good deal like a large beehive.

"String in the corner," said the old man, after welcoming him. "Get him."

"It's all knotted, Dan," the boy replied, holding up a piece of rope with a couple of dozen strings hanging from it, of various colors, all intertwined.

"Of course he is," the old man replied. "Read him."

"What?" asked the boy.

"Read him," repeated the old man.

"What does it mean?"

"He's what Incas used to count treasure with," the old man said. "He's quipu, a copy of one Cortez found in City of Sun. You like to read what he says?"

"You bet I would."

"Bring him here."

Wondering a good deal at the odd puzzle-maker's manner, for the lad had gone to the cottage in good faith with his books, expecting to work on the problems that were disturbing him, he brought over the knotted quipu.

"Green string means corn," said the puzzle-maker, "because he's the color of growing corn. What you suppose white is?"

"Silver," guessed the boy.

"Right. And yellow?"

"Gold."

"Right, too. And red?"

"Copper?" hazarded the boy.

"Not bad guess," the old man said. "Not copper color, red."

"Red stands for war," said Eric meditatively, then, with an inspiration, "in those days a country was rich if it had soldiers. Does the red mean soldiers, Dan?"

"Soldiers, right," the old man answered. "The Quipucamayocuna—"

"The what, Dan?"

"Knot officers," explained the other, "kept track of him all. They counted tens, single knot meant ten; double knot, hundred. Now read him. Cross-knotting is for groups."

Eric worked for a quarter of an hour and then looked up.

"I've got it," he said.

"What is he?"

"In this town," said the boy, "there were seven regiments of soldiers, I've got down the exact number of men in each regiment. Some had plenty of food in the regimental storehouse, some had only a little. But—if I get it right—there was money belonging to each regiment in a treasure-house, somewhere, like a bank. I suppose they could exchange this for food. And, if I've read it right, there was one regiment which had money but no men. I suppose they were wiped out in battle."

"Very good," answered the puzzle-maker, looking pleased. "You keep accounts, your own money?"

"Of course," answered the boy, pulling out a little diary from his pocket.

"Here, string," said the old man. "Write your week's accounts in quipu."

Thoroughly interested, Eric took up a pile of colored strings, from the corner and started to convert his week's accounting into quipu. He worked for half an hour, but couldn't make it come out right. It proved an exasperating puzzle, because it seemed impossible and yet conveyed the suggestion that there ought to be some way of doing it. Already Eric had so keen a sense of the old man's comments that he hated to say that he couldn't do it. But, after a while, red in the face and quite ashamed, he said,

"I can't do it, Dan."

"No, he is not possible," said the puzzle-maker cheerfully. "That's what I wanted you to find. The quipu is wonderful but he's not wonderful enough, eh?"

"We'd have trouble trying to handle a big modern banking business by it, all right," the boy agreed. "But, Dan, how about this studying I'm supposed to do?"

"You know Latin numerals?" the old man replied.

"Of course!" Eric answered indignantly. "I couldn't even tell the time if I didn't!"

"Write 'Four,'" came the order.

Promptly the boy wrote "IV."

"Now look at watch."

"It's got four ones there," Eric said ruefully.

"The 'IV' form is late," said the puzzle-maker. "I show you something. Copy column of pocket cash-book in Roman numerals, then, without thinking in figures, add up column."

Not in the least understanding what were the old man's ideas the boy did as he was told. It was easy enough to write down the numbers, but when he came to add them up, he found himself thinking of Arabic figures in spite of himself.

"I'm cheating," said Eric suddenly, "I can't help adding up in the old way."

"Good boy," said the puzzle-maker. "I knew that. I show you some more. Simple addition. Write in Roman numerals one billion, seven hundred and forty-two million, nine hundred and eighty-three thousand, four hundred and twenty-seven and eleven-sixteenths."

Although pretty well posted, Eric had a hard time writing down the number and had to ask a lot of questions before he could even write it correctly. Then the puzzle-maker gave him half a dozen figures of the same kind. It looked weird on paper.

"Now add him up," the old man charged him.

The boy started bravely. But he hadn't gone very far before he got absolutely stuck. He wrestled with that sum of simple addition for nearly an hour. At last he got a result which seemed right.

"Put him down in ordinary figures," came the order. "Add him up."

Eric did so, having his own difficulties in re-transcribing from the Roman numerals.

"Are they the same?"

"No," the boy said, "I got the other wrong somewhere."

"S'posin' you had him right," the puzzle-maker said, "it took you hour. Ordinary figures you did him in thirty-two seconds."

"I see," said Eric, "it's another case of wonderful but not wonderful enough, isn't it?"

"Exactly. Here," the other continued, reaching down a manuscript portfolio, "is every kind of numbers ever made. You find that the Hindu—or wrongly called Arabic—numerals are the only ones wonderful enough for modern uses."

Thoroughly interested, the boy sat down with this big manuscript book. Weird schemes of numeration rioted over the pages, from the Zuni finger and the Chinese knuckle systems to the latest groups of symbols, used in modern higher mathematics, of which the boy had not even heard. It was noon before he realized with a start that the morning was gone.

"Oh, Dan!" he said reproachfully, "we haven't done anything to-day."

"Never mind," said the old man, "we get a start after a while."

That afternoon, when the boy settled down to do some work on his own account, he felt a much greater friendliness to the mere look of figures. They seemed like old friends. Before, a figure had only been something in a "sum," but now he felt that each one had a long history of its own. Little did he realize that the biggest step of his mathematics was accomplished. Never again would he be able to look at a page of figures with revulsion. They had come to life for him.

The next morning, Eric found the old puzzle-maker busy with a chess-board.

"Aren't we going to do any work to-day, either?" he asked, disappointedly.

"Soon as I finish," the old man answered. "Get pencil and paper. As I move knight from square to square, you draw."

Shrugging his shoulders slightly, but not so noticeably that the puzzle-maker could see, Eric obeyed. It seemed very silly to him. But as the knight went from square to square in the peculiar move which belongs to that piece in chess, the boy was amazed to find a wonderful and fascinating geometrical design growing under his hand.

"Another way, too," said the old man thoughtfully, the instant the figure was finished, not giving the boy a chance to make any comment. And, without further preface he started again. This time an even stranger but equally perfect design was formed.

"But that's great!" said Eric, "how do you know it's going to come out like that! I wonder if I could do it?"

"Try him," the puzzle-maker answered, getting up from the board. For half an hour Eric moved the knight about, but never got as perfect an example as the old man.

"Are there only those two ways?" said the boy at last.

"Over thirty-one million ways of moving the knight so that he occupies each square once," was the reply. "Every one makes a different design."

"I'll try some this evening," said the boy. "But it's funny, too. Why does it always make a regular design?"

"You want to know? Very well." And the puzzle-maker quietly explained some of the most famous mathematical problems of all time, working them out with the chessmen and the board.

"You know what they call him, magic?" queried the old man.

"Magic! No!" exclaimed Eric pricking up his ears at the word. "Tell me about it, Dan."

"Numbers all friends, live together, work together," the puzzle-maker answered. "I show you." And, taking pencil and paper, he dotted down in forms of squares and cubes rows and rows of figures. "Add him up," he said, "up and down, cross-wise, any way. He all make same number."

"They do, sure enough," said Eric, after testing half a dozen magic squares, "but how do you do it? Do you have to remember all those figures and just where they go?"

"Don't remember any of him," the other answered. "He has to go so."

"But I can't make them come that way," exclaimed the boy, after trying for a few minutes. "What's the trick?"

"All friends," repeated the old man, and in his curiously jolting speech he told Eric the startling links that are found in the powers of numbers. As soon as he had the principle clearly in mind, the boy found that there was no great difficulty in making up the most astonishing magic squares.

As the winter drew on, and calls for help on the stormy waters increased, the opportunities for sessions with the shrewd old mathematician grew fewer, but Eric stuck fast to his promise to spend all the time he could afford with his instructor. He was keenly disappointed that the puzzle-maker showed such an absolute disregard of the actual things the boy wanted to prepare for in his examinations. But Eric had been rigidly trained by his father in the sportsmanlike attitude of never complaining about any arrangement he had made himself, and he paid for his coaching out of his small earnings without a word. In order to make up for what he inwardly felt was lost time, he worked by himself at his books in such few minutes as he was able to snatch from his life-saving duties. And, although he was tired almost to exhaustion, many and many a day, he found that even in that work he was getting along quite well.

Eric could never get his eccentric teacher to look at the books required in his preparatory work. What was more, he had a feeling that he couldn't really be getting much good from his hours spent with Dan, because he enjoyed them so much. Early schooldays had made him associate progress with discomfort.

For example, one day Dan showed him tricks with cards—and then explained the mathematics of it, making the most puzzling mysteries seem only unusual applications of very simple principles. Another day, the puzzle-maker told him of curious problems of chance, by dice, by lotteries, and so forth, and almost before Eric realized what the old man was driving at, the essential ideas of insurance and actuary work were firmly fixed in his mind.

It was not until a couple of weeks before the expected close of navigation that the puzzle-maker said,

"Let me see book!"

Astonished at the now unexpected request, Eric handed him the much bethumbed volume over which he had struggled so hard. The old man skimmed through its pages, nodding his head from time to time and mumbling in a satisfied way. Then, like a man driving in a nail, he pounded Eric with question after question. He seemed to be asking them from the book, but Eric knew that none of the problems had their origin in it, for they dealt with the work he had been doing in the little cottage by the sea. Yet to almost every one the boy returned a correct answer, or at least, one which was correct in its approach. For two long hours the puzzle-maker questioned him, without ever a minute's let up. At the end of it, Eric was as limp as a rag. At last the old man laid down the book.

"When your examination is?" he asked.

"Next June," the boy replied.

"You can pass him now."

Eric stared at the old man with wild surprise in his gaze and with a down-dropped jaw.

"But I haven't even started on the second half of the book," he said. "And I've got to do it all!"

"You pass him now," was the quiet answer. "The second part—you have done him, too. Learn rules, if you like. No matter. You know him. See!"

He showed the very last set of examples in the book and Eric recognized problems of the kind he had been doing, all unwitting to himself.

"Mathematics not to learn," he said, "he is to think. You now can think. To know a rule, to do sum—bah! he is nothing! To know why a rule and because a sum—he is much. You do him."

In the few remaining visits that Eric paid the puzzle-maker, he found the old man's words to be quite true. Having learned the inside of mathematics, its actual workings seemed reasonable. The clew gave Eric the sense of exploring a new world of thought instead of being lost in a tangled wilderness.

Meantime, he had become absolutely expert in every detail of the station. His particular delight was the capsize drill. The keeper had got the crew trained down to complete the whole performance within fifty seconds from the time he gave the order. The boat had to be capsized, every man underneath the boat. Then they had to clamber on the upturned boat, right it again, and be seated on the thwarts with oars ready to pull before the fiftieth second was past. It was quick work, and although only a drill, was as exciting as the lad could wish. Two or three times, one of the men, who wasn't quite as quick as the rest, got "waterlogged" and the crew had to help him up. When that occurred, there was an awful howl.

Once, only once, Eric delayed the drill about two seconds and it was weeks before he overcame his sense of shame at the occurrence. But, before the winter finally closed down, Eric was as able a coast-guardsman as any on the Great Lakes. It was well that he was, for a day was coming which would test his fortitude to the full.

Navigation had been lessening rapidly, and the boy was beginning to think about Thanksgiving Day. They were just sitting down to supper, when one of the men came in with haste.

"Heard anything of a wreck round Au Sable way?" he asked breathlessly.

"No," said the keeper, "what did you hear?"

"Nothin' definite," said the other, "but as I was comin' along a chap stopped me and asked me if I were goin' out to the wreck off Au Sable. He said he really didn't know anything about it, except there was a report that the City of Nipigon was on the rocks near Grand Point."

Life-Boat Capsize-Drill.

Fifth Second.

Twelfth Second.

Twenty-third Second

Courtesy of U.S. Coast Guard.

Fiftieth Second.

The keeper jumped up and went to the telephone.

"Anything doing?" he asked, when the Au Sable operator got on the wire.

The chat in the station stopped to hear what the reply might be. Au Sable was the most exposed point on the coast and there was a gale beating in from the northwest.

"You'll let us know, then," said the keeper, and hung up the receiver. "Says he's heard something about a wreck, but nothin' definite," he added, turning to the crew. "Says a boy ran in with the news, but the kid was too excited to give much information."

"Think there's anything in it?" queried one of the men.

"Hope not," said another, "I was out that way day before yesterday an' there's an ice wall there about twenty feet high. I don't know how we'd ever get a boat over it."

"We'd get it over, all right."

"How?" asked Eric interestedly.

"Aeroplane, if necessary," said the keeper laughing.

"No, but really," the boy protested.

"Brute strength and luck, I guess," the other said, "but I'm hopin' that we don't have to go out to-night."

"Me too," added the boy. "I've got some 'trig'"—

The telephone bell rang.

"That's it, likely enough," said one of the men, getting up resignedly and going over to the locker for his oilskins.

"Well," said the keeper, as he took off the receiver. Then, a minute later turning to the men, he repeated to the crew, "'Steamer, City of Nipigon, seven men aboard, burnin' distress signals, on rocks north and by west of Au Sable light, quarter of a mile from land.' Right you are, boys, we're off!"

There was a transformation scene. When the keeper began the sentence, the Coast Guard station had been a scene of peace and comfort with a group of men lounging around a hot fire, some reading, some playing dominoes and others plying needle and thread. But, before the sentence was over, almost every man was in his oilskins, some were just pulling on their long boots, while others, even more nimble, had reached the boat and the apparatus-cart. They were standing by for orders when the keeper joined them.

"She's less'n a quarter of a mile out, boys," he said. "I reckon we'd better try an' get her with the gun. After, if that doesn't work, we can get the boat. But if we can put a line across her right away, it'll be safer an' quicker. I don't fancy handling the boat down any such ice as Jefferson talked about."

The apparatus-cart was out of the shed and started almost before the keeper had finished his orders. Eric, who was no mean athlete, was glad of every ounce of strength he possessed before he had gone a hundred yards. The cart, fully loaded, weighed 1120 pounds and there were seven men to drag it, a fairly good load on decent ground. But the ground was all of eight inches deep in new-fallen snow into which the wheels sank. The on-shore wind was dead against them, swirling like a blizzard. The temperature was only about five degrees below zero, but there was an icy tang that cut like a jagged knife.

In spite of the intense cold, so laborious was the dragging of that cart through the snow, that Eric broke out in a violent perspiration. What troubled him still more was the realization that he was already tiring, although the party was still on the beaten road. In a very short while, he knew, they would have to strike off from the track, across wild and unbroken country to the beach.

To his surprise, the keeper kept right on, leaving the light on the left hand. The boy, forgetting discipline in his eagerness and excitement, spoke out,

"I thought they said 'west' of the light!"

The keeper turned and looked. He spoke not a word. There was no need.

Eric colored to the roots of his hair. He felt the rebuke.

Finally when they had passed the light by nearly half a mile, the road went up a slight hill, and the keeper led the way at right angles along a ridge of rock. It was rough almost beyond believing, but its very barrenness had made it useful. As the keeper had shrewdly hoped, the swirling blizzard had left its rough length bare, when all the lower ground was deep in snow. For the hundredth time since he had been on the station, Eric had to admit the wise foreknowledge of his chief.

As they swung on to the ridge the keeper turned and looked at Eric again. He caught the boy's apologetic glance and smiled back. No word was passed, but both understood.

The ridge helped them gallantly, though the wind whistled over it as though it were the roof-pole of the world. More than once it seemed to Eric as though the apparatus-cart would be turned upside down by some of the terrific gusts, and the boy had a mental picture of the crew floundering in the snow-drifts beneath.

Near the lighthouse, the ridge that had so befriended them merged into the level, and the crew forced its way on through ever deepening drifts. For about fifty yards the snow was above the hubs of the wheels, and more than once it seemed that the apparatus cart was so deeply stuck as to be immovable. The men left the shafts, and crowding round the cart like ants they forced it free, and half carried and half pushed it through the snow.

"Is there any shnow left at all?" queried Muldoon, when the worst of this was overpassed.

"What do you mean?" one of the men asked.

"I thought we'd waded through all the shnow in the worrld," the Irishman replied.

For a little space it was easy going until they came to the dunes above the beach. There the crew halted. As Jefferson had said, sloping upwards at an angle of forty degrees, was a steep sheet of glare ice, almost as smooth as though it had been planed. It would have taken a fly to walk on that surface, yet on the farther side of it was the only road to the wreck. The light was on the end of a little spit and the vessel in distress could be seen only from this spit. Without going on that neck of land she could not be reached by the gun, and this passage was grimly guarded by that sloping embattlement of ice.

"Up it, lads!" said the keeper.

The crew, gathered around the apparatus-cart, started up the slope. Six feet was as far as they could get. Even without added weight no one could stand on that glistening surface, and with the drag of the cart it was impossible. Several times the men tried it, only to come sprawling in a heap at the bottom of the hill.

"Two of you get up to the top!" ordered the keeper.

Two of the lightest men started. One of them, picking his steps with great care, managed to get half-way up; the other, going back for a run, tried to take the hill with a tremendous spurt. His impetus took him almost up to the top, but he was a few feet short and slipped back. He returned for another attempt.

In the meantime Eric had an idea. Instead of attacking the cliff at the point the others were trying, and where it was shallowest, he went twenty yards farther west, where the cliff was steeper, but rougher. Taking an ax he started to cut niches for steps up the cliff. He knew it would take a long time, but if the others did not succeed before him, he would at least get there. If the others succeeded, the loss of his time did not matter.

So, steadily, inch by inch, foot by foot, he made his way up the cliff, taking the time to make the notches deep enough for surety. The ice was not extremely hard, and Eric soon won his way to the top. He found the edge exceedingly difficult to walk on and very dangerous, for it fell in an almost sheer precipice on the water side, with the mush-ice beating up against it. The top, too, was soft and honeycombed. Using as much care in going along the edge as he had in scaling it, the boy soon found himself on the cliff immediately above the cart.

"Here, you fellows," he called, "heave me up a line!"

There was a second's surprise when the other members of the crew saw Eric on the crest of the ice-barrier which so far had defied them all.

"Good work!" called the keeper. "Jefferson, toss up the line."

Eric caught it.

"Have you a spike or anything?" he called, "I'll haul it up!"

The keeper yanked out one of the spikes of the frame on which the line was faked and the boy carefully hauled it up, then drove it into the ice as hard as he could, using his heavy boot for a hammer. He next took the line, and wound it around the spike to help him in holding it.

"Now," he yelled through the storm, "some one can come up the rope."

"Muldoon," said the keeper to the Irishman, "you're about the lightest, you go up first."

"'Tis meself will do it," was the reply, "an' it's blitherin' idjits we were not to think o' the way the kid did it."

Then he shinned up the rope like a monkey on a stick.

With both Muldoon and Eric hanging to the rope, it was not long until five men got to the top. The keeper, seeing how successful Eric's plan had proved, ordered every man to cut for himself a good foothold in the ice, and then, tailing on to the rope, they got the apparatus-cart up the slope, two men behind trying to guide it from below. It was a difficult haul, but at last they got the cart to the summit, and, in order to keep it from sliding down, straddled the wheels atop.

Courtesy of U.S. Coast Guard.

Rushing the Apparatus-Cart.

Coast Guard Crew with life-gun, line-box, shots, hawser, breeches-buoy and signal-lights, ploughing through heavy sand to wreck on beach a mile away.

The cart rocked unsteadily. Suddenly, as a particularly vicious blast came whistling by, it canted as though it were going to fall. Eric, who was a few feet away from the cart, jumped forward to save it, but missed his footing and fell into the mush-ice twenty feet below, going clear through.

There was no time for orders. Muldoon, quick as a wink, almost before any one else had grasped the accident, knotted a line around the cart and taking the other end in his hand jumped into the mush-ice after the boy. So true was his eye that he struck almost the same point and a few seconds later appeared above the surface with Eric. Neither was hurt, but both were wet through, handicapping them for work on so cold a night.

Eric's ruse in getting the apparatus-cart to the top of the cliff, however, had solved the biggest part of the difficulty. By carefully sliding the cart along the face of the cliff for ten yards or a little more, they found themselves above the road leading out to the spit. It was then merely a matter of lowering the cart to the other side.

Meantime Muldoon had raced the boy to the lighthouse for a chance to change their clothes before they froze on them. No sooner did he knock on the door than the lighthouse-keeper came out, and the open door showed his daughter behind. Edith Abend was only seventeen years old, but she had already saved two lives.

"You got here at last, then," said the lighthouse-keeper gruffly.

Edith, with a readier sense that help was needed, said quickly,