The Boy With the U. S. Life-Savers

Francis Rolt-Wheeler

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• Publié par: nocor
• Publié le: 08 décembre 2010
• Nombre de lectures: 66
• Langue: English

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The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Boy With the U. S. Life-Savers, by Francis Rolt-Wheeler This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net Title: The Boy With the U. S. Life-Savers Author: Francis Rolt-Wheeler Release Date: February 12, 2010 [EBook #31259] Language: English *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BOY WITH THE U. S. LIFE-SAVERS *** Produced by Steven desJardins and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net THE BOY WITH THE U. S. LIFE-SAVERS cover BOOKS BY FRANCIS ROLT-WHEELER U. S. Service Series Illustrations from Photographs taken for U. S. Government. Large 12mo. Cloth. Price $1.50 each. THE BOY WITH THE U. S. SURVEY THE BOY WITH THE U. S. FORESTERS THE BOY WITH THE U. S. CENSUS THE BOY WITH THE U. S. FISHERIES THE BOY WITH THE U. S. INDIANS THE BOY WITH THE U. S. EXPLORERS LOTHROP, LEE & SHEPARD CO., BOSTON The Gleam that Brings Hope. 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 publisher's logo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 CHAPTER I A Rescue by Moonlight 1 CHAPTER II The Lights that Never Sleep 28 CHAPTER III Heroes of the Underground 61 CHAPTER IV Snatched from a Frozen Death 96 CHAPTER V Saved by the Breeches-Buoy 120 CHAPTER VI A Blazon of Flame at Sea 156 CHAPTER VII Reindeer to the Rescue 187 CHAPTER VIII The Belching Death of a Volcano 222 CHAPTER IX Defying the Tempest's Violence 246 CHAPTER X Adrift on a Derelict 274 CHAPTER XI The Wreckers of the Spanish Main 294 CHAPTER XII The Graveyard of the Deep 322ILLUSTRATIONS The Gleam That Brings Hope Frontispiece FACING PAGE The Light That Never Sleeps 10 The Lonely Watcher of the Coast 20 Where Patrols Meet. The Half-way Point 20 Breaking a Death-Clutch from Behind 32 Breaking a Death-Clutch from the Front 32 The "Eddystone" of America 42 Lighthouse Tender Approaching Buoy 54 Refilling Pintsch Gas Buoy 54 Sliding Down to Work 64 The Defier of the Pacific 76 A Beacon Masked in Ice 86 Wrecked! And the Ice Between! 100 Laying the Lyle Gun 110 Firing the Shot and Line 110 Gold Life-Saving Medal 118 Life-boat Capsize-Drill 138 Rushing the Apparatus-Cart 146 Breeches-Buoy Drill. Firing 158 Breeches-Buoy Drill. Rescuing Survivor 158 The Lightship That Went Ashore 168 Guarding the Graveyard of the Deep 168 Coast Guard Cutter, Miami, on July Fourth 194 202The Bear in the Ice Pack 202The Bear Breaking Free from the Ice Reindeer Messengers of Rescue 210 Reindeer That Saved Three Hundred Lives 210 Signals That Guard Our Coast 224 Going to Pieces Fast 234 "We Saved 'Em All" 234 Native Refugees from Katmai Eruption 244 "The Iron Rim Rolling Savagely" 256 "The Boat Went into Matchwood" 266 Man's Waterspout. A Derelict's End 280 Preparing to Blow Up a Derelict 280 The Greatest Menace of the Seas 290 Burned to the Water's Edge 290 Foam—The Derelict's Only Tombstone 300 Mining a Lurking Peril 300 Stranded! After Storm Has Ceased and Tide Has Ebbed 310 The Signal of Distress That Was Never Seen 320 Iceberg with Miami in the Background 330 The Ghostly Ally of Disaster 330 A Rescue on the Diamond Shoals 340 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 t