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[Illustration: _Frontispiece._      THE LIFE SAVERS.      _Page 185_]




    THE LIFE SAVERS

    A STORY OF THE UNITED STATES
    LIFE-SAVING SERVICE

    BY
    JAMES OTIS
    AUTHOR OF "AN AMATEUR FIREMAN," ETC.

    [Illustration]

    NEW YORK
    E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY
    31 WEST TWENTY-THIRD STREET




    COPYRIGHT, 1899
    BY
    E. P. DUTTON & CO.

    The Knickerbocker Press, New York




[Illustration]




CONTENTS.


  CHAPTER.                         PAGE.
      I. INTRODUCTORY                  1
     II. A BOY AND A DOG               9
    III. BENNY'S STORY                23
     IV. ON PATROL                    40
      V. FROM THE "AMAZONIA"          60
     VI. ROUTINE DUTY                 80
    VII. SAVING LIFE                  98
   VIII. FLUFF A HERO                115
     IX. OFFICIAL PERMISSION         134
      X. THE UNIFORM                 155
     XI. THE STRANDED STEAMER        172
    XII. IN THE SURF                 187
   XIII. "NUMBER EIGHT"              204
    XIV. THE WRECKERS                222
     XV. LIVELY WORK                 239
    XVI. CAST ASHORE                 259
   XVII. A LETTER                    278
  XVIII. A CONSULTATION              298
    XIX. THE DECISION                313




THE LIFE SAVERS.




CHAPTER I.

INTRODUCTORY.


The development of the American Life-Saving Service covers nearly a
century.

    "... The initiatory movement was the organization by a few
    benevolent persons of the Massachusetts Humane Society in
    1786. In attempting to alleviate the miseries of shipwreck
    on the Massachusetts coast, small huts were built; and in
    1807 the first life-boat station was established at Cohasset.
    The Society depended upon voluntary crews, but so much was
    accomplished of value that some pecuniary aid was received, as
    time wore on, from both State and general governments.

    "The magnificent work of the Coast Survey, begun in earnest in
    1832, absorbed the resources of Congress for a decade and a
    half, during which period nothing was attempted in the way of
    life-saving except through voluntary societies. A few public
    vessels were, indeed, authorized in 1837 to cruise near the
    coast for the assistance of shipping in distress, but it was
    through the movement in aid of commerce, which extended to the
    lighthouse system.

    "In 1847, five thousand dollars were appropriated by Congress
    toward furnishing lighthouses on the Atlantic with the
    facilities for aiding shipwrecked mariners. The money, after
    remaining in the Treasury two years unused, was permitted to be
    expended by the Massachusetts society upon Cape Cod.

    "In the summer of 1848, the Hon. William A. Newell, then a
    member of the House of Representatives from New Jersey, incited
    by some terrible shipwrecks on the coast of that State, induced
    Congress, through his eloquence, to appropriate ten thousand
    dollars for providing surf-boats and other appliances 'for the
    protection of life and property from shipwreck on the coast
    between Sandy Hook and Little Egg Harbor.' During the next
    session a still larger appropriation was obtained. Twenty-two
    station-houses were erected on the coasts of New Jersey and
    Long Island, and although no persons were paid or authorized
    to take charge of them, and they were manned by extemporized
    crews, their value in several cases of shipwreck was so great
    that Congress made further appropriations from year to year,
    and stations and life-boats gradually multiplied.

    "Through the pressure of a shocking event in 1854--the loss
    of three hundred lives off the New Jersey coast--a local
    superintendent was employed, a keeper assigned to each station,
    and bonded custodians placed in charge of the life-boats, which
    had been repeatedly stolen; but the absence of drilled and
    disciplined crews, of general regulations, and of energetic
    central administration rendered the record of the institution
    unsatisfactory, and its benefits checkered by the saddest
    failures.

    "In the year 1871, Sumner I. Kimball succeeded to the head of
    the Revenue Marine Bureau of the Treasury Department, under
    the charge