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THE BOY WITH THE U. S. LIFE-SAVERS




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




[Illustration: THE GLEAM THAT BRINGS HOPE.

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

Courtesy of Outing Magazine.]




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

[Illustration]

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


                                                 FACING PAGE
The Gleam That Brings Hope                    _Frontispiece_

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

The _Bear_ in the Ice Pack                               202

The _Bear_ Breaking Free from the Ice                    202

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