A WILD STORM.

At a life saving station, there are various drills in which the surfmen are exercised. There is the beach apparatus drill. “Open boat–room doors! Man the beach wagon!” shouts the keeper. Every man knows his place, the doors are opened, and the cart is rushed out. “Forward!” cries the keeper, and each man knows just where to station himself and pull. Then come the other orders. “Halt! Action!” A pole representing a wreck, the men proceed as if attempting a rescue, sending a line to the wreck. Then come other orders. “Man weather whip! Haul out! Man lee whip!”

“Haul ashore!” and the buoy for conveying the crew supposed to be wrecked, travels backward and forward as often as desired. Then there is the boat practice, and the boat must be launched through the surf, and the men drilled in the management of the oars. The crew must also practice with signals. Stations may be near enough to communicate with one another, and this is done in the day time with flags and in the night with star rockets and Coston lights. An example would be the showing of a red flag by day and the burning of a red Coston light and firing of a red rocket by night. It is the danger signal, and means that a wreck has been seen, or a vessel is discovered to be in need of help. By means of the box of flags that every station keeps under its roof, the crew can talk with any vessel off shore and needing assistance. The crew must also be practiced in methods of restoring the apparently drowned. It was one dreary, rainy day that Keeper Barney was drilling the crew in these last methods. Cook Charlie had offered himself as a subject on whom the crew might practice. The keeper commenced a list of questions, asking: “What first is to be done to the patient?” Cook Charlie stretched upon the floor submitted patiently to the pressing and pounding and other parts of the process of resuscitation.

It was not a practice that on a dreary winter day when the sea was wrathfully roaring, could be classified as pleasantly suggestive.

While they were resuscitating Cook Charlie, Walter glanced occasionally out of the window. The sea rapidly roughened, and huge waves were launching on the sands broken and angry masses of surf. A ragged curtain of fog was drawn across the rim of the sea, but it was only ragged near the shore. Farther out, its denseness was without a seam. The day ended with many jokes about Cook Charlie, the resuscitated mariner, but mingled with the laughter were dismal cries of the storm. The rain could be heard splashing against the window panes, and occasionally the whole window shook as if a violent hand had been laid upon it. All the while, there was the wrathful thunder of the sea as if over some invisible bridge just above the station, the heavy squadrons of the storm were gloomily marching. Still, around the old cook stove whose fire burnt jollily, echoed the laughter of the surfmen as they cracked their jokes and told humorous stories of the sea. So the evening wore away. The storm yet raged. As the different patrolmen arrived, they came with dripping hats, with faces wet by the storm, with clothes that hung stiffly about them.

“It’s a howlin’ night,” reported Tom Walker, slamming his lantern on the table.

“Just so at my end of the beach,” said Woodbury Elliott, who immediately followed Tom. “Whew—w—w! An old–fashioned nor’easter!” “You saw nothin?” inquired Capt. Barney. And each patrol said, “Not a thing.”

“I hope it will stay so, for I think it’s goin’ to be the wust of the season. Come, boys, all pile upstairs early. There’s some hard trampin’ to be done ’fore daybreak.”

“Wall, we can say we have resuscitated one man to–day,” said Slim Tarleton.

“Ah, but we may have some real cases to–morrow. God forbid!”

It was Walter’s watch in the morning, from four till sunrise. He slept uneasily till his watch, vexed by dreams of wreck and rescue, of dead men’s faces and living wives’ sorrow. Rising, he dressed himself hurriedly a little before four. How the building shook in the wind, while the sea without was furious in its uproar!

“I’d like to stay in that warm bed. Booh! That cold walk makes me shiver! No help for it,” thought Walter, as he moved reluctantly toward the stairway and then descended it.

In the kitchen, dripping like a fish just pulled out of the water, was Slim Tarleton. He had finished his watch and Walter was his successor.

“I’d like to go for you, Walter, but it’s four now, and morning’s not such a terrible way off.”

“All quiet?”

“Everything except the sea, and that acts as bad as it can. Oh, I don’t imagine there will be any trouble.”

“Here is your Coston light, time–detector and so on,” said Keeper Barney. “Dress snug, for it blows; and dress thick, for it is cold. If anything happens, let us know.”

“Aye, aye, Cap’n!” and out into the dark and the cold and the rain, strode our young knight, looking in his storm gear more like an Eskimo than a representative of any knightly age. The north–east wind blew at him as if it wanted to push this meddler back into the station; but with one arm around his lantern as if it were a baby that he wished to shield, he struggled over the rocks down to the strip of sand not yet covered by the tide. He saw nothing ten feet away, but he heard—no pen can describe the bellowing of this monster plunging and frothing at his feet. The lantern shot little gleams of light on the confused masses of foam along the edge of the shore, and he knew that there was a tumbling wall of ghastly white just beyond.

“What if my lantern should go out!” he exclaimed nervously. He turned from the wind and unbuttoning his outside coat, folded it around his lantern, letting out only enough light to show him where to plant his feet. Then he struggled on. It was a hard walk in a storm that had no mercy. He was pushing ahead, when, lifting his face to the wild rain and attempting to look through it, he saw—a jagged line of fire curving up into the air! The next moment, he trembled with excitement.

“A wreck!” was the thought flashing through his mind. That one glance at the rocket above the sea seemed to change into an antelope the slowly plodding surfman. He sprang over the rocks that lined the beach. There was an ice wall that had bothered him a minute ago, but he now mastered it and climbed to high ground. Drawing out his signal, he fired it, and then waving madly this crimson answer of hope to a mariner’s prayer of fire, he ran to the station. Over fragments of ice, into pools of water, along sharp ledges, he flew as if some kindly power had withdrawn his cowhide boots and furnished him with wings instead; but how much faster he did want to go! If he were only electricity, or light itself, and could shoot to the station at once! He reached it though, finally. Keeper Barney was sitting by the stove trying to read, when Walter threw open the kitchen door, and burst in, waving his lantern and crying, “A wreck! Quick!”

“Heavens, boy! In this storm! All hands turn out!” he screamed, even before he reached the foot of the stairs leading up to the crew’s room. He must have repeated it half a dozen times, on his way to their beds. The next moment there were several bounces upon the floor. After a hurried dressing, there was a confused rushing for the stairs. Men appeared wearing one boot and lugging the other, or with half their clothes in their arms, while Tucker Jones, the man who took Joe Cardridge’s place, was trying to work his arms through the legs of his pants, thinking he was handling his jacket. Seavey Lowd, the other patrol, now arrived, or rather came rushing in, shouting and confirming the news. The little living–room was confused with excitement, the men hurrying here and there, trying to find hat or jacket or coat; and several were trying hard to find their senses. Keeper Barney had his, now, and he spoke coolly to the men.

“Now listen, boys! Steady! It will be useless to take the boat. We must go out with the beach apparatus. Do as well as you can. You all know your places. Hit as high a mark as you can.” As he spoke, he lead the way into the boat–room, and then he issued the familiar order: “Open boat–room doors! Man the beach wagon!”

How those young Titans worked! The outer doors flew open, and a strong, cold draft of wintry air rushed in. Every man knew his place in hauling. Two gripped the shafts, four laid hold of the drag ropes.

“Forward!” rang out the word of command from the keeper, who followed with his lantern.

Through the thick slush or over masses of ice, the cart was dragged to the sands which the tide had not flooded.

“There’s the wreck!” some one shouted, or tried to shout amid the roar of the surf. An arrow of fire shooting up into the night shadows still lingering on the sea, showed the crew that they must go farther down the beach. What a wearisome journey with the cart it was!

“Cheer ’em up with a Coston light, boys!” the keeper would occasionally shout. At last, when he judged they were about opposite the wreck, he cried, “Halt!” There was a waiting for the light, that the exact location of the wreck might be declared, and in the meantime all possible preparations for the rescue were made.

The surf men knew what to do, as there had been many drills in the handling of the apparatus. Each man, according to his number, had his particular piece of work. It was the place of No. 4, Seavey Lowd, to throw the breeches buoy off the cart, and Seavey did it. Walter, as No. 6, was one of those that removed the sand anchor, pick and shovel. The keeper, and No. 1, Tom Walker, took the gun down. Nos. 2 and 3, Slim Tarleton and Woodbury Elliott, removed the shot–line box.

“Bury the sand anchor up here!” called out the keeper. The sand anchor consisted of two stout pieces of hard wood, each six feet long, two inches thick and eight wide. These were crossed at their centers and securely fastened together. A stout iron ring projected from the center of the sand anchor. How rapidly pick and shovel were worked, and a deep trench dug in which the anchor was laid and there firmly imbedded! This buried anchor was designed to secure the shore end of the hawser to be sent out to the wreck. The hawser terminated in a double pulley–block, by which it could be tightened, and a short rope gripped the block and the anchor, binding them together. The “crotch” was made of two stout pieces of wood ten feet long. Near the top, these were crossed and when set up suggested an X. It was No. 4, Seavey Lowd, who looked after the crotch, and at the proper time he was to set it up on the beach. It was Seavey’s duty also to carry the end of the hawser to the foot of the crotch over which it was to be stretched to the sand anchor.

In the meantime the captain and Tom Walker were supposed to look after the gun, while Slim Tarleton and Woodbury Elliott were expected to deposit the shot–line box about three feet from the gun. The line had been coiled about pins in a frame, and the latter was so arranged that it could be removed, leaving the line wound in diagonal loops, and at liberty to fly after the shot to which it was to be attached. During the interim of waiting, the life–car was also brought from the station. That dismal wreck could at last be plainly seen, about three hundred feet from the shore. The spray boiled about the dark hull as if it had been set in the crater of a volcano. The excitement among the surfmen increased. The keeper had loaded the gun, and the shot had been inserted and the line tied to an eye in the shank protruding from the shot. The keeper stood in the rear of the gun, and was sighting over it, shouting to Nos. 1 and 2, “Right!” or “Left!” And they trained the muzzle accordingly.

“Well!” he cried, and the gun came to a rest.

It was pointing at the wreck. The necessary elevation was then given to the gun, and the primer inserted. When everything was arranged, the keeper shouted, “Ready!”

Whizz—z—bang—g—g!

Away went the shot, the line faithfully following. How its flight was watched! Would it fall short of the wreck and uselessly drop into the water? No! it had fallen across the vessel and the crew quickly seized it. A shout went up from the surfmen: “Hur—rah—h! Hurrah—h—h!” To the shot–line, was now tied the “whip.” This was reeved through a single pulley–block, making what is termed an endless line. To it was attached a tally board carrying printed directions in English and French, telling those on board how to properly secure this “whip” or endless line. Keeper Barney was now signaling to the wreck.

“He means to have them haul the whip on board,” thought Walter.

Quickly the whip line was going out to the vessel, and was there made fast.

“They are signaling to us to go ahead, and do the next thing,” thought Walter. All the surfmen knew what that next thing was. The whip had been secured to the sand anchor, and now Nos. 1 and 2, Tom Walker and Slim Tarleton were handling the hawser, a still stouter line, and they attached it to the whip. As the keeper paid out the hawser, others manned the whip and hauled off to the wreck the new sturdy friend coming to the rescue. The men on the vessel guided by a tally board attached to the hawser, secured it to the mast a foot and a half higher than the hauling line or whip. On shore, the hawser had been stretched across the crotch and connected with the sand anchor. There now swung above the frothing breakers, reaching from shore to ship, this stout hawser four inches in circumference, and below it was the endless line or whip. The breeches buoy was now brought forward. This buoy consisted of a cork life–preserver, circular, from which hung canvas breeches with very short legs. Four ropes that gripped the circle of cork, met above in a ring of iron, and this was connected with a block called a “traveler.” This block was “snapped on to the hawser,” and the ends of the whip were also bent into the block–strap and secured. Then the buoy began its travels to the wreck, the men hauling on the whip. “Somebody has jumped into that buoy,” cried Tom Walker as he watched the wreck. Strong hands were laid on the whip, and above the breakers danced the breeches buoy, a man’s head and body now rising above it while his legs dangled below.

“Here she comes!” sung out Slim Tarleton.

“Here he comes, I guess,” suggested Woodbury Elliott.

Come, he did, nearer, nearer, the surfmen steadily hauling on the line; and at last the breeches buoy was in the midst of the brave circle of rescuers.

“How are ye?” called out the occupant of the buoy, a sharp–nosed, red–headed man. “Much obleeged.”

“Oh, you’re welcome!” said Keeper Barney.

“How are all the folks at sea?” inquired Tom Walker.

“Does it look nat’ral round here?” asked Seavey Lowd.

“Altogether too nat’ral for me,” replied the arrival by this ocean air–line. “Ef we didn’t have a tough night!”

The man had now disembarked from this canvas–and–cork ship, and stood on the sands.

The keeper was hurriedly giving the order to “haul out,” when the stranger asked, “Haven’t ye suthin’ bigger and snugger ye could send out? Some of the folks there are awful weak.”

“Passengers?” inquired the keeper.

“Jest so.”

“All right. We will put on the life–car soon as we get some of the crew ashore. People can ride snug in that life–car. How long will your craft hold together?”

“She’s a good deal smashed, Cap’n, but she can stand it a while longer.”

“Man the weather–whip! Haul out!” the keeper was shouting. Out to the wreck, the breeches buoy traveled, and then returned with its freight of a second man.

“Haul the hawser taut there!” cried the keeper to Walter and Woodbury, who stood near the sand anchor and handled the tackle for tightening the hawser. Each rescued man proved a rescuer, going to work at once. There were three more brought ashore by the buoy, and then the keeper ordered the life–car forward. The buoy was quickly removed, and in its place above the roaring surf hung the life–car, riding along the hawser on its way to the wreck. The life–car was shaped like a boat, made of galvanized sheet iron. It was about eleven feet long, three deep, and over four wide, and would carry a load of six or seven persons. It was roofed over, and its cargo was received through a hatch which was securely covered, but little openings in the top admitted the air. The car had now gone to the wreck, had received its load, and in response to the keeper’s “haul ashore!” was traveling landward along the hawser. It was a feeble, shivering lot of mortals who crawled through the hatch at the end of the trip.

“Any more?” asked the keeper. “Two and the captain,” said an old man. Once more the life–car was hauled out to the wreck, while Walter was sent to the station with the chilled passengers and a sailor whom the storm had overcome. As Walter walked along the sands, he watched the terrible agitation of the water near him.

The sea would swell into long folds of angry green, and these would rush toward the shore, swelling, threatening, more and more angry, greener, perhaps tipped with a scanty wreath of foam, only to roll over menacingly, tumbling, crashing in furious uproar, breaking into a million bits of foam. As an opposing rock was struck by a wave, this would be thrown up into a huge mound of froth that broke all along its summit into a delicate, misty veil of lace. This wave was only the front rank of an army whose name was legion, rolling, rushing in wrath toward the land, breaking and foaming, clambering up the high shore–ledges to vainly tear at them, smothering and drowning what could not be rooted up and borne away. In what faultless curves they turned over, these gigantic billows when they struck the shore, rings of emerald, wheels of porphyry, arcs of spheres of crystal! Down, down, down, then plunged the water, and these cataracts met their doom in a hopeless swirl of surf. All along the beach was the frothing tumble of these cascades of the ocean. Beyond the shore–waves it was one confusing mass of ghostly water, of white hands lifted and white faces raised,—in pity and prayer? No, in an anger where all color disappears, where is only the aspect, of a wrath, ghastly and awful. Occasionally some log would come out of this wild whirlpool of the demons, some fragment of a ship torn by the storm as if an animal, limb from limb, and flung in scorn upon the shore. What a tale each fragment could have told! Perhaps it was a handful of moss plucked from a rock, or a starfish, or the tiniest mussels gathered up from the bottom of the sea and then shot landward.

How the sea roared! It seemed as if into that wild chorus all the notes of angry winds and mad torrents, and the crash of thunder, and the voices of men in their human wrath, and the shouts of demons in their satanic fury had been gathered, and now were let loose with all the confusion of the fiercest hurricane. Now and then, Walter thought he caught the dismal groan of a fog–horn attached to a buoy at the mouth of the river, and intended to warn mariners of the nearness of sand bar and rockledge. It was an illusion though, for who in the storm could hear any such agency piping out its feeble little note of warning?

In the meantime, the car had brought from the wreck its last load. The captain was a part of it, a stout, heavy, dark–bearded man.

“You all here?” asked Keeper Barney.

“All that started,” replied the captain. “Two men—they were passengers—left on a life–savin’ mattress. We told ’em to wait any way till daylight, but they said the tide was right and would drift ’em ashore and they’d risk it. They was fearful skittish lest the vessel might break up. Massy! The sea gobbled ’em up less than no time, is my ’pinion. They left some time ago.”

“Well, boys, I’ll have the beach patrolled, of course, and something may be seen of the men. Those whose watch it is are off already, and the rest of you pack up what things are here, and go back to the station, and Cook Charlie will have a hot breakfast ready for the men from the wreck, and for the rest too, soon as possible.”

While hot coffee and dry clothes were making every one comfortable at the station, it was Tom Walker, one of the surfmen out patrolling, that hurried into the living–room, startling the station crew with the announcement, “There’s a man in the Chair!”

If a rocket from some wreck at sea had come up through the floor of the station and made its hideous, fiery racket in the very midst of the station crew, a greater excitement could not have followed. Clinging to the jagged rocks at the Crescent, was some poor soul thrown up by the sea, piteously looking in helpless appeal to the houses not so very far away and yet separated from him by a channel of foaming wrath! Every surfman could seem to make out in his thoughts a pale face frantically appealing to him through the wild storm, and they began to dress again for their perilous work.

“Cap’n Barney,” said Tom Walker to the keeper, “if I may suggest it, I think we might get somewhere near him with our surf–boat. We couldn’t have touched the wreck, and can’t now, out there on Split Ledge, but we might get our boat up to the village and then launch her in the river, and so work her down toward the Chair. The tide has turned, and every moment, there is less water ’tween the Crescent and the shore, and that will help us.”

“Good idea, Tom,” replied the keeper. “And instead of getting horses, as it will take so much time, there are so many of us here and all will take hold, we can make better time to haul the boat–carriage ourselves. What say? It is a man’s life at stake.”

“Aye, aye!” was the deep, hearty chorus in response from all.

As the boat made its appearance in the village volunteers appeared also, who dragged heartily on the ropes of the carriage. It was a strange sight in the little village, that stormy morning, the lengthening file of rough, strong–handed men pulling on the rope of the carriage while the boys shouted away and thrust in their small hands wherever any chance for grasping the rope showed itself, and some of the women that came out hurriedly from their homes, their shawls pinned over their heads, also joined the procession. The water was reached and the boat launched.

When, manned by a stalwart crew,—volunteers from The Harbor taking the place of the absent patrols,—the boat moved off into the river, cheers arose from those on shore. But what about the man all this time in the Chair? Did he see the boat coming, and did he cheer also?

“Can you see him now?” eagerly asked the men of Keeper Barney, who was skillfully managing his steering oar amid the heavy swash of the current.

The keeper nodded his head in assent.

The boat cleared the last house in the village, and from this point the Chair could be more distinctly seen.

“See him now, Cap’n?”

The keeper nodded his head. The boat tossed more uneasily now, for the harbor here began to open into the sea, and the full strength of the wind from the stormy north–east smote it. The upper end of the Crescent was very near, and its first ledges, black and stubborn, rose out of the white, angry tumult. Any one seeking refuge here would not have found broad standing room, while at the Chair the exposure was far greater. The man, though, still maintained his hold.

“He’s there, is he?” some one would shout through the noise of the storm, and Keeper Barney would silently nod assent.

I wonder what the man in the Chair was thinking of, as he grasped that rocky projection, that little low fence between him and death! He was one of the two men who had trusted their chances to that life–preserver. God alone knew where the second man was in this hellish tumult of wind and sea. The man in the Chair had been flung into it by a violent wave and he had gripped it with all the energy he could possibly rally. He did not want to die. The sea looked cold and deep, and the white foam beating upon him, to his imagination had teeth that threatened to fasten into him and tear him. He could sometimes, when his back was half turned to the sea, catch the outlines of the big billows as they rolled up and rolled toward him, and they came on with such fury that he shrank closer to this rock, and he clung more tenaciously even when some of them failed to reach him. Occasionally a huge billow would strike him and drench him, and then he would shiver and throw off the foam as if trying to recover from some murderous blow given by an animal. It would have been easy to have yielded to one of those waves and allowed it to sweep him away into a swift death, but who does not cling to life? A wild sky, a pitiless rain, and only a black rock in a maelstrom—better this than a grave in that maelstrom. So the man felt. As he held on, his thoughts would go back in spite of him. Not that he cared to think. He would gladly have given the subject a grave in that sea from which he shrank, but if he had tried to throw it off and drop it there, it would have had a resurrection and come up. He thought of the time when he was a little boy in this very neighborhood, visiting here, one far off summer. His younger sister was with him. He could easily recall her blue eyes that framed a constant smile. He heard the happy ring of her laugh, even out there in the noisy waters. He did not want to hear it, but hear it he did. There had been a quarrel with her one day, and he resolved in a mood of anger that was almost insane, to punish her. The quarrel had occurred at the Chair which he knew sometimes was a bad place to be in, the older people had told him. When the tide was high, and behind it was a storm pushing violently the waters landward, that lonely piece of rock, the Chair, was a dangerous position to occupy. There was a gray, misty sky that day, when the boy led his sister, at low tide, across the sands to the Crescent ledges. He pleasantly told her to stay at the Chair and he would come for her in a little while. “The waves were pretty,” he said, “and she could watch them till he came back.” Then he left her. In half an hour he knew the tide would flood the sands and isolate the Chair. He would be absent, he said to himself, perhaps two hours. That would give her a good fright and would be enough to satisfy him. But he did not get back to the shore so soon as two hours. Something had detained him. In the meantime, the fog came on. The rain began to beat down. The men were almost all of them away on fishing cruises. Only a few decrepit fishermen were at home, and they did not like to venture off into the uneasy waters now enclosing the Crescent ledges unless it was some special reason urging them, and as the boy was ashamed to confess that he had left his sister at the Chair, no rough but friendly hand of any seaman was reached out to grasp her. In the morning though, his conscience frightened him into an explanation of his urgency, and a relief party of old men went at once. The Chair however was empty. That morning, there came ashore a sweet little face with closed eyes, and it confirmed the story told by that vacant Chair. So many, many years ago, did this all happen, and now it was coming back as a sad thing of yesterday.

“She’s a–lookin’ at me!” said the man in the Chair. “I can see her eyes!”

Yes, through the veil of the storm they seemed to penetrate and reproachfully search his heart.

“I will look another way,” he thought, but they seemed to follow him. Tender and full of sorrow, they looked at him on every side. He saw the waves rushing at him and he shrank from them only to meet the eyes that he little cared to behold. He avoided these, but there were the billows rushing at him again. So he was pursued. It seemed to him as if he must lose his mind, and then would he not lose his hold on the rock? That tormented him anew.

But—but—look! Amid the ragged mass of flying foam jutting above the walls of the angrily rising waves, he saw a boat! Yes, he could make out the heads of the men that were rowing! They were coming to rescue him! He had enemies on shore who would seize him and put him behind stone walls, and these men in the boat might hand him over to those enemies, but no matter, he would be rescued from the place of torment he was in. Anything to be saved from that, and those men would save him! The rush of exultant feeling was so great that it affected him even as a wave threatening to carry him away, but he tightened his loosened grasp and looked up again. Yes, they were coming nearer. He could see them, count them,—one, two, three, four, five, six, besides the man steering. And they saw him! Yes, they all saw him. To reach him, the boat slightly changed its course, and now all the crew looking sidewise could see this castaway. It was Walter who recognized him. Raising his head, straining his vision to catch a fuller view of the man bending over and half veiled by the misty spray thrown up above the Chair there came before Walter once more the form that he had seen that morning in his uncle’s store when the note so mysteriously disappeared, that form which he had seen again when patrolling the beach off the Crescent, one wild November day.

“Baggs!” he now shouted to the crew in the surf–boat. “It is Baggs!” As by a common impulse, every man ceased rowing and rested on his oar, the keeper holding the boat with his long steering–oar.

“Yes, yes!” “That is the man!” “It’s Baggs!” were the various exclamations that broke from the crew’s lips.

“He’s waving a hand to us!” said Walter.

“Let him wave and die!” some one exclaimed.

“No, I’d save a dog off in that place!” said the keeper.

“That’s so!” replied Walter.

“That’s so!” said several.

It was not so much an expression of opinion by one man or several, as the voice rather of that noble spirit which has its embodiment in our entire Life Saving Service and proves it by its yearly record.

“Row away, men!” shouted the keeper. “He’s there! I see him.”

But Baggs changed his position. He knew that it would be difficult to rescue him even with that boat, such a raging sea broke all about the rock to which he clung. The boat must be held off at a little distance from the ledge and then a rope thrown to him. He must stand his chances of grasping this only hope of safety. The tide had begun to subside, and another part of the ledge was now jutting above the surf. Whether he thought he could be rescued better from this second position and so tried to reach it, or whether in the increasing nearness of the rescue–party he grew careless, and accidentally slipped out of the Chair and was quickly, eagerly, seized by a wave and hurried away, who could say? It was Slim Tarleton who just before had said to the keeper, “He’s holdin’ on, Cap’n, ain’t he?” And the keeper nodded yes with his head.

“Is he there now, Cap’n?” asked Seavey Lowd the next minute. The keeper’s head did not move—he only fastened his eyes steadily on the ledge fringed by the surf, as if trying to determine a fact with certainty, and then rising in his seat, said solemnly, “I—b’lieve—he’s—gone! Yes, gone!”

Gone, and he left no more trace behind than a leaf falling through the air. Gone into that whirling, eddying sea, into that deep, dark grave so long clutching at him, and which now buried him under its waves forever! The boat could not possibly reach him. Gone, gone!

“Well, men,” said the keeper to the crew, who resting on their oars looked with sober faces at the empty Chair into which the waves now mockingly flung their spray as its only occupant, “we might take a turn round and then go home, but that hunt is all up. Don’t see a sign of him.”

The bow of the surf–boat was headed for The Harbor, after a season of waiting. And strong arms steadily pulled it home.

That afternoon, the captain of the wrecked vessel walking on the sands at low tide, reported at the station that a body had come ashore. “It’s t’other passenger,” he said, “who came ashore as I told you. You know two started on a life–savin’ thing. It’s ’bout two hundred feet from here.”

Keeper Barney and Walter followed him to the designated spot, and there lying on the beach, his long dark hair hanging in a tangle over his face as if trying to veil from the world some dishonored object, was Joe Cardridge. The body was removed to a shed in a field that skirted the shore–rocks. Various articles were found upon the body, and they were removed by the keeper for preservation. “What is this?” asked the keeper, as he took from an inner pocket of the blouse that Joe had worn, an envelope. “A letter inside this,” said the keeper, “and it is directed to me!”

The address was worn and the water had affected it, and yet the superscription could be made out.

“A letter for me, brought by a strange mail–carrier,” said the keeper. “I will see what it is.”

“Why,” he exclaimed, “that is a letter from our district superintendent! Yes, it is the missin’ one that Walter couldn’t find! There is the date. That clears Walter.”

“I guess he was cleared afore,” declared Tom Walker, who was present.

Another mystery was solved that day. Many people were attracted to the beach by the tragedy of the wreck, and among them came Miss P. Green, Aunt Lydia, and other women. Some of Joe Cardridge’s family were at the station. The blouse that he had worn, was drying before the stove.

“What’s that?” queried Aunt Lydia, who had come to the station. Her sharp bright eyes were fastened on a sleeve of the blouse, turned back at the wrist. “If there ain’t that blue W that I tucked away in the white linin’ of Walter’s blouse!”

“Where?” asked Tom Walker.

“There!” replied Aunt Lydia. “That is Walter’s coat, I know.”

“Walter’s coat?” asked Keeper Barney, who had joined the circle of inspection.

“Yes,” replied Aunt Lydia, “I sewed a blue W on to the white linin’ of Walter’s sleeve, and here it is.”

“Humph!” said the keeper. “Joe Cardridge exchanged blouses with Walter, that is what he did, and carried off the missin’ letter.”

“But—but—” said little Charlie Cardridge who was present, and overhearing the conversation wished to show that some of the property in the room did belong to his father, “that’s father’s. Looks like his, anyway.” He was pointing at the flask found in Walter’s pocket and now standing on the sill of a window in the station. The flask was handed to Charlie. Turning it over, he exclaimed, “There’s a C! That is father’s.”

In the bottom of the flask the letter C had been blown, and it now proved who the real owner of that mysterious property had been.

“No doubt about it!” declared Tom Walker, who with others of the crew had come into the kitchen. “No doubt about it! There was an exchange of blouses by the owner of the flask, and the latter was left by Joe as a witness agin Walter. A pretty deep game! Walter, give us your hand. I knew before though that you were all right.”

Tom gripped Walter’s hand as if it were a pump–handle on a dry, hot, thirsty day. Others congratulated Walter, and none more readily than the keeper.

There was no investigation by the district superintendent when he arrived, and the news of the wreck brought him the next day.