CHAPTER V
SAVED BY THE BREECHES-BUOY
The last words of the old keeper, "Goodness don't lay in tryin' to be ahero, but jest in plain bein' a man," rang through Eric's mind, many andmany a day after, when, on his own Coast Guard station, he had to facesome difficulty. His post chanced to be in a somewhat sheltered spot,and thus gave him an opportunity to become a good oarsman. His work withthe volunteer corps had made him a first-class swimmer and a fairboatman. The government service, however, he found to be a verydifferent matter. There, efficiency had to be carried to the highestdegree.
He snatched every opportunity, too, to get ahead with his studies, andluck came his way in a most unexpected shape. It happened that quitenear the Coast Guard station was the hut of a queer old hermit sort offellow, called "Dan." He had been a life-saver many years before, but ina daring rescue had injured his back, and could never enter a boatagain. In those days there were no pensions, so for forty years andmore he had made a living by inventing riddles and puzzles, tricks ofvarious kinds, and clever Christmas toys. His especial hobby wasmathematical 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 sointerested in that stuff. It's the bane of my life. I'm nailing as hardas I can to try and get in shape for a Coast Guard exam., and I simplycan'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 oneverything but mathematics, but that gets me every time. I know there'ssome sense in it, but I can't see it. Everything else I've got to studyI 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 ascientist that science had no reasonableness. The old puzzle-makergasped.
"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 baseballdiamond, and marked the positions of the players. Eric's interest aroseat once, for he was a keen baseball fan. As the sketch grew the old mantalked, 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 othershowed 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, butgiving an application he never would have thought of, Dan brought thesolution in a second. Hardly believing that mere mathematics could be ofany service in a baseball game, Eric tested the result. It was exactlyas the old man had said.
"Gee," he said, "that's great!"
The puzzle-maker smiled, and showed him how mass-play in football was amatter of science, not strength, and how lacrosse was a question oftrajectory.
"Not only in games," he said. "'Rithmetic, geometry--in everything. Youknow 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 firehim?"
"Why, he just fires it! No," he corrected himself, "he doesn't either. Isee what you're driving at. That's right, I did see him doing somefiguring the other day."
"I teach Muldoon," said the old man. "I show him how to tell how muchwind, how to tell how far away a ship, how to tell when a line is heavyor light. He figure everything, then fire. Bang! And the line to bringthe drowning men home falls right over the ship. It is?"
"It is, all right," the boy agreed. "Muldoon gets there every time. Ialways thought he just aimed the gun, sort of naturally."
"It is all mathematics," said the old man. "You have guns in the CoastGuard?"
"Rapid-fire six-pounders," the boy answered. "At least I know that'swhat the _Itasca's_ got. She's the practice-ship at New London, youknow."
"Do you have to learn gunnery?"
"Rather," said the lad. "Every breed of gunnery that there is. You knowa Coast Guard cutter becomes a part of the navy in time of war, so anofficer has got to know just as much about big guns as an officer in thenavy. He might have to take his rank on a big battleship if the UnitedStates was at war. You bet I'll have to learn gunnery. That ought to beheaps of fun."
"But gunnery is ballistics," the old man said. "And ballistics istrigonometry. Big gun is fired by figuring, not by looking."
"I'm only afraid," the lad replied, "that I'll never have a chance atthe big gun. Everywhere I go, it's nothing but figuring. And I simplycan'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 everychance 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 likefigures."
Eric looked at him a minute.
"All right, Dan," he said, "I'll go you. I've still got some of themoney I saved up from my work this summer and I was going to spend partof it on tutoring this winter, anyway. I'll tutor under you, wheneverI'm off duty, and if you can teach me to like figures, you're a goodone. Any way, your cottage is so near that I can get right on the job ifthe station calls."
True to his word, a few days later Eric appeared at the tiny littlecottage--it was scarcely more than a hut--which was the home of theeccentric old puzzle-maker. The top part of it was a home-madeobservatory, and the whole building looked a good deal like a largebeehive.
"String in the corner," said the old man, after welcoming him. "Gethim."
"It's all knotted, Dan," the boy replied, holding up a piece of ropewith a couple of dozen strings hanging from it, of various colors, allintertwined.
"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'squipu, a copy of one Cortez found in City of Sun. You like to read whathe says?"
"You bet I would."
"Bring him here."
Wondering a good deal at the odd puzzle-maker's manner, for the lad hadgone to the cottage in good faith with his books, expecting to work onthe problems that were disturbing him, he brought over the knottedquipu.
"Green string means corn," said the puzzle-maker, "because he's thecolor 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 meansoldiers, Dan?"
"Soldiers, right," the old man answered. "The Quipucamayocuna--"
"The what, Dan?"
"Knot officers," explained the other, "kept track of him all. Theycounted 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 plentyof food in the regimental storehouse, some had only a little. But--if Iget it right--there was money belonging to each regiment in atreasure-house, somewhere, like a bank. I suppos
e they could exchangethis for food. And, if I've read it right, there was one regiment whichhad money but no men. I suppose they were wiped out in battle."
"Very good," answered the puzzle-maker, looking pleased. "You keepaccounts, your own money?"
"Of course," answered the boy, pulling out a little diary from hispocket.
"Here, string," said the old man. "Write your week's accounts in quipu."
Thoroughly interested, Eric took up a pile of colored strings, from thecorner and started to convert his week's accounting into quipu. Heworked for half an hour, but couldn't make it come out right. It provedan exasperating puzzle, because it seemed impossible and yet conveyedthe suggestion that there ought to be some way of doing it. Already Erichad so keen a sense of the old man's comments that he hated to say thathe couldn't do it. But, after a while, red in the face and quiteashamed, he said,
"I can't do it, Dan."
"No, he is not possible," said the puzzle-maker cheerfully. "That's whatI wanted you to find. The quipu is wonderful but he's not wonderfulenough, 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'msupposed to do?"
"You know Latin numerals?" the old man replied.
"Of course!" Eric answered indignantly. "I couldn't even tell the timeif 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, withoutthinking in figures, add up column."
Not in the least understanding what were the old man's ideas the boy didas he was told. It was easy enough to write down the numbers, but whenhe came to add them up, he found himself thinking of Arabic figures inspite of himself.
"I'm cheating," said Eric suddenly, "I can't help adding up in the oldway."
"Good boy," said the puzzle-maker. "I knew that. I show you some more.Simple addition. Write in Roman numerals one billion, seven hundred andforty-two million, nine hundred and eighty-three thousand, four hundredand twenty-seven and eleven-sixteenths."
Although pretty well posted, Eric had a hard time writing down thenumber and had to ask a lot of questions before he could even write itcorrectly. Then the puzzle-maker gave him half a dozen figures of thesame 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 gotabsolutely stuck. He wrestled with that sum of simple addition fornearly 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 theRoman 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 wonderfulenough, isn't it?"
"Exactly. Here," the other continued, reaching down a manuscriptportfolio, "is every kind of numbers ever made. You find that theHindu--or wrongly called Arabic--numerals are the only ones wonderfulenough 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 fingerand the Chinese knuckle systems to the latest groups of symbols, used inmodern higher mathematics, of which the boy had not even heard. It wasnoon 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 ownaccount, he felt a much greater friendliness to the mere look offigures. They seemed like old friends. Before, a figure had only beensomething in a "sum," but now he felt that each one had a long historyof its own. Little did he realize that the biggest step of hismathematics was accomplished. Never again would he be able to look at apage of figures with revulsion. They had come to life for him.
The next morning, Eric found the old puzzle-maker busy with achess-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 Imove knight from square to square, you draw."
Shrugging his shoulders slightly, but not so noticeably that thepuzzle-maker could see, Eric obeyed. It seemed very silly to him. But asthe knight went from square to square in the peculiar move which belongsto that piece in chess, the boy was amazed to find a wonderful andfascinating geometrical design growing under his hand.
"Another way, too," said the old man thoughtfully, the instant thefigure was finished, not giving the boy a chance to make any comment.And, without further preface he started again. This time an evenstranger but equally perfect design was formed.
"But that's great!" said Eric, "how do you know it's going to come outlike that! I wonder if I could do it?"
"Try him," the puzzle-maker answered, getting up from the board. Forhalf an hour Eric moved the knight about, but never got as perfect anexample 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 occupieseach 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. Whydoes it always make a regular design?"
"You want to know? Very well." And the puzzle-maker quietly explainedsome of the most famous mathematical problems of all time, working themout 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 meabout it, Dan."
"Numbers all friends, live together, work together," the puzzle-makeranswered. "I show you." And, taking pencil and paper, he dotted down informs of squares and cubes rows and rows of figures. "Add him up," hesaid, "up and down, cross-wise, any way. He all make same number."
"They do, sure enough," said Eric, after testing half a dozen magicsquares, "but how do you do it? Do you have to remember all thosefigures 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 tryingfor a few minutes. "What's the trick?"
"All friends," repeated the old man, and in his curiously jolting speechhe told Eric the startling links that are found in the powers ofnumbers. As soon as he had the principle clearly in mind, the boy foundthat there was no great difficulty in making up the most astonishingmagic squares.
As the winter drew on, and calls for help on the stormy watersincreased, the opportunities for sessions with the shrewd oldmathematician grew fewer, but Eric stuck fast to his promise to spendall the time he could afford with his instructor. He was keenlydisappointed that the puzzle-maker showed such an absolute disregard ofthe actual things the boy wanted to prepare for in his examinations. ButEric had been rigidly trained by his father in the sportsmanlikeattitude of never complaining about any arrangement he had madehimself, and he paid for his coaching out of his small earnings withouta word. In order to make up for what he inwardly felt was lost time, heworked by himself at his books in such few minutes as he was able tosnatch from his life-saving duties. And, although he was tired almost toexhaustion, many and many a day, he found that even in that work he wasgetting along quite well.
Eric could never get his eccentric teacher to look at the books requiredin his preparatory work. What was more, he had a feeling that hecouldn't really be getting much good from h
is hours spent with Dan,because he enjoyed them so much. Early schooldays had made him associateprogress with discomfort.
For example, one day Dan showed him tricks with cards--and thenexplained the mathematics of it, making the most puzzling mysteries seemonly unusual applications of very simple principles. Another day, thepuzzle-maker told him of curious problems of chance, by dice, bylotteries, and so forth, and almost before Eric realized what the oldman was driving at, the essential ideas of insurance and actuary workwere firmly fixed in his mind.
It was not until a couple of weeks before the expected close ofnavigation that the puzzle-maker said,
"Let me see book!"
Astonished at the now unexpected request, Eric handed him the muchbethumbed volume over which he had struggled so hard. The old manskimmed through its pages, nodding his head from time to time andmumbling in a satisfied way. Then, like a man driving in a nail, hepounded Eric with question after question. He seemed to be asking themfrom the book, but Eric knew that none of the problems had their originin it, for they dealt with the work he had been doing in the littlecottage by the sea. Yet to almost every one the boy returned a correctanswer, or at least, one which was correct in its approach. For two longhours 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 laiddown 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 adown-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 havedone 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 recognizedproblems 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 andbecause a sum--he is much. You do him."
In the few remaining visits that Eric paid the puzzle-maker, he foundthe old man's words to be quite true. Having learned the inside ofmathematics, its actual workings seemed reasonable. The clew gave Ericthe sense of exploring a new world of thought instead of being lost in atangled wilderness.
Meantime, he had become absolutely expert in every detail of thestation. His particular delight was the capsize drill. The keeper hadgot the crew trained down to complete the whole performance within fiftyseconds 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 upturnedboat, right it again, and be seated on the thwarts with oars ready topull before the fiftieth second was past. It was quick work, andalthough only a drill, was as exciting as the lad could wish. Two orthree 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, therewas an awful howl.
Once, only once, Eric delayed the drill about two seconds and it wasweeks before he overcame his sense of shame at the occurrence. But,before the winter finally closed down, Eric was as able acoast-guardsman as any on the Great Lakes. It was well that he was, fora day was coming which would test his fortitude to the full.
Navigation had been lessening rapidly, and the boy was beginning tothink 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 chapstopped 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 areport that the _City of Nipigon_ was on the rocks near Grand Point."
Fifth Second.]
Twelfth Second.]
Twenty-third Second]
Fiftieth Second.
LIFE-BOAT CAPSIZE-DRILL.
Courtesy of U.S. Coast Guard.]
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. AuSable was the most exposed point on the coast and there was a galebeating 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," headded, turning to the crew. "Says a boy ran in with the news, but thekid 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'dever 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' thatwe 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 resignedlyand going over to the locker for his oilskins.
"Well," said the keeper, as he took off the receiver. Then, a minutelater turning to the men, he repeated to the crew, "'Steamer, _City ofNipigon_, seven men aboard, burnin' distress signals, on rocks north andby 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 agroup of men lounging around a hot fire, some reading, some playingdominoes and others plying needle and thread. But, before the sentencewas over, almost every man was in his oilskins, some were just pullingon their long boots, while others, even more nimble, had reached theboat and the apparatus-cart. They were standing by for orders when thekeeper joined them.
"She's less'n a quarter of a mile out, boys," he said. "I reckon we'dbetter try an' get her with the gun. After, if that doesn't work, we canget the boat. But if we can put a line across her right away, it'll besafer an' quicker. I don't fancy handling the boat down any such ice asJefferson talked about."
The apparatus-cart was out of the shed and started almost before thekeeper had finished his orders. Eric, who was no mean athlete, was gladof every ounce of strength he possessed before he had gone a hundredyards. The cart, fully loaded, weighed 1120 pounds and there were sevenmen to drag it, a fairly good load on decent ground. But the ground wasall 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. Thetemperature was only about five degrees below zero, but there was an icytang that cut like a jagged knife.
In spite of the intense cold, so laborious was the dragging of that cartthrough the snow, that Eric broke out in a violent perspiration. Whattroubled 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 andunbroken country to the beach.
To his surprise, the keeper kept right on, leaving the light on the lefthand. 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 roadwent up a slight hill, and the keeper led the way at right angles alonga ridge of rock. It was rough almost beyond believing, but its verybarrenness had made it useful.
As the keeper had shrewdly hoped, theswirling blizzard had left its rough length bare, when all the lowerground was deep in snow. For the hundredth time since he had been on thestation, Eric had to admit the wise foreknowledge of his chief.
As they swung on to the ridge the keeper turned and looked at Ericagain. He caught the boy's apologetic glance and smiled back. No wordwas passed, but both understood.
The ridge helped them gallantly, though the wind whistled over it asthough it were the roof-pole of the world. More than once it seemed toEric as though the apparatus-cart would be turned upside down by some ofthe terrific gusts, and the boy had a mental picture of the crewfloundering in the snow-drifts beneath.
Near the lighthouse, the ridge that had so befriended them merged intothe 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, andmore than once it seemed that the apparatus cart was so deeply stuck asto be immovable. The men left the shafts, and crowding round the cartlike ants they forced it free, and half carried and half pushed itthrough the snow.
"Is there any shnow left at all?" queried Muldoon, when the worst ofthis was overpassed.
"What do you mean?" one of the men asked.
"I thought we'd waded through all the shnow in the worrld," the Irishmanreplied.
For a little space it was easy going until they came to the dunes abovethe beach. There the crew halted. As Jefferson had said, sloping upwardsat an angle of forty degrees, was a steep sheet of glare ice, almost assmooth as though it had been planed. It would have taken a fly to walkon that surface, yet on the farther side of it was the only road to thewreck. The light was on the end of a little spit and the vessel indistress could be seen only from this spit. Without going on that neckof land she could not be reached by the gun, and this passage was grimlyguarded by that sloping embattlement of ice.
"Up it, lads!" said the keeper.
The crew, gathered around the apparatus-cart, started up the slope. Sixfeet was as far as they could get. Even without added weight no onecould stand on that glistening surface, and with the drag of the cart itwas impossible. Several times the men tried it, only to come sprawlingin 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 withgreat 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 himalmost up to the top, but he was a few feet short and slipped back. Hereturned for another attempt.
In the meantime Eric had an idea. Instead of attacking the cliff at thepoint the others were trying, and where it was shallowest, he wenttwenty 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 itwould take a long time, but if the others did not succeed before him, hewould at least get there. If the others succeeded, the loss of his timedid 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 wasnot extremely hard, and Eric soon won his way to the top. He found theedge exceedingly difficult to walk on and very dangerous, for it fell inan almost sheer precipice on the water side, with the mush-ice beatingup against it. The top, too, was soft and honeycombed. Using as muchcare in going along the edge as he had in scaling it, the boy soon foundhimself 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 sawEric 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 linewas faked and the boy carefully hauled it up, then drove it into the iceas hard as he could, using his heavy boot for a hammer. He next took theline, 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 wewere 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 untilfive men got to the top. The keeper, seeing how successful Eric's planhad proved, ordered every man to cut for himself a good foothold in theice, and then, tailing on to the rope, they got the apparatus-cart upthe slope, two men behind trying to guide it from below. It was adifficult haul, but at last they got the cart to the summit, and, inorder to keep it from sliding down, straddled the wheels atop.
RUSHING THE APPARATUS-CART.
Coast Guard Crew with life-gun, line-box, shots, hawser, breeches-buoyand signal-lights, ploughing through heavy sand to wreck on beach a mileaway.
Courtesy of U.S. Coast Guard.]
The cart rocked unsteadily. Suddenly, as a particularly vicious blastcame whistling by, it canted as though it were going to fall. Eric, whowas a few feet away from the cart, jumped forward to save it, but missedhis footing and fell into the mush-ice twenty feet below, going clearthrough.
There was no time for orders. Muldoon, quick as a wink, almost beforeany one else had grasped the accident, knotted a line around the cartand taking the other end in his hand jumped into the mush-ice after theboy. So true was his eye that he struck almost the same point and a fewseconds later appeared above the surface with Eric. Neither was hurt,but both were wet through, handicapping them for work on so cold anight.
Eric's ruse in getting the apparatus-cart to the top of the cliff,however, had solved the biggest part of the difficulty. By carefullysliding the cart along the face of the cliff for ten yards or a littlemore, they found themselves above the road leading out to the spit. Itwas then merely a matter of lowering the cart to the other side.
Meantime Muldoon had raced the boy to the lighthouse for a chance tochange their clothes before they froze on them. No sooner did he knockon the door than the lighthouse-keeper came out, and the open doorshowed 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,
"What has happened? Is there anything wrong?"
"Nothin' wrong at all, darlint," said the Irishman, with his nationalreadiness to say nice things to a pretty girl, "only we've had a trifleof a duckin' an' if there's annything like dhry clothes in this house itwould help us to our work. The lad here's quite wet."
"I don't see that I'm any wetter than you are!" protested Eric.
The light-keeper looked them over.
"Yon's the crew?" he asked.
"Yes," said Eric, "we've had a hard time getting here."
"I was wonderin' how ye were goin' to get over the ice-wall."
"We got over, all right," the boy replied.
"I see ye did. Well, I reckon I've some old things ye can have," thekeeper said grouchily.
The girl disappeared and a moment later came back into the room.
"They're all in there," she said simply, pointing to the next room.
"'Tis yourself that's the jewel," Muldoon said, leading the way in withalacrity. There was nothing the matter with the Irishman's movements.When he wanted to be quick he could move like a streak of extra-greasedlightning. He was out of his wet clothes and into a complete set of thekeeper's in a hurry. Eric was not many seconds behind. They put on theirown slickers, which had been dripping at the fireside, and were readyfor work again.
Great was the boy's surprise, as he tied on his sou'wester, to see asmall figure co
vered from head to foot in oilskins waiting for them.Still greater was his amazement when he saw that this was the girl.
"Is it comin' out to watch us ye are, Miss?" said Muldoon. "Sure thewind will blow ye away entirely. It's admiring the pluck of ye I am, butye'd better stay indoors. 'Tis no night to be watchin'."
"I'm not going to watch, I'm going to work," the girl said calmly. "AndI don't think you ought to waste time talking, either."
So saying, she walked out of the door to avoid further argument. Thelight-keeper looked longingly after the three as though he would like tojoin them, and help in the rescue, but his duty was with his light andhe could not leave it.
So quickly had all this passed that Muldoon, Eric and the girl got tothe edge of the spit just as the five members of the Coast Guard crewhad unshipped the gun, placed it in position and loaded it.
"That you, Muldoon?" said the keeper.
"Yis, sorr, it's me."
"You'd better take the gun. You're the best shot. That is, if you'reall right after your ducking."
"I'm in warrm, dhry clothes," the Irishman answered, "an' I'll do as yousay. But you're just as good a shot yourself," he added.
"Don't blatherskite," the keeper said. "Grab hold an' lay her straight."
The Lyle gun, being so short, gives little real opportunity for aim, andthe best man is one who has an intuition. This, Muldoon had. Besides,the old puzzle-maker had taught him how to allow for the drop of theline and how to estimate the force of the wind.
He fussed around for a minute or two, saw that the line was free on thepins and that the case was free, and waited for the gusts of wind to diedown to a steadier gait. Then he fired. The red flare of the shortcannon showed clear against the ice and the line went sailing outgracefully.
"Too far for'ard," said Eric disappointedly, as he saw it start. Muldoononly shook his head.
"'Tis not far off," he said.
Sure enough, as the missile was about half-way out to the wreck, thewind took the line and drove it sideways till it fell right abaft thefunnel. A flare from the steamer showed that the line had beenreceived.
"Nice shooting, Muldoon," the keeper said. "We'll have to give thecredit to that well-fittin' coat you've got on." The lighthouse-keeperwas at least twice the Irishman's size.
Muldoon looked particularly proud, because he had wanted to distinguishhimself before the girl. It was of vital urgency, moreover, for ifMuldoon had not been able to land the line, it would have meant a tripback to the Coast Guard station to get out the surf-boat, with verylittle likelihood of being able to force her up against the gale.
The men on the steamer started to haul in and the life-savers bent on alarger rope with a block and tackle. Again the steamer burned a flare toshow that the block had been hauled on board and securely fastened, andthen the coastguardsmen began to haul on the line, pulling out to theship a heavy hawser on which ran the carriage for the breeches-buoy.Everything worked without a hitch, the hawser was got on board and thebreeches-buoy hauled out.
Then the trouble began. The steamer lay partly submerged. She was asmall boat and her only mast had gone by the board. The bridge was atangle of wreckage. The breeches-buoy, therefore, could only be madefast to the stump of the mast a few feet above the deck. Ashore, thesame difficulty prevailed. There was no high land, the tripod being downalmost on water-line. As soon as the hawser got wet and heavy with snowand the ice from the blowing spray, it began to sag so that it nearlytouched the water.
With the weight of a man on it, the breeches-buoy line sank below thesurface of the water, or rather the mush-ice. It was bad enough for therescued men, already nearly perishing with exhaustion, to have to get aducking, but there was still a greater danger. This was that the tacklemight not stand the strain of dragging the breeches-buoy, with a man init, through the mush-ice. The increased resistance might break the lineand risk anew the perishing of every life on board.
The keeper saw the difficulty and decided promptly.
"Jefferson and Harris," he shouted, "you're the tallest. Get out intothat mush-ice and see how deep it is. Wade out as far as you can go.Follow the line and stand ready to catch the breeches-buoy."
The two men chosen waded out, battling almost for their lives with bigpieces of ice. Fortunately the bottom sloped gradually and they wereable to walk out a considerable distance. Shouting to them through histrumpet to wait there, the keeper ordered the rest of the crew to haulin the first man. As the keeper had expected, the rope sagged terribly,but, by drawing up his legs, the rescued man did not actually sink intothe mush-ice until nearly up to the spot where Jefferson and Harrisstood. The two men grasped the buoy and started pulling it ashore, oneman holding the survivor's head above the water and ice, while the othermade a path in the ice by forcing his way ahead of the buoy.
Half-way in, Harris collapsed. It afterwards developed that he had beenquite badly hurt on the ice-barrier but had not said a word about it. Asfour men were needed on shore and there should be three to help in theice, the crew was a man short.
"I wish we had a third man!" said the keeper irritably. "Confoundedlyannoying that Harris should have got hurt now."
"You have a third," said a quiet voice, and Edith Abend steppedforward.
"But, Miss!"
"Your orders, keeper?" the girl put in quietly.
The keeper looked at her sharply. He was a man of judgment andaccustomed to read faces. Without another word, and in the tone he wouldhave used in speaking to another man he said,
"Get right out there and hold the man's head above water as he comes in.Jefferson and you, Eric, will break the way for the buoy."
And so it was, that with a light-keeper's daughter, a girl seventeenyears old, as the seventh in the crew, the life-savers of Point Au Sablesaved from the _City of Nipigon_ every soul on board.