Part 4 (1/2)

Willett!”

”Well?” said the rescued man, waking out of a remorse-haunted dream.

”Jake has been saved. He's all right.”

In spite of his exhaustion and his sudden awakening from sleep, the first man who had been rescued sat up on the stretcher and craned his head forward to see his friend. In spite of the sufferer's bruised and swollen appearance, it was evident to the most inexperienced eye that life was not extinct. The convalescent looked at the doctor and tried to find words, but something in his throat choked him.

He reached out and grasped the boy's hand, holding it tightly. Then, looking around the station, he said softly,

”A man's world is a good world to live in!”

CHAPTER II

THE LIGHTS THAT NEVER SLEEP

It was a happy awakening in the life-saving station the next morning, for both the rescued men were well on the road to recovery. Eric had intended to be the first to tell Willett the entire story, but the events of the night had been a heavy strain on him and he had slept late. Indeed, he did not waken until the gang of boys came round for their morning drill. Drill was scheduled at nine o'clock, but it was seldom that there failed to be at least half a dozen urchins around the station by eight, or even earlier.

”What's all this drill the kids are talking about?” Willett asked Eric, as the boy came back from breakfast. ”To hear the way they go on, you'd think it was the only important thing that had been scheduled since the world began!”

”That's the Commodore's doing,” replied Eric, with a laugh. ”He's got us all going that way. You know Hailer is one of those chaps who believes so much in what he's doing that everybody else has to believe in it, too.”

”But I thought Hailer was commodore in New York, not out here in 'Frisco.”

”So he is,” agreed the boy. ”But a mere trifle like a few thousand miles doesn't seem to weaken his influence much. Of course the biggest part of his time is given to superintending the New York end, but the work's spreading in every direction and all our reports go to headquarters.

After all, organization does make a heap of difference, don't you think?

How about it? Are you fit enough to come and see the youngsters at their work?”

”I'm a bit wobbly,” the rescued man answered. ”I suppose I ought to expect that. But I feel all right. I can get as far as that bench, anyway, and I'd like to see the drill. You teach them all to swim?”

”We try to teach everybody we can get hold of,” replied Eric. ”Hailer has an idea that every man, woman, and child in the United States ought to be able to swim, even when asleep. I've heard him say that it was as much a part of our job to prevent accidents as to do the best we can after accidents have happened. I think he's about right. Everybody ought to swim, just the same way as they know how to walk. Then we wouldn't have to fetch out of the water a lot of people who are already half-drowned.”

”You do that in great shape, too,” said Willett gratefully, ”I can testify to that! I was a goner last night, sure, if you fellows hadn't been there. And the way you brought Jake around--I wouldn't have thought it possible.”

”We were mighty lucky,” agreed the boy.

”You were!” exclaimed Willett. ”I think we're the lucky ones.”

”I suppose you are,” said Eric. ”But, after all, if both your chum and you had been A No. 1 swimmers, just see how easy it would have been! You could have got ash.o.r.e in a few minutes. That's what we want to do with the kids. We want to teach them to swim so that if they tumble off a dock with their duds on they can strike out for sh.o.r.e like so many frogs. We manage to break in nearly every youngster who comes down to this beach. Most of them want to get the hang of it, anyway, and when there's a bunch of youngsters to start with, it's a cinch to get the rest to join in.”

”But still I don't see how you can teach them on land,” Willett objected.

”Why not?”

”You're supposed to swim with your legs as well as your hands, aren't you?”

”Of course. It's the legs that you really do the swimming with.”

”That's what I thought. But how can you kick out with both legs when you're standing on them?”