Part 8 (1/2)

”It works mighty rapidly, my boy,” said the old inspector. ”You put a light right at sea level, on a day when there isn't a ripple on the sea, and five miles away, at sea level, you won't see a sign of it! Fifteen feet is the unit. Fifteen feet above sea level, you can see a light fifteen feet above sea level, seven miles away.”

”Then why not build lighthouses like the Eiffel Tower, a thousand feet high!”

”Once in a while, Eric,” his father said, rebukingly, ”you talk absolutely without thinking. Didn't I just show you that the rays of a lantern had to be sent out in a single beam?”

”Yes, but what of that?”

”Can't you see that if your light is too high, the beam will have to strike the water at such an angle that its horizontal effect would be lost? That would mean that a s.h.i.+p could see the light seventy miles away, and lose it at fifty or forty miles from the lighthouse. No, boy, that wouldn't work. Tillamook Rock is quite high enough!”

”It does look high,” agreed the boy, following his father's gaze to where, over the port bow, rose the menacing and forbidding reef on which the light stood.

”It's the meanest bit on the coast,” said the inspector. ”Wouldn't you say the sea was fairly smooth?”

”Like a mill-pond,” declared Eric. ”Why?”

”That just shows you,” said his father. ”You'd have to nail the water down to keep it from playing tricks around Tillamook. Look at it now!”

The lad's glance followed the pointing finger. There was hardly a ripple on the sea, but a long slow lazy swell suggested a storm afar off.

Slight as the swell was, it struck Tillamook Rock with a vengeful spirit. Long white claws of foam tore vainly at the grim reef's sides and the roar of the surf filled the air.

”Mill-pond, eh?” said the inspector. ”Well, I can see where I get good and wet in that same mill-pond.”

He slipped on a slicker and a sou'wester.

”You'd better dig up some oilskins, Eric,” he said. ”Any of the men will let you have them.”

The boy slipped off part of his clothes, standing up in unders.h.i.+rt and trousers.

”I like it better this way,” he said.

The old inspector looked at his son with approval and even admiration.

Considering his years, the lad was wonderfully well developed, largely as a result of swimming, and his summer with the Volunteer Corps had sunburned him as brown as a piece of weathered oak.

”I think I'd rather go in that kind of a costume myself,” his father said, with a chuckle, ”but I'm afraid it would hardly do for my official uniform on an inspection trip!”

As he spoke, the rattle of the boat-davits was heard.

”Come along then, lad,” said the inspector. ”Just a moment, though.

Don't get any fool idea about showing off with any kind of a swimming performance. You just be good and thankful to be hauled up by a crane!”

The boy took another look at Tillamook Rock, frowning above the surf.

”I'm not hankering after a swim there,” he said; ”I don't claim to be amphibious, exactly. As you say, it's calm enough on the open water, but I don't think anything except a seal or a walrus or something of that kind could land on that rock. Not for me, thank you. I'll take the crane, and gladly.”

The ropes rattled through the davit blocks, and, as the _Manzanita_ heeled over a little, the boat took water, the blocks were unhooked, her bows given a sharp shove and she was off.

Down at water level, the slight swell seemed considerably larger.

Indeed, it actually was increasing. And, as they pulled in toward the entrance of the reef, the boat met a rip in the current that seemed to try to twist the oars from the hands of the boat-pullers. But lighthouse-tender sailors are picked men, and though the little boat was thrown about like a cork, she fairly clawed her way through the rip. As they neared the entrance in the reef, the surf rushed between the rocks, throwing up spume and spray as though a storm were raging. Eric had to look back out to sea to convince himself that the ocean was still as calm as it had seemed a moment or two before. In among the crags to which the boat was driving, there was a turmoil of seething waters, which came thundering in and which shrank away with a sucking sound, as though disappointed of a long hoped-for vengeance.