Part 20 (1/2)

”Here, you fellows,” he called, ”heave me up a line!”

There was a second's surprise when the other members of the crew saw Eric 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 line was faked and the boy carefully hauled it up, then drove it into the ice as hard as he could, using his heavy boot for a hammer. He next took the line, 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 we were not to think o' the way the kid did it.”

Then he s.h.i.+nned up the rope like a monkey on a stick.

With both Muldoon and Eric hanging to the rope, it was not long until five men got to the top. The keeper, seeing how successful Eric's plan had proved, ordered every man to cut for himself a good foothold in the ice, and then, tailing on to the rope, they got the apparatus-cart up the slope, two men behind trying to guide it from below. It was a difficult haul, but at last they got the cart to the summit, and, in order to keep it from sliding down, straddled the wheels atop.

[Ill.u.s.tration: RUs.h.i.+NG THE APPARATUS-CART.

Coast Guard Crew with life-gun, line-box, shots, hawser, breeches-buoy and signal-lights, ploughing through heavy sand to wreck on beach a mile away.

Courtesy of U.S. Coast Guard.]

The cart rocked unsteadily. Suddenly, as a particularly vicious blast came whistling by, it canted as though it were going to fall. Eric, who was a few feet away from the cart, jumped forward to save it, but missed his footing and fell into the mush-ice twenty feet below, going clear through.

There was no time for orders. Muldoon, quick as a wink, almost before any one else had grasped the accident, knotted a line around the cart and taking the other end in his hand jumped into the mush-ice after the boy. So true was his eye that he struck almost the same point and a few seconds later appeared above the surface with Eric. Neither was hurt, but both were wet through, handicapping them for work on so cold a night.

Eric's ruse in getting the apparatus-cart to the top of the cliff, however, had solved the biggest part of the difficulty. By carefully sliding the cart along the face of the cliff for ten yards or a little more, they found themselves above the road leading out to the spit. It was then merely a matter of lowering the cart to the other side.

Meantime Muldoon had raced the boy to the lighthouse for a chance to change their clothes before they froze on them. No sooner did he knock on the door than the lighthouse-keeper came out, and the open door showed 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 national readiness to say nice things to a pretty girl, ”only we've had a trifle of a duckin' an' if there's annything like dhry clothes in this house it would 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.”