k them; then sprang back for the others
clinging to the seats and slowly drowning in the smother. Twice he
plunged headlong after them, bracing himself against the backsuck, then
with the help of his steel-like grip all four were dragged clear of the
souse. Ever after it was "Uncle Isaac" or "that old hang-on," but
always with a lifting of the chin in pride.

Samuel Green came next: Forty-five, long, Lincoln-bodied, and bony;
coal-black hair, coal-black eyes, and charcoal-black mustache; neck
like a loop in standing rigging; arms long as cant-hooks, with the
steel grips for fingers; sluggish in movement and slow in action until
the supreme moment of danger tautened his nerves to breaking point;
then came an instantaneous spring, quick as the recoil of a parted
hawser. All his life a fisherman except the five years he spent in the
Arctic and the year he served at Squan; later he had helped in the
volunteer crew alongshore. Loving the service, he had sent word over to
Captain Holt that he'd like "to be put on," to which the captain had
sent back word by the same messenger "Tell him he IS put on." And he
WAS, as soon as the papers were returned from Washington. Captain Nat
had no record to look up or inquiries to make as to the character or
fitness of Sam Green. He was the man who the winter before had slipped
a rope about his body, plunged into the surf and swam out to the brig
Gorgus and brought back three out of the five men lashed to the
rigging, all too benumbed to make fast the shot-line fired across her
deck.

Charles Morgan's name followed in regular order, and then Parks--men
who had sailed with Captain Holt, and whose word and pluck he could
depend upon; and Mulligan from Barnegat, who could pull a boat with the
best of them; and last, and least in years, those two slim, tightly
knit, lithe young tiger-cats, Tod and Archie.

Captain Nat had overhauled each man and had inspected him as closely as
he would have done the timber for a new mast or the manila to make its
rigging. Here was a service that required cool heads, honest hearts,
and the highest technical skill, and the men under him must be sound to
the core. He intended to do his duty, and so should every man subject
to his orders. The Government had trusted him and he held himself
responsible. This would probably be his last duty, and it would be well
done. He was childless, sixty-five years old, and had been idle for
years. Now he would show his neighbo