'd do to save
the boats. Ye couldn't stand up agin it, an' what wasn't snow an' sleet,
was spray.

"All mornin' the gale blew, an' in the middle o' the afternoon the
breakwater went to bits. The keepers o' the light at the end o' the
breakwater lighted the lantern, 'n' you take my word for it, they were
takin' their lives in their hands in doin' it. Jest half 'n hour later,
the whole shebang, light, lighthouse, 'n' the end o' the breakwater,
went flyin' down to leeward in a heap o' metal 'n splinters.

"Jest about that time, some folks down Chocolay way, lookin' out to
sea, took a notion they saw what looked like white ghosts o' ships 'way
out on the bar. She was jest blowin' tiger cats with the claws out!
'Twa'n't a day for no Atlantic greyhound to be out, much less a small
boat. But I tell ye, boy, when there's lives to be saved, there's allers
some Americans 'round that's goin' to have a try at it. Over the ice 'n'
through the gale, eight men helpin', the fishermen o' Chocolay carried a
yawl an' life-lines to the point o' the beach nearest the wreck. Four
men clumb into her."

"Without cork-jackets or anything?" asked Eric.

"Without nothin' but a Michigan man's spunk. Well, siree, those four men
clumb into that yawl, an' a bunch of others jumped into the mush-ice an'
toted her 'way out to clear water. With a yell, the fisherman put her
nose inter the gale an' pulled. But it wa'n't no use. No yawl what was
ever made could have faced that sea. The spray friz in the air as it
come, an' the men were pelted with pieces of jagged ice, mighty near as
big 's a bob-cherry. Afore they was ten feet away from the mush, a sea
come over 'n' half filled the boat. It wa'n't no use much ter bail, for
it friz as soon's it struck. They hadn't shipped more'n four seas when
the weight of ice on the boat begun to sink her."

"Fresh water, of course," said Eric. "It would freeze quickly. I hadn't
thought of that."

"In spite o' the ice," continued the veteran of seventy Lake winters,
"two o' the men were for goin' on, but the oldest man o' the crowd made
'em turn back. He was only jest in time, for as the yawl got back to the
edge o' the mush she went down."

"Sank?"

"Jest like as if she was made o' lead."

"And the men?" asked the boy eagerly.

"They was all right. I told you it was nigh the beach. The crowd got to
the yawl 'n' pulled her up on shore. They burned a flare to let 'em know
aboard the wrecks that they was bein'