drowned him! I had to kick him free to save
myself!"

Outside, not a word was said. The men knew their work and their places.
The coxswains were ready and the three white boats were sliding down the
beach, the big boat down the runway, as the men heard that cry again,

"I've drowned him! I've drowned him. I had to kick him free to save
myself!"

The words rang hauntingly in Eric's ears as his boat hit the first
incoming billow. The former rescue in the moonlight had held a quick
thrill, but it had been nothing like this tense eager race in the
darkness. Nearly a quarter of an hour had passed in the station-house
before the rescued man had recovered consciousness and the rescue had
taken at least five minutes. Almost twenty-five minutes had elapsed,
then, since the first cry of help had been heard.

The boats leapt forward like swift dogs released from leash. The oars
were made to resist extreme strain, but they bent under the terrific
strokes of the life-savers. Over six thousand miles of sea the Pacific
rolled in with slow surges, and out in the darkness, somewhere, was a
drowning man, probably beyond help, but with just the faintest shred of
possibility for life if he could be found immediately.

With that uncanny intuition which made him so marvelous in the work, the
coxswain of Eric's boat steered a course fifty feet away from that of
the larger boat.

Not a word was spoken until, above the swish of the water and the rattle
of the rowlocks, the Eel said quietly,

"We picked him up a little to wind'ard of here!" Three men, among them
Eric, slipped into the water. Almost at the same moment, five or six men
plunged in from the other boats. The lieutenant stopped Eric's chum.

"You'd better stay aboard, Eel," he said; "you've already had quite a
swim."

The Eel shrugged his shoulders disapprovingly, but, after all, orders
were orders, and the captain of the Golden Gate station was a
disciplinarian to his finger-tips.

In the broken gleams of the moonlight flickering on the tumbled water,
the forms of the dozen members of the corps could be seen. Ever and
again one would disappear from sight for a deep dive to try to find the
body.

This was a part of the work in which Eric was particularly good. He had
a strong leg-stroke and was compactly built, although large-boned for
his age. Tired though he was from swimming ashore with the Eel on the
first rescue, he went down as often as any of his comrades. Looking