p that nears the coast, and not a point of danger is
unprotected. Should an unreckoned-with disaster cast a vessel on the
breakers, there is not a mile of beach that the Coast Guard does not
watch.

Far in the northern Bering Sea, a Coast Guard cutter blazes the hidden
trail through Polar ice for the oncoming fleet of whalers, and carries
American justice to where, as yet, no court has been; out in the
mid-Atlantic, when the Greenland icebergs follow their silent path of
ghostly menace, a Coast Guard cutter watches and warns the great ocean
liners of their peril; and when, in spite of all that skill and
watchfulness can do, the sea claims its toll of wreck, it is the Coast
Guard cutter that is first upon the scene of rescue. To show the stern
work done by the U. S. Coast Guard, to depict the indomitable men who
overcome dangers greater than are known to any others who traffic on the
sea, to point to the manly boyhood of America this arm of our country's
national defense, whose history is one long record of splendid heroism,
is the aim and purpose of

THE AUTHOR.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I

A RESCUE BY MOONLIGHT 1

CHAPTER II

THE LIGHTS THAT NEVER SLEEP 28

CHAPTER III

HEROES OF THE UNDERGROUND 61

CHAPTER IV

SNATCHED FROM A FROZEN DEATH 96

CHAPTER V

SAVED BY THE BREECHES-BUOY 120

CHAPTER VI

A BLAZON OF FLAME AT SEA 156

CHAPTER VII

REINDEER TO THE RESCUE 187

CHAPTER VIII

THE BELCHING DEATH OF A VOLCANO 222

CHAPTER IX

DEFYING THE TEMPEST'S VIOLENCE 246

CHAPTER X

ADRIFT ON A DERELICT 274

CHAPTER XI

THE WRECKERS OF THE SPANISH MAIN 294

CHAPTER XII

THE GRAVEYARD OF THE DEEP 322

ILLUSTRATIONS

FACING PAGE
The Gleam That Brings Hope _Frontispiece_

The Light That Never Sleeps 10

The Lonely Watcher of the Coast 20

Where Patrols Meet. The Half-way Point 20

Breaking a Death-Clutch from Behind 32

Breaking a D