omehow--he said he didn't know how, himself--succeeded in getting
Mooney out from under the sail. He gripped Mooney's collar, but could
not lift his head above water. All that he could do was barely to hold
on."

[Illustration: THE LONELY WATCHER OF THE COAST.

Courtesy of Outing Magazine.]

[Illustration: WHERE PATROLS MEET. THE HALF-WAY POINT.

Courtesy of Outing Magazine.]

"Showed a good deal of grit to do even that, it seems to me," said one
of the life-savers. "It's an awful feeling to be nearly drowned."

"It did show grit," agreed Johnson. "If it had been a drowning woman
with long hair, she could have been held up all right; but a grip on the
collar, when the head is hanging forward, means a dead lift out of
water. I don't wonder that the young fellow wasn't able to do it.

"When my pal reached there, he got Mooney aboard, the other two
clambered in and they started for the shore. Mooney was as purple as a
grape and his arms were so stiff that two men, one on each side, could
barely move them. Nearly a quart of water was got out of him, and they
had an awful job prying open his jaws.

"They worked over him for an hour and twenty minutes before there was
the slightest sign of life. Not until twenty-five minutes more did the
heart begin, and Mooney did not regain consciousness until nine hours
later. As his watch had stopped at 4:20 P.M. and it was 4:53 when
Streeter got ashore, that man's heart had stopped, his breathing had
stopped and he had been practically dead for more than two hours."

"Just goes to show," said one of the others, "that it isn't merely
swallowing water that drowns a fellow."

"It isn't swallowing water at all, as I understand," rejoined another
member of the group. "Drowning's a kind of poisoning of the blood
because the lungs can't get oxygen. It's just like choking to death or
being hanged."

There was a call from within.

"Murchison!"

The life-saver who had just been speaking, got up quickly and went in to
relieve Ryan.

"Any luck?" Johnson asked, as the latter came out.

The Irishman shook his head.

"There's nothin' yet, but he moight come round anny minute," was his
reply, with the invincible optimism of his race.

Eric had been thinking of Murchison's description of drowning.

"Why did they roll half-drowned people on a barrel in the old times?" he
asked.

"Sure, they were ijits," Ryan answered cheerfully.

"But what was the idea? To get the water out