ther.

Into the very jaws of the breakers the little cutter sped, and, even
while the boy was looking fearfully on every side of him to see the
curling waves breaking on shoals not a hundred feet away, there appeared
before them the wrecked and disabled steamer. Over the bars the vessel
had pounded, her foretopmast had gone by the board, and she seemed in
hopeless case.

So powerful was the gale that it had plucked the hapless steamer out of
the jaws of the sucking sand, and flung her, like a plaything, into the
breakers beyond. The _Miami_ slowed down, her first pause in that awful
race, which was ending in the maze of the Diamond Shoals, with waves
breaking on every side and a hurricane whistling overhead.

It seemed even the most reckless foolhardiness to go on a fathom
further, but the first lieutenant seemed to know the bottom as though it
were a peaceful lane in a New England countryside, and after the
_Union_, the Coast Guard cutter crept warily. Even the boatswain
muttered under his breath,

"We'll never get out o' this!"

But, foot by foot, almost, the boy thought, step by step, the _Miami_
overhauled the wrecked vessel.

Then from the long silence that had reigned on the bridge, suddenly
issued a torrent of orders. The decks of the cutter seemed to bristle
with men, as when Jason sowed the dragon's teeth. Eric, though quick and
keen, had all he could do to fulfil the part of the work that was given
him and set the crew at the lines of the breeches-buoy. Every man was on
deck and every man was working with frantic haste.

In a fraction of time that seemed but a few seconds, a line was shot to
the _Union_, made fast by her crew on board, the breeches-buoy was
hauled out and the first of the men from the wreck was on the way to the
_Miami_. All this had been done in the few minutes that passed while the
cutter held herself within fifteen fathom of the schooner. Then the
_Miami_ dropped her anchor, to hold her place for the breeches-buoy.

Amid the scream of the gale in the rigging, and the pounding of the
breakers on the shoals, the men worked like fiends. Never did ropes slip
more quickly through their hands, never did sailors work more
feverishly. But, in spite of this wild and furious striving, it was
evident that the _Miami_ dare not hold her place. The _Union_ evidently
had lost one of her anchors, and the other was not holding in the sand.
Every few seconds she dragged, and, in order to prevent the