oat he had
left; above him the grim nakedness of the barren rock, and below,
snarling with impotent fury, was the defeated surf.

The crane above him creaked as it swung inboard. Drenched, cold, but
thoroughly happy, Eric stood on Tillamook Rock. For the moment, at
least, he was one with that little band of men which is Uncle Sam's
farthest outpost against the tempest-armies of the western seas.

CHAPTER III

HEROES OF THE UNDERGROUND

Knowing that his father had spent many years on Tillamook Rock, Eric was
eager to see every nook and cranny of the building, and he importuned
his uncle to go with him over the structure. But, although the inspector
and the light-keeper were brothers, the trip was an official one, and
his uncle deputed one of the assistant light-keepers to show the lad
around.

Eric was not slow in making use of his time. He climbed up to the
lantern and saw for himself close at hand the lens he had so often heard
described, astonishing his guide with all sorts of questions. Most of
these showed an extraordinary knowledge of lights and lighthouses, in
which a mass of information was combined with utter ignorance of detail.
This was due to the boy's long acquaintance with the Lighthouse Service
through the several members of his family who had served in it.

"You know," said Eric, "I had the idea that Tillamook Rock would seem a
lot higher, when one was on top of it. When you look at it from the
sea, it stands up so sheer and straight that it seems almost like a
mountain."

"Well, lad," the assistant-keeper answered, "it is tolerable high. It's
nigh a hundred feet to the level o' the rock, an' the light's another
forty. It's none too high, at that."

"Why? The sea can't hurt you much, this high up!" said Eric, leaning
over the railing of the gallery around the light and looking down. "Even
a twenty-foot wave's a big one, and you're six or seven times as high up
as that."

"You think we're sort o' peacefully floatin' in a zone o' quiet up here?
You've got to revise your notion o' the Pacific quite a much! Neptoon
can put up a better article of fight right around this same spot here
than anywheres else I know. Maybe you didn' hear o' the time the sea
whittled off a slice o' rock weighin' a ton or so and sort o' chucked it
at the light?"

"No," said Eric, "I never heard a word about it. When was it?"

"Nigh about twelve years ago," the light-keeper said reminiscently. "It
was the winter