he
recognized as some of the sailors of the ill-fated brigantine.

Eagerly he watched and prayed that his good friend the captain might be
one of those who had been snatched from a watery grave; but as time
passed this hope gradually became fainter.

The lifeboat had managed to return from the wreck, to report that not a
living soul remained aboard; and that the seas were so tremendous that
even had it been otherwise there would have been small chance of saving
them, since it was next to impossible to approach close to the vessel.

How the boy, lying there, looked with almost reverence upon those
stalwart fellows who were risking their lives in the effort to save
their fellow men.

Darry would never forget that hour.

The impressions he received then would remain with him through life;
and in his eyes the calling of a life saver must always be reckoned the
noblest vocation to which a young man could pledge himself.

He thought he would like nothing better than to become one of the band,
and in some way repay the great debt he owed them by doing as he had
been done by.

Presently he had so far recovered that he could get up and move around.

All of the sailors had not been equally fortunate; indeed, two of them
would never again scour the seas, having taken out papers for that long
voyage the end of which no mortal eye can see.

As each new arrival was carried in the boy would be the first to hasten
forward, but as often his sigh echoed the heavy feeling in his heart as
he discovered a face other than the familiar one he had grown to love.

One of the surfmen who had manned the lifeboat seemed to be particularly
interested in the rescued boy, for he came into the station several
times to ask how he was feeling, and if there was not something more he
wanted.

He was a tall, angular fellow, with a thin but engaging face, and Darry
had heard some of the others call him Abner Peake.

Somehow he found himself drawn toward this man from the start; and it
seemed as though in losing one good friend he had found another to take
the place of the kind captain.

Abner was a native of the shore, and spoke in the peculiar dialect of
the uneducated Southerner; but as a water-dog he knew no superior, and
it is this quality that Uncle Sam looks for when making up his crews to
man the life-saving stations that dot the whole coast from Maine to
Florida.

There was a twang about his voice that reminded Darry of a negro he