THE LIGHTS THAT NEVER SLEEP
It was a happy awakening in the life-saving station the next morning,
for both the rescued men were well on the road to recovery. Eric had
intended to be the first to tell Willett the entire story, but the
events of the night had been a heavy strain on him and he had slept
late. Indeed, he did not waken until the gang of boys came round for
their morning drill. Drill was scheduled at nine o'clock, but it was
seldom that there failed to be at least half a dozen urchins around the
station by eight, or even earlier.
"What's all this drill the kids are talking about?" Willett asked Eric,
as the boy came back from breakfast. "To hear the way they go on, you'd
think it was the only important thing that had been scheduled since the
world began!"
"That's the Commodore's doing," replied Eric, with a laugh. "He's got us
all going that way. You know Hailer is one of those chaps who believes
so much in what he's doing that everybody else has to believe in it,
too."
"But I thought Hailer was commodore in New York, not out here in
'Frisco."
"So he is," agreed the boy. "But a mere trifle like a few thousand miles
doesn't seem to weaken his influence much. Of course the biggest part of
his time is given to superintending the New York end, but the work's
spreading in every direction and all our reports go to headquarters.
After all, organization does make a heap of difference, don't you think?
How about it? Are you fit enough to come and see the youngsters at their
work?"
"I'm a bit wobbly," the rescued man answered. "I suppose I ought to
expect that. But I feel all right. I can get as far as that bench,
anyway, and I'd like to see the drill. You teach them all to swim?"
"We try to teach everybody we can get hold of," replied Eric. "Hailer
has an idea that every man, woman, and child in the United States ought
to be able to swim, even when asleep. I've heard him say that it was as
much a part of our job to prevent accidents as to do the best we can
after accidents have happened. I think he's about right. Everybody ought
to swim, just the same way as they know how to walk. Then we wouldn't
have to fetch out of the water a lot of people who are already
half-drowned."
"You do that in great shape, too," said Willett gratefully, "I can
testify to that! I was a goner last night, sure, if you fellows hadn't
been there. And the way you brought Jake around--I wouldn't have thought
it possible."
"We were mighty lucky," agreed the boy.
"You were!" exclaimed Willett. "I think we're the lucky ones."
"I suppose you are," said Eric. "But, after all, if both your chum and
you had been A No. 1 swimmers, just see how easy it would have been! You
could have got ashore in a few minutes. That's what we want to do with
the kids. We want to teach them to swim so that if they tumble off a
dock with their duds on they can strike out for shore like so many
frogs. We manage to break in nearly every youngster who comes down to
this beach. Most of them want to get the hang of it, anyway, and when
there's a bunch of youngsters to start with, it's a cinch to get the
rest to join in."
"But still I don't see how you can teach them on land," Willett
objected.
"Why not?"
"You're supposed to swim with your legs as well as your hands, aren't
you?"
"Of course. It's the legs that you really do the swimming with."
"That's what I thought. But how can you kick out with both legs when
you're standing on them?"
"Oh, that's what's troubling you," said Eric laughing. "But there's
nothing difficult in that. The idea in the leg motions of swimming is to
bring the legs to the body, isn't it?"
"That's what I always thought."
"It doesn't make any difference if you bring the body to the legs, does
it?"
"I--suppose not," the other said, dubiously.
"Of course it doesn't. That's just the idea. You watch the kids going
through the drill and you'll get on to it. Why, I can put a bunch wise
to swimming, though they're a thousand miles away from any water deep
enough to drown in."
Eric had hardly got outside the station when the boys flocked to him in
a body. He answered their fusillade of greetings with equal heartiness
and then called them to attention.
"Get to business, now!" he called, and the group lined up in fours, each
boy about six feet from his neighbor. "Ready!" he called. "One! Hands
together, palms to each other. Swing 'em around a little behind the
level of the shoulders turning 'em palm outward as you go. This way!" He
showed the motion. "At the word 'Two'--bring the hands in to the breast.
At 'Three' put the hands forward. All together, now: One! Two! Three!"
The boys followed the motions, some doing it well, but others looking
very clumsy and awkward. A dozen times or more the boys went through the
drill until a certain amount of regularity began to appear.
"Leg motions next," Eric called briskly. "At the word 'One!' bring the
body down to the heels in a sitting position. At the word 'Two'
straighten up and jump with both legs wide apart. At the word 'Three,'
jump and bring the legs close together. That's the one that shoots you
ahead."
This was repeated a dozen or more times and then Eric started the
youngsters doing both the arm and leg motions together. It was really
hard work, but when he let the urchins go at the end of about half an
hour, some of them could do it like clockwork.
[Illustration: BREAKING A DEATH-CLUTCH FROM BEHIND.
Courtesy of U.S. Volunteer Life-Saving Corps.]
[Illustration: BREAKING A DEATH-CLUTCH FROM THE FRONT.
Teaching life-saving at its best, the Commodore [the tallest man in
uniform] watching.
Courtesy of U.S. Volunteer Life-Saving Corps.]
"How much real swimming do you suppose the kids learn from that stuff?"
Willett asked.
"About one-third of them can swim right away," Eric answered. "It's
mostly in getting used to it. After all, if a kid gets hold of the right
stroke and practises enough so that he can do it automatically, he can't
do anything else but that when he gets into the water. The more scared
he is, the surer he is to do the thing he's got used to doing. What
sends people down in the water, is that they've got a wrong idea. They
wave their arms about, and as soon as your arms are out of the water, it
just alters the balance enough to put your mouth under."
"Seems to me I might learn something from that myself--" Willett was
beginning, when a long-continued whistle blast sounded from the station.
Eric was off like a shot. Quick as he was, however, he was only just in
time to scramble into the first boat.
"What is it?" the boy asked.
"Motor-boat on fire," answered the coxswain, "an explosion, most likely.
I guess the boat's done for, but the Eel saw the trouble the minute it
happened, so we oughtn't to have any trouble picking the people up. He
said there were girls, though, and probably they can't swim."
As the life-saving boat cut through the water, it passed three or four
swimmers who had started out from the beach on seeing the accident.
There was a great deal of excitement on shore, as, being a fine Sunday
morning, the beach was crowded.
"We'll be with you in a minute," shouted one of the intending rescuers
as the boat swept by.
As usual, the Eel was the first man overboard, and his queer snake-like
stroke showed to full effect. There had been five people in the boat,
three men and two girls, one of them just a child. One of the men and
one of the women couldn't swim a stroke. The woman had already given up
and the Eel took care of her. Another of the life-savers tackled the
struggling man.
It was evident that there was no need for more help there, so Eric swam
to where the little girl was striking out bravely for the shore.
"Can I give you a hand?" he asked.
The child, though swimming pluckily, evidently was hampered by being
fully dressed.
"Can't swim a bit with my boots on," she gurgled. The boy smiled with
genuine appreciation of her grit.
"You're the real thing," he said. "But it is hard swimming with boots
on. Suppose you let me take you to shore. It's just as easy!"
He swam in front of the child.
"Put your hands on my shoulders," he said, "and keep your feet well up.
Are you all right now?"
"Quite all right," she answered, dashing the water out of her eyes.
"I see they've put the fire out," said Eric, swimming quietly and
easily, for the girl's touch was like a feather on his shoulder. "I
don't believe the boat's much hurt."
"I'd be awfully glad if it wasn't," she answered, "because Jack just
borrowed it for the day and I'm sure he's feeling terribly. We were just
going to buy one this week."
"Perhaps this will scare him off."
In spite of her fatigue and fright the girl laughed brightly as Eric's
feet touched bottom and he stood up.
"It might him, but it won't me," she said, with a joyous disregard of
grammar. "And Jack's buying the boat mainly for me. I really can swim
quite well, but I suppose the explosion scared me. I don't believe I'd
have been frightened a bit if I had jumped in of my own accord. But it
was all so sudden!"
"Well," said Eric, "it's a good thing for you it didn't happen a long
way from shore. And I'm glad I was able to help a bit, too, because this
is my last day on duty and having helped you is about the best way of
celebrating it that could have happened."
"Your last day?" she said, with a note of regret in her voice. "You're
going away?"
"Yes," Eric replied, as they came to the water's edge and the crowd
began to congregate to meet them, "I'm just getting ready to join the
Coast Guard!"
"Great!" she exclaimed, her eyes sparkling, as she shook back her wet
hair. "But how can I thank you?"
"You have thanked me," the boy answered, as he took her to the beach
where the lifeboat had landed and where her friends were anxiously
awaiting her, "you've given me a chance to quit in a sort of 'blaze of
glory.' Don't you think that's something?"
"But won't you tell me who you are?" she pleaded.
"United States Volunteer Life-Saving Corps," he answered with a smile,
as he turned to go back to the station, "that's where the credit ought
to go."
"So this is your last day, Eric," said the Eel, an hour or so later, as
the boy stood on the platform of the life-saving station, looking
regretfully at the strip of beach.
"Yes, Eel," Eric rejoined thoughtfully. "I hate to leave here, too."
"I always hate to go, of course," his chum agreed, "but then it's
different with me. This is my vacation. When I quit here, it means that
I've got to get back to work. You're only going back to school."
"Not my fault," was the half-rueful answer; "I'd a heap sooner be going
into the Coast Guard right away. But I'm not ready yet."
"You will be, next year," said his friend, sympathetically.
"I know. But next year's a long way off and I wanted to stay here until
I was sure of my appointment. If Father were only going to stay another
year on the coast, I could finish my work here and then get ready for
the exams in June."
"Is he leaving?"
"Of course. Don't you remember I told you before!"
"Yes, so you did. I'd forgotten."
"We're hiking off at the end of this month. Father's been put in charge
of one of the districts on the Great Lakes."
"But I thought he was inspector here?"
"He's been acting-inspector for quite a while. But that was a temporary
appointment, while the inspector was ill."
"And you're going home a couple of weeks ahead to help pack, eh?"
"Ye-es," Eric answered, "of course that's a part of it. But I'm going
now because I want to see Uncle Eli before I go East. He's on Tillamook
Rock, you know."
"I knew he used to be," the Eel said, "but I thought when he made that
big real estate haul, he quit."
"He tried to," the boy agreed, "but he found he couldn't. Uncle Eli's an
old-timer, Eel. I used to be jealous of the Tillamook Light. He's just
as fond of it as he is of me, more, I think. I can quite see how he
would feel that way. It's always been just like his child. He was there
when the light was born."
"You mean its designing?"
"I mean its being born," Eric insisted. "Nearly all my people have been
in the Lighthouse Service, you know. They all have that way of thinking
of the lights as if they were real folks. It's something like a
captain's idea about his ship. She's always alive. And lights are just
as responsive. Some way, I've a bit of that same feeling myself."
"Yes," the Eel said thoughtfully, "I can see that, in a way. They do
seem a bit human, don't they? And it must be deadly lonely for the
keepers, out of reach of everybody, with nothing to do."
"What?" shouted Eric, so loudly that the Eel jumped. "With nothing to
do?"
"Except just attend to the light," his chum said apologetically. "What
else is there?"
"I suppose you think they just light the lantern when they have a mind
to and then snore all night long?"
"N-no, of course they can't," the Eel replied, humbly, "I hadn't thought
of that. I suppose they have to keep watch."
"You bet they do," Eric said emphatically, "and a mighty close watch at
that. And when it comes to discipline--the Lighthouse Service has every
civilian organization in America beaten to a frazzle."
"I didn't know it was so strict."
"Strict! Carelessness means dishonorable dismissal, right off the bat!
Not that there's ever much chance of such a thing ever being needed. The
Commissioner has built up such a sense of pride in the service that a
chap would do anything rather than neglect his duty. I'll tell you a
story of a woman light-keeper, a woman, mind you, Eel, that'll show you.
You know Angel Island?"
"Right here in San Francisco Bay?"
"That's the one. You know that there's a light and a fog signal there?"
"I hadn't ever thought of it," the other replied. "Yes, I guess there
is."
"There's a new fog-horn on that point now, Eel, but when I was quite a
small shaver, in 1906, the fog signal was a bell, rung with a clapper.
In July of that year the clapper broke and couldn't be used. A heavy fog
came down and blanketed the island so that you couldn't see anything a
foot away. That woman light-keeper stood there with a watch in one hand
and a nail-hammer in the other and struck that bell once every twenty
seconds for twenty hours and thirty-five minutes until the fog lifted.
She didn't stop for meals or sleep. Two days later, the bell not having
yet been fixed, another fog came down at night and she did the same
thing the whole night long. That's what I call being on the job!"
"Yes," the Eel agreed with admiration, "you can't beat that, anywhere."
"And you spoke of light-keepers being idle!" continued Eric, warming to
his subject. "Keeping a lighthouse in the shape that the Commissioner
insists on isn't any easy chore. I tell you, the operating room of a
hospital isn't any cleaner than the inside of a lighthouse. They tell a
story in the service of a hot one that was handed to a light-keeper by
one of the inspectors. The keeper hadn't shaved that morning. The
instant the inspector saw him, he said:
"'If the lamp doesn't look better kept than you do, you're fired!'"
"That's swift enough!" the older boy answered, with a whistle.
"Nothing saved that light-keeper but the fact that everything else about
the place was in apple-pie order. I've heard Father tell how some of the
inspectors go around with a white handkerchief, and if they find any
dust--there's trouble for somebody!"
"Don't you think that's carrying it a bit too far?" queried his chum.
"I used to think so," Eric said, "but I don't now. I've got the idea
that's behind the rule. Everybody isn't cut out to be a light-keeper.
The work calls for just one thing, a tremendous conscientiousness.
There's no one to keep constant tab on men in isolated stations. Men who
haven't got the right point of view won't stay in the service, and those
who have got it, get it developed a lot more. The way it looks to me,
the Commissioner has built up an organization of men who do their work
because they believe in it, and who naturally have a liking for
regularity and order."
"You're sure stuck on the Lighthouse Service, Eric," said his chum with
a laugh.
"Why wouldn't I be?" the lad replied. "If all my folks are in it, I've
probably got some of that same sort of feeling in my blood. But I'm
different, too. The same thing to do over and over again, day after day,
month after month, would get my goat. I want to do something that's got
more variety and more opportunity. That's why I'm going to join the
Coast Guard--if I can get in."
[Illustration: THE "EDDYSTONE" OF AMERICA.
Minot's Ledge Light, off Boston, one of the most important lighthouses
on the American coast, a triumph of engineering.
Courtesy of U.S. Bureau of Lighthouses.]
"Well," the Eel said, sighing, "I envy you. So far as I can see, I'm
like your lighthouse-keeper. I'm stuck at a desk for the rest of my
life. You go ahead, Eric, and do the big stuff in rescue work, with
uniform and epaulets and all the rest of it. I'll stay right on my job
in the city and--on Saturdays, Sundays, and vacations--I'll do my little
best in the volunteer job on this beach."
"It's bully work here, all right," agreed Eric, "and I'm only sorry I
can't be in two places at once. Good luck, old man," he continued,
shaking hands with his chum heartily, "I'll drop you a line written
right on Tillamook Rock, and maybe it'll have the real sea flavor to
it!"
Eric was quite excited in joining his father at Astoria, where they were
to take the lighthouse-tender _Manzanita_ to Tillamook Rock. During all
the years his father had been connected with the light, both as
light-keeper and as inspector, he had never taken his wife or son there.
Of course, under no circumstances would they have been allowed to stay
over night, but Eric had never even visited the rock. The boy had begged
for a chance to stay over one night, just to stand one watch in the
lighthouse, but--rules were rules. The utmost privilege he could get was
permission to go to the lighthouse with his father, when the latter was
making his final inspection before transfer to another district.
"I hear you've been distinguishing yourself, Eric," the veteran said,
when the _Manzanita_ had cast off from the wharf.
"How do you mean, Father?"
"Rescues, and that sort of thing. It made me feel quite proud of my
son."
"There were a few," the lad answered, with a quick flush of pride at his
father's praise, "but at that I don't think I got my full share. We had
a fellow there we called the 'Eel.' Nobody else had a chance to get
anything when he was around."
"Good swimmer, eh?"
"He was a wonder! Why, Father, he used to swim under water nearly all
the time, just putting his nose out to breathe once in a while, and at
the end of his side stroke he had a little wiggle that shot him ahead
like greased lightning. Funniest stroke you ever saw!"
"Couldn't you pick it up?"
"Oh, I got the stroke all right," Eric answered confidently, "but I
can't do it the way he did. And you should have seen him dive!"
"I always was glad you took kindly to that work," said the inspector
thoughtfully, "because I believe it is pretty well handled, now that
it's on an official basis. It certainly supplements the government's
life-saving work very well. I've wondered, sometimes, whether it
oughtn't to be taken hold of by the nation."
"I don't think it's necessary, Father," Eric replied. "You see, if it
was a government station, the regular crew would have to be on duty all
the time. There's no need for that. There aren't any accidents there,
except when the beach is crowded, and that's just for Saturdays and
Sundays, mainly, and a couple of months in the summer."
"That may all be true, but when an accident does occur, experts are
needed in a hurry. Amateur work doesn't amount to much as a rule."
"This isn't amateur!" protested the boy. "Why, Father, do you know what
a chap has to do before he can even enlist?"
"No," the other replied. "I never heard the requirements, or if I did,
I've forgotten them. What are they?"
"A fellow who applies has got to show that he can swim at least a
hundred yards in good style, and twenty yards of that must be in coat,
trousers, and shoes. He's got to be able to dive and bring up something
from the bottom, at a depth of ten feet. He's got to swim twenty yards
carrying a person his own weight and show that he knows three different
ways of carrying a drowning person in deep water. He's got to show that
he can do at least three of the ways to 'break' death-grips made by a
drowning person. And besides that, he's got to know all about first aid,
especially resuscitation."
"You mean that an applicant has to pass that test before entering the
volunteers at all?"
"He sure has, and he's got to show that he can do it easily, too!"
"That's good and stiff," said the old inspector. "You can do all that,
Eric, eh?"
The boy smiled.
"I've got a Proficiency Medal, Father," he said, not a little proudly.
"What's that for?"
"That's the test to show you're really A 1. To get that medal you've got
to swim under water for over thirty-five feet, you've got to know all
the 'breaks,' and you've got to show a 'break' to be made by a third
party if you're rescuing a rescuer who has got into the clutch of a
drowning man in any way that he can't shake loose. Besides that, you've
got to swim back-stroke sixty feet with the hands clear out of water,
and sixty feet side, using one arm only. Then, just to show that it
isn't exhibition stuff but the real goods in training for life-saving,
you're made to swim sixty feet fully dressed and back forty feet, on the
return carrying a man your own weight; dropping him, you have to start
right off for another sixty feet out and forty feet back, this time
carrying the man back by a different method."
"It's real swimming!" exclaimed the veteran of the sea.
"You bet," said Eric, "and I'm not nearly through. There's another
sixty-foot swim, and at the end of it you've got to dive at least twelve
feet and bring up from the bottom a dead weight of not less than ten
pounds and swim ten feet carrying that weight. I tell you, Father,
that's quite a stunt! And then, besides all the swimming stuff, you've
got to show that you're Johnny-on-the-spot in throwing a life-buoy, to
say nothing of a barrel of tests in first aid, and in splicing and
knot-tying of nearly every sort and shape. You don't get any chance to
rest, either. All that swimming business has to be done on the same day.
It's a good test of endurance, all right."
"And you passed it, son?"
"I got ninety per cent.," Eric answered. "I thought I'd told you all
about it. No, I guess it came off when you were on one of your trips. I
don't go much on boasting, Father, but I really can swim."
"Well, my boy," the other said, "I'll take a little credit for that.
Don't forget I was your first swimming teacher! But I couldn't do all
those things you've been telling me about, now. I'm glad to know they've
got as high a standard as that in the Volunteer Corps. I shouldn't
wonder if the Coast Guard would be able to get some of its best men from
the volunteer ranks. Take yourself, for example."
"It's done me a lot of good," said the boy.
"Of course it has. It would do anybody good. But I've been wanting to
ask you, Eric, what effect the formation of this new Coast Guard will
have on your plans?"
"It won't hurt them a bit," the boy answered. "I wrote to the Captain
Commandant about it and he sent me the dandiest letter! I'll show it to
you when my trunk gets home. You see, Father, when the Life-Saving
Service and the Revenue Cutter Service joined together under the name of
the Coast Guard, it was arranged that every member of both services
might reenlist without examination. And my application was in last year.
So that there's nothing special, I'm just going through the regular
order of things. That is, if I can make the Coast Guard Academy."
"You ought to manage it, I think," said his father. "I'm really glad you
have made up your mind to it, Eric," he continued; "it's a good
full-size man's job. And you have quite a bit of the salt in your veins,
my lad, for, after all, most of your kin are seafaring folk."
"You never had anything to do with the old Revenue Cutter Service, had
you, Father?"
"I was never a member of it," the other replied, "but I've seen it at
work, many times these forty years. No, I got into the Lighthouse
Service when I was about your age and I've given every bit of myself to
it ever since. I'm glad I did. I think the last fifty years has shown
the greatest development of safety at sea since the days of the
discovery of the compass."
"Yet you didn't want me to join!"
"Not now," the old inspector answered. "Conditions have changed. The
Lighthouse Service of to-day is a complete and perfected organization.
Every mile of United States territory is covered by a beacon light. We
were pioneers."
"I see," said the boy thoughtfully.
"It's a good deal the same sort of development that's struck the cattle
country," the Westerner said, meditatively. "When I was a youngster, a
cattle-puncher was really the wild and woolly broncho-buster that you
read about in books. In the days of the old Jones and Plummer trail,
when there wasn't a foot of barbed wire west of the Mississippi, a
cowboy's life was adventurous enough. A round-up gang might meet a bunch
of hostile Indians 'most any time, and a man had to ride hard and shoot
straight. But now the ranges are all divided up and fenced in. The
range-runner has given way to the stock-raiser. It's like comparing
Dan'l Boone to a commercial traveler!"
"I don't quite see how that fits the Lighthouse Service," said Eric,
smiling at the Daniel Boone comparison.
"Well, it does to a certain extent. When I first went into the Service,
half the coast wasn't protected at all. And even the important lights we
had were weak, compared with what we have now. Why, Eric, we've got
lights so powerful now that we can't even tell how strong they are!"
The boy looked up incredulously.
"It's an absolute fact," the old inspector continued. "The most powerful
light we have is on Navesink Highlands, near the entrance of New York
Harbor. It's reckoned at between two million and ten million
candle-power. Nobody's been able to measure it. The United States Bureau
of Standards was going to do it, but so far, they've left it severely
alone."
"How far can that be seen, Father?"
"All depends on the height of the ship's deck from the water," was the
reply. "The curvature of the earth determines that. Say, thirty miles on
a vessel of moderate size. But the reflection of the Navesink Light on
the sky has been seen as far away as eighty miles."
"White light?"
"Yes, white flashing," was the reply.
"I've noticed," the boy said thoughtfully, "that red is only used for
the smaller lights. I wanted to ask you about that the other day. Now
there's Point Adams Light," he continued, pointing off the starboard bow
as the lighthouse-tender steamed out of the mouth of the Columbia River,
"it looks just as big as this light on the other side, on Cape
Disappointment, but it's a lot harder to see. When I've been headed for
home, on a misty night, after a day's fishing, I've missed Point Adams
when Cape Disappointment was as clear as could be."
"But you could see other lights?"
"Oh, yes, there wasn't any difficulty in making the harbor, either in or
out. I was just wondering whether the color of the light had anything to
do with making it seem dim?"
"Of course," his father answered; "a red glass cuts off sixty per cent,
of the light. You can't see the Point Adams Light for more than about
eleven miles, but, in ordinarily clear weather, you can see the fixed
white light of Cape Disappointment for all of twenty-two nautical
miles."
"I don't quite see why," said the boy, puzzled.
"That's because you're not taking the trouble to think," was the
impatient reply. "You know that light is made up of all the colors of
the rainbow?"
"Of course."
"And red is only a small part of that, isn't it?"
"Yes."
"Well, don't you see? Red glass only lets the red rays through and cuts
off all the rest. How could it help being a lot fainter? And, what's
more, red doesn't excite the nerves of the eye as much as white does, so
that if there were two lights of equal power, one red and one white, the
red would be less easily seen."
"Why do the railroads use red for danger signals, then?"
"Habit, mainly. It's wrong, of course, and a good many of the railroads
are changing their danger signals from red to yellow. So far as we're
concerned in the Lighthouse Service, however, we're getting rid of all
the fixed red lights wherever a long-range warning is needed."
"How do you distinguish the different lights, then?"
"Using flashing lights, with flashes of different duration."
"Why didn't you always do that?" asked Eric.
"Didn't know enough," was the simple reply. "It's only lately that
we've found out how to work a flashing light without any loss of power.
In the old days we used to depend on occulting lights, but now, flashing
lights are much more powerful. You know the difference?"
"Sure! An occulting light means that some of the time the light is shut
off, and at others it isn't. Wasn't it worked by a revolving shutter
with wide slits in it?"
"That was the old idea. We use it still as a cheap way of changing a
fixed light to one with a definite character. It works all right, only
it's a waste of power to have the light darkened part of the time. Then,
too, if the shutter revolves too quickly, the light is like little
flashes of lightning, while, if it goes too slowly, a lookout might
happen to scan that point on the horizon at the instant it was dark. In
that way the value of the warning would be lessened."
"I know the flashing light is quite different, Father, but just how is
it worked?" asked the boy. "It's because of some arrangement of the
lens, isn't it?"
"Exactly. Light travels in straight lines in every direction. One of the
problems of illumination in lighthouse work is to make all these beams
come to one focus. We don't want to light the sky, nor the sea at the
foot of the lighthouse. So a first-order light is built up of rows on
rows of prisms so arranged that the light will be refracted from every
direction to one point. An ordinary student's reading lamp, inside a big
lighthouse lens, would give a light that could be seen a good many
miles!"
[Illustration: REFILLING PINTSCH GAS BUOY.
Courtesy of Safety Car Lighting Co.]
[Illustration: LIGHTHOUSE TENDER APPROACHING BUOY.
Courtesy of Safety Car Lighting Co.]
"That is, if it were high enough up."
"Of course."
"Just how quickly does the earth's curve come into play, Father? I know
the earth is round, of course, but, somehow, it seems so big that one
never thinks of taking it into any practical account."
"It works mighty rapidly, my boy," said the old inspector. "You put a
light right at sea level, on a day when there isn't a ripple on the sea,
and five miles away, at sea level, you won't see a sign of it! Fifteen
feet is the unit. Fifteen feet above sea level, you can see a light
fifteen feet above sea level, seven miles away."
"Then why not build lighthouses like the Eiffel Tower, a thousand feet
high!"
"Once in a while, Eric," his father said, rebukingly, "you talk
absolutely without thinking. Didn't I just show you that the rays of a
lantern had to be sent out in a single beam?"
"Yes, but what of that?"
"Can't you see that if your light is too high, the beam will have to
strike the water at such an angle that its horizontal effect would be
lost? That would mean that a ship could see the light seventy miles
away, and lose it at fifty or forty miles from the lighthouse. No, boy,
that wouldn't work. Tillamook Rock is quite high enough!"
"It does look high," agreed the boy, following his father's gaze to
where, over the port bow, rose the menacing and forbidding reef on which
the light stood.
"It's the meanest bit on the coast," said the inspector. "Wouldn't you
say the sea was fairly smooth?"
"Like a mill-pond," declared Eric. "Why?"
"That just shows you," said his father. "You'd have to nail the water
down to keep it from playing tricks around Tillamook. Look at it now!"
The lad's glance followed the pointing finger. There was hardly a ripple
on the sea, but a long slow lazy swell suggested a storm afar off.
Slight as the swell was, it struck Tillamook Rock with a vengeful
spirit. Long white claws of foam tore vainly at the grim reef's sides
and the roar of the surf filled the air.
"Mill-pond, eh?" said the inspector. "Well, I can see where I get good
and wet in that same mill-pond."
He slipped on a slicker and a sou'wester.
"You'd better dig up some oilskins, Eric," he said. "Any of the men will
let you have them."
The boy slipped off part of his clothes, standing up in undershirt and
trousers.
"I like it better this way," he said.
The old inspector looked at his son with approval and even admiration.
Considering his years, the lad was wonderfully well developed, largely
as a result of swimming, and his summer with the Volunteer Corps had
sunburned him as brown as a piece of weathered oak.
"I think I'd rather go in that kind of a costume myself," his father
said, with a chuckle, "but I'm afraid it would hardly do for my official
uniform on an inspection trip!"
As he spoke, the rattle of the boat-davits was heard.
"Come along then, lad," said the inspector. "Just a moment, though.
Don't get any fool idea about showing off with any kind of a swimming
performance. You just be good and thankful to be hauled up by a crane!"
The boy took another look at Tillamook Rock, frowning above the surf.
"I'm not hankering after a swim there," he said; "I don't claim to be
amphibious, exactly. As you say, it's calm enough on the open water, but
I don't think anything except a seal or a walrus or something of that
kind could land on that rock. Not for me, thank you. I'll take the
crane, and gladly."
The ropes rattled through the davit blocks, and, as the _Manzanita_
heeled over a little, the boat took water, the blocks were unhooked, her
bows given a sharp shove and she was off.
Down at water level, the slight swell seemed considerably larger.
Indeed, it actually was increasing. And, as they pulled in toward the
entrance of the reef, the boat met a rip in the current that seemed to
try to twist the oars from the hands of the boat-pullers. But
lighthouse-tender sailors are picked men, and though the little boat was
thrown about like a cork, she fairly clawed her way through the rip. As
they neared the entrance in the reef, the surf rushed between the
rocks, throwing up spume and spray as though a storm were raging. Eric
had to look back out to sea to convince himself that the ocean was still
as calm as it had seemed a moment or two before. In among the crags to
which the boat was driving, there was a turmoil of seething waters,
which came thundering in and which shrank away with a sucking sound, as
though disappointed of a long hoped-for vengeance.
"It's like a witches' pot!" shouted Eric to his father.
"This is about as calm as it ever gets," was the inspector's unmoved
reply. "You ought to see Tillamook when it's rough weather! I've seen it
with a real gale blowing, when it seemed impossible that the rock could
stand up five minutes against the terrific battering. Yet it just stands
there and defies the Pacific at its worst, as it has, I suppose, for a
hundred thousand years or more, and the light shines on serenely."
With consummate steering and a finer handling of the oars than Eric had
ever seen before--and he was something of an oarsman himself--the boat
from the lighthouse-tender neared the Rock. It was held immediately
under the crane and a rope was lowered with a loop on the end of it. The
inspector swung himself into this and went shooting up in the air, like
some oilskin-covered sea-gull. He took it as a matter of course, all a
part of the day's work, but, just the same, it gave Eric a queer
sensation. It was his turn next.
In a moment the loop was down again for him. The rest of the boat's crew
were busy getting ready the mail bag, the provisions and the other
supplies that they had brought with them, so the boy stepped
unhesitatingly into the loop.
Swish! He was on his upward flight almost before he knew it. The back
curl of a breaker, baffled in its attack on the rock, drenched him to
the skin. He laughed, for this was just what he had bargained for.
Beneath him, already but a small spot on the sea, was the boat 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.