"In less 'n an hour after we got 'em ash.o.r.e the tug capsized 'n' went to pieces. The old schooner stood it out better, but she was pretty much a wreck, too, when the weather cleared. We'd our work to do, 'n' we done it. Jest the same, I've allers had a feelin' as if there was as much to be said for the fishermen, 'n' the train-hands, 'n' the cap'n o' the tug, 'n' all the rest that j'ined in.

"It's the biggest rescue on the lakes, but there's nothin' more wonderful in it to me than the way it shows how everybody gets in 'n'

gives a hand when help is needed. Don't ye ever forget, in times o'

need, that ye've only got ter call, 'n' some one's goin' to hear. An'

ye're like enough ter need help in the life-savin' business. I ain't saying as storms is as bad now as they was, but there's enough of 'em still ter keep any crew right on the jump."

"I'll remember, Mr. Icchia," the boy replied, "and I'll be mighty proud if I can ever do half as well. I'm proud enough, now, just to be given the chance."

The old man knocked the ashes from his pipe on his h.o.r.n.y and weather-beaten hand and answered,

"As long as there's life-savin' to be done, there's goin' ter be life-savers to do it. I don' hold with none o' this nonsense ye hear sometimes about the world gittin' worse. If ever I did get that idee, I'd only have to go 'n' look at a surf-boat, 'n' I'd know different.

It's a good world, boy, 'n' the goodness don't lay in tryin' to be a hero, but jest in plain bein' a man."

[Ill.u.s.tration: GOLD LIFE-SAVING MEDAL.

Given only in recognition of heroism wherein loss of life was risked by the rescuer.

Courtesy of U.S. Coast Guard.]

CHAPTER V

SAVED BY THE BREECHES-BUOY

The last words of the old keeper, "Goodness don't lay in tryin' to be a hero, but jest in plain bein' a man," rang through Eric's mind, many and many a day after, when, on his own Coast Guard station, he had to face some difficulty. His post chanced to be in a somewhat sheltered spot, and thus gave him an opportunity to become a good oarsman. His work with the volunteer corps had made him a first-cla.s.s swimmer and a fair boatman. The government service, however, he found to be a very different matter. There, efficiency had to be carried to the highest degree.

He s.n.a.t.c.hed every opportunity, too, to get ahead with his studies, and luck came his way in a most unexpected shape. It happened that quite near the Coast Guard station was the hut of a queer old hermit sort of fellow, called "Dan." He had been a life-saver many years before, but in a daring rescue had injured his back, and could never enter a boat again. In those days there were no pensions, so for forty years and more he had made a living by inventing riddles and puzzles, tricks of various kinds, and clever Christmas toys. His especial hobby was mathematical puzzles. He used to drop into the station quite frequently, for he was very popular with the men.

"Dan," said Eric to him one day, "I don't see how you can be so interested in that stuff. It's the bane of my life. I'm nailing as hard as I can to try and get in shape for a Coast Guard exam., and I simply can't get hold of the mathematics end of it."

"Why for not?"

"Don't know enough, I guess," the boy answered. "I'm right up on everything but mathematics, but that gets me every time. I know there's some sense in it, but I can't see it. Everything else I've got to study I can find some interest in, but mathematics is as dull as ditch-water.

How you can find any fun in it, I can't see!"

This was like telling a painter that color had no emotion, or a scientist that science had no reasonableness. The old puzzle-maker gasped.

"No fun!" he exclaimed. "It is the mos' fun in the world. I show you!"

Pulling from his pocket a pencil and an old envelope he drew a baseball diamond, and marked the positions of the players. Eric's interest arose at once, for he was a keen baseball fan. As the sketch grew the old man talked, describing a queer entanglement of play.

"Now!" said the old man, "what shall he do?"

The boy, judging from his knowledge of the game, made a suggestion, which the other negatived. As soon as the boy made a guess, the other showed him to be wrong. Eric, really interested in the baseball problem, cudgelled his brains, but could find no way out.

"I show you!" the old man repeated.

Using a very simple rule of algebra, which the boy knew quite well, but giving an application he never would have thought of, Dan brought the solution in a second. Hardly believing that mere mathematics could be of any service in a baseball game, Eric tested the result. It was exactly as the old man had said.

"Gee," he said, "that's great!"

The puzzle-maker smiled, and showed him how ma.s.s-play in football was a matter of science, not strength, and how lacrosse was a question of trajectory.

"Not only in games," he said. "'Rithmetic, geometry--in everything. You know Muldoon."

"Sure I know Muldoon," the boy said.

"Have you seen him shoot?"

"With the Lyle gun, you mean? Isn't he a dandy at it?"

"That is what I would say," the old man continued. "How does he fire him?"

"Why, he just fires it! No," he corrected himself, "he doesn't either. I see what you're driving at. That's right, I did see him doing some figuring the other day."

"I teach Muldoon," said the old man. "I show him how to tell how much wind, how to tell how far away a ship, how to tell when a line is heavy or light. He figure everything, then fire. Bang! And the line to bring the drowning men home falls right over the ship. It is?"

"It is, all right," the boy agreed. "Muldoon gets there every time. I always thought he just aimed the gun, sort of naturally."

"It is all mathematics," said the old man. "You have guns in the Coast Guard?"

"Rapid-fire six-pounders," the boy answered. "At least I know that's what the _Itasca's_ got. She's the practice-ship at New London, you know."

"Do you have to learn gunnery?"

"Rather," said the lad. "Every breed of gunnery that there is. You know a Coast Guard cutter becomes a part of the navy in time of war, so an officer has got to know just as much about big guns as an officer in the navy. He might have to take his rank on a big battleship if the United States was at war. You bet I'll have to learn gunnery. That ought to be heaps of fun."

"But gunnery is ballistics," the old man said. "And ballistics is trigonometry. Big gun is fired by figuring, not by looking."

"I'm only afraid," the lad replied, "that I'll never have a chance at the big gun. Everywhere I go, it's nothing but figuring. And I simply can't get figures into my head."

"You really want to learn?"

"You bet I do," said Eric. "I'm working like a tinker at the stuff every chance I get, but I don't seem to get the hang of it somehow."

"If you come to me, I teach you."

"Teach me all I want to know?" said the boy in amazement.

The old man shook his head.

"Teach you to want to know all you have to know. Teach you to like figures."

Eric looked at him a minute.