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Updated: June 8, 2025
Captain Holt had selected his crew picked surfmen, every one of them and the chief of the bureau had endorsed the list without comment or inquiry.
New houses were built or the old ones repaired and enlarged; competent men were appointed as keepers, and strict orders given as to the selection of experienced and skillful surfmen as crews; the houses were thoroughly furnished with every appliance requisite in time of disaster, for which the keeper is held responsible. The average distance between the stations is three miles.
For a time nothing happened, the slender rope reached out into the boiling waves, but no answering tugs conveyed messages to the waiting surfmen from the wrecked seamen. At length the line began to slip through the fingers of the keeper who held it and moved seaward, so those on shore knew that the rope had been found and its use understood.
This, as the afternoon advanced, had become so thick that the captain had ordered out the patrols, and Archie and Green were already tramping the beach Green to the inlet and Archie to meet the surfmen of the station below.
They made the end of the strong line fast to the mast well above the reach of the hungry seas, and the surfmen secured their end to the deeply buried sand-anchor, an inverted V-shaped crotch placed under the rope holding it above the water on the shore end.
The night wore away while all the adventures were being told, and the gray dawn saw the last of the rescued passengers finding their friends and relatives in the crowd, while the surfmen gathered up their paraphernalia and piled it into the beach wagon. The wind was abating its force and a weary-eyed procession was setting out in the direction of St. Pierre.
Tod's words were addressed to the perspective of the beach and to the way the haze blurred the horizon; surfmen rarely see anything else when walking on the beach, whether on or off duty. "You know everybody 'round here, don't you?" remarked the Swede in a casual tone. The same quick, inquiring glance shot out of the man's eyes. "Yes, guess so," answered Tod with another kick.
Then both trudged off in opposite directions. With pea-coats buttoned tightly and sou'westers tied down securely, the surfmen fought the gale on their watch-tour of duty.
"One of the crew with a broken arm; another knocked out complete with that crack on the head," sputtered Cap'n Jim Trainor. "Two of my very best men. Come on, boys! Who'll take their places?" Lawford was already putting on the belt he had unbuckled from about one of the injured surfmen. The Taffy King, seeing what his son was about, shouted: "Ford! Ford! Don't dare do that! I forbid you!"
At night, too, with the radiance of the moon making a pathway of silver across the gentle swell of the sleepy surf, he would doubtless wonder at their continued idle life as he watched the two surfmen separate and begin their walk up and down the beach radiant in the moonlight.
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