The Boy With the U. S. Life-Savers Part 4

Willett!"

"Well?" said the rescued man, waking out of a remorse-haunted dream.

"Jake has been saved. He's all right."

In spite of his exhaustion and his sudden awakening from sleep, the first man who had been rescued sat up on the stretcher and craned his head forward to see his friend. In spite of the sufferer's bruised and swollen appearance, it was evident to the most inexperienced eye that life was not extinct. The convalescent looked at the doctor and tried to find words, but something in his throat choked him.

He reached out and grasped the boy's hand, holding it tightly. Then, looking around the station, he said softly,

"A man's world is a good world to live in!"

CHAPTER II

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 ash.o.r.e 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 sh.o.r.e 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: BREAKING A DEATH-CLUTCH FROM BEHIND.

Courtesy of U.S. Volunteer Life-Saving Corps.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: 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.