handling of the oar, slowly turned the pages of the Code Book, followed down a column with a thick finger, and announced: "D Y E. All well."

A subdued shuffling of feet as each man shifted his position a little, and a hoarse clearing of the throat by one or two, were the only signs of the relief the message had brought to us all.

"Hoist the pennant, Ed," directed the Captain, and in a moment our code flag was flying clear up, telling the steamer's people that their signal was understood.

Captain Parker took up his glass again, and with much less delay this time was able to announce the next signal, "Code flag under U K," which Jim interpreted as Ten." "Ten what?" asked one of the landlubbers, innocently, to be met with the brief reply, "Don't know. That's coming."

Again our pennant was hoisted clear up and dropped to the dip, and quickly a third string of flags completed the message-"feet of water in the hold."

"Ten feet of water in her hold! That's bad!"

"She must have opened up after that pounding she got last night. She'll

never get off now. No use trying to pump her out with the hole she must have in her."

"Don't believe it. She took it in through her hatchings. The seas were breaking right over her all night."

Why, man, they wouldn't dare to stir her hatches yet. I'll bet her engines are right through her."

The discussion grew heated and, complicated, with frequent references to wrecks of bygone years and strenuous citations of the long and varied experience of the debater in all matters connected with the sea.

But we were more interested in the practical side of the wreck than in anybody's theories about it. We wanted to get on board the Cherokee, and we turned from the discussion to ask the Captain how it could be done.

"Want somebody to take you out to the steamer? Well, you might get some of those fishermen up at the Inlet. Say, Cap," he continued, turning to address an old man in a pilot jacket who was quietly smoking in a corner, "do you know of any boat that might take these boys. out to the Cherokee to-day?

us

Cap" rose

stiffly from his chair, gazed for at

moment out over the waters, his eyes shaded by his hand, and replied, "Waal, I guess none of those fellers

would want to go

out there to-day 'thout they had some almighty good reason for

it. There's the Al

berta, now. She might do it if you paid enough for it. She's the best boat sailin' out of the Inlet."

"I heard this morning," broke in the young lifesaver called Ed, "that Casto refused an offer of

a hundred dollars

to go out to the ship yesterday."

'Waal, he might go to-day, if ye paid him right. But if Mark Casto won't go, nobody else would dare to."

Discouraged by this statement of the case, we determined to go over to the South Brigantine Life-Saving Station, the nearest station to the shoals where the steamer lay. A few hours later we embarked at the Inlet in a Bank skiff fitted with a gasoline engine, navigated by a genial fisherman of uncertain age, with spectacles resting far down on his nose, and a spark of dry humor in his eye. We had just learned that Mark Casto and the Alberta had gone out to the Cherokee at eleven o'clock. But it was no promise of pay that had made

him drive his little schooner through those foaming breakers to the side of the stranded vessel. It was the message we had seen signaled in the morning, "Ten feet of water in the hold," that had made him resolve

com

to help that stranded pany if he could. As we circled round the serpentine curves of the channel that leads through salt meadows to Brigantine's back door we could see,

now dead ahead,

now abeam, now astern, as the vagaries of the channel whirled us about, the Alberta lying to not far from the Cherokee. Her mainsail, sheeted in, was shaking in the wind, and her mastheads performed a gro

tesque dance as she rolled and pitched with the waves. What they were doing out there we didn't know; but soon her foresail was hoisted, then her jib, and she filled away toward Atlantic City.

The South Brigantine Life-Saving Station is an old and incommodious building, hardly a credit to our Government's sense of generosity in providing for its faithful servants. But you can get as warm a welcome there as in the finest station in the service, and the appearance of the building is no criterion of the spirit which it houses. Captain Smith and most of his crew were still on the Cherokee, but two surfmen had come off with the crew of the Brigantine station, their neighbors to the north. After

He hugged himself a little tighter as he recalled his icy bath, and then continued, "But we got every one of those passengers and the crew aboard the Alberta without hurting anybody, and that was pretty good luck with that sea running. Mine was the only accident there was, and I guess it didn't hurt me any. I've been twenty years in the service, and if I was to stay twenty years more I wouldn't expect to do a harder day's work than we did out there to-day." In response to a little urging, he told us, simply and quietly, the story of the past two days. The crew of this station had gone out to the steamer soon after she struck, and not many hours later the North America, the wrecking company's big seagoing tug, appeared and sent a big hawser aboard the stranded ship and set herself doggedly to the task of pulling her off. The sea was quiet, and the captain of the Cherokee expected that at any moment she would be freed from the sands. So the life-savers' offer to land the passengers in their surf-boats was courteously declined. The North America kept at her work all day Saturday, but the steamer had run far on the shoals, and the Brigantine quicksands have a tenacious grip. Saturday evening it began to blow hard from the northeast, and the tug had to slip her hawser and run to sea for safety. All that night the wind blew merrily and the seas broke spitefully over the deck of the captive vessel, throwing the spray almost to her mastheads. It was an anxious night for all on board, and crew and passengers were glad of the presence of the life-savers with their stanch surfboats. Sunday morning found the steamer a mile nearer the shore and set

tled more securely in the sands, the "ten feet of water in the hold" forcing her gradually deeper and deeper. It was useless to think of taking the people from the ship in the surf-boats with so heavy a sea running, except as a desperate last resort. The time hadn't yet come for that, and there was nothing to do but to wait.

It was about noon that the Alberta came out, driving straight across the bar, where a record high tide gave her all the water she needed. Working the schooner round to windward, Captain

Casto dropped a

chor three hundred and fifty fathons away, and paid his cable slowly til the Alberta within a hund fathoms of steamer. With of his crew launched a don and boarded the Cherokee with th

dry query, "Any body want to ashore ?" Th were plenty did, and, the saving crews, ai by Casto and men and by wreckers, un took the work transferring sengers and cr One of the ste er's lifeboats, with lines from her bow each of the two vessels, was ferried b and forth till all the ship's company ex the captain, the first officer, and the penter were crowded in the Albert tiny cabin and on her deck. The wave rolled level with the steamer's deck, an at times the watchers could hardly se the Alberta as a sea broke over he smothering her with the spray. boats were lost before the rescue wa complete. One of the Alberta's dorie was stove in as she crossed the bar the other was swept away by a sea which snapped the line by which it was being slacked away from the steamer's side a

Fou