Montpelier examiner. [volume] (Montpelier, Idaho) 1895-1937, 1912-08-09

grasp on the gunwale several times. disappeared
in the maelstrom of water. That left Ellis anu
Rogers, q big and very strong man.
In this desperate moment Rogers threw MS
arms around the other surfmans neck in a death
grip. For moments, while the sea battered and
the foam stranged them. they fought the last
grim fight for life, Ellis to break the grip of his
frenzted comrade Rogers to retain it. Suddenly.
when 1t seemed that both must drown, Rogers
strength left him. His arms relaxed; his eyes
glazed. I'm going!" he gasped and sank
moment later the boat drifted inshore OF the
outer breakers and for a brief space was In
smoother water. Ellis once more crawled out on
the bottom and succeeded in pulling the center
board out SO that he could hold on to 1t and bet
ter maintain his position.
Now, you will remember that at the time OF
the stranding of the Wadena the John G. Fitz-
patrick. her sister barge had also gone aground.
She had gone over the outer bar and was lying
between 1t and the inner breakers On board her
was Capt. Elmer F. Mayo, of Chatham who was
In charge of tightening her. The Fitzpatrick was
so far away from the Wadena that Captain Mayo
and two other men who were with him. did not
see the life-saving boat go out nor did they have
any knowledge of the grim tragedy that was being
enacted. until. glancing over the rail, Captain
Mayo overturned life-boat with single
man cinging to it.
The capszed boat some distance from the
barge, but Mayo did not hesitate. "Ill get that
fellow" he announced cooy.
On the deck of the Fitzpatrick lay a small
twelyefoot dory. the only boat aboard. totally
unfit craft for the furious that was laundering
across the shoals. Kicking on his boots, Mayo
and the other men. who begged him not to go
it would be certain death. ran the dory oversize.
How the captain of the wrecking crew kept his
fragile craft afoat. those who watched him from
the Fitzpatrick could mover understand. But he
did keep her afoat, and the set of the tide and
the gale carried him down toward the capsized
Ke-boat to which Ellis chung with the last
of his ebbing strength.
The lifesaver said afterward that he a
dory thrown over the side of the Fitzpatrick
he drifted near her. but that moment later the
scud and the spindrift were driven thick and
ceaselessly before his eyes that he nothing.
until suddenly out of the mist tiny bobbing
boat doomed dozen feet away Then the occu-
pant of this boat shot her skilfully alongside the
swamped nfe-boat and the exhausted surfman top
pied into her.
Mayo, with the half-conscious lifesaver lying
limp in the bottom of the dory, had kept his word
to his mates the Fitzpatrick.
Necessarily. the most thrilling stories OF the
coast-watchers are those in which loss of life is
entailed and therefore. in measure. they
accounts of the failures OF the men of the serv
ice But they stories of noble failures and
behind some of them lie tragedies other than
those of death.
Perhaps one of the greatest of these is woven
about the career of Captain David H. Atkins
til November go 1880. keeper of the Peaked Hill
Bar station. Cape Cod.
This man had followed the from boy hood,
whaling fishing and coasting In 1872 he became
keeper of the Peaked Hill Bar station.
Then came a wild day in april. 1879. and. as
1t appears in the chronicles of the department
at Washington. "a blot fell the record of
Keeper Atkins"
On this April day the Schooner Sarah j. Fort
stranded near Peaked Hill Bar A terrific sea
ture very low for the time of the year. faced At
kns and his crew as they discovered the schooner
and took their apparatus to the beach
Without hesitation the keeper ordered the surf
boat launched. but the heavy that 1t
was thrown back on the beach, Time and again
n the twenty hours OF watching and battling with
he storm that followed the keeper led his men
INTO the breakers with the boat but each time
hey we're beaten back. drenched with the winter