The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1912-08-02

grasp on the gunwale severed times, disappeared
in the maelstrom of water. That left Ellis ana
Rogers, big and very strong man.
= In this desperate moment Rogers threw nis
arms around the other surfman's neck in DEATH
grip For moments. while the sea battered and
the foam strangled them, they fought the last
grim fight for life Ellis to break the grip OF ms
frenzied comrade, Rogers to retain it. Suddenly.
when it seemed that both must drown Rogers
strength left him. His arms relaxed; his eyes
glazed s'Tm going!" he gasped and sank
moment later the boat drifted inshore Of the
outer breakers and for 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 It and pet
ter maintain his position,
Now, you will remember that at the time OF
the stranding Of the Wadena the John =. F1tz-
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 ner
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 nave
any knowledge OF the grim tragedy that was neing
enacted until, glanoing over the rail- Captain
Mayo saw an overturned Mfeboat with single
man clnging to it.
y The capsized boat was some distance from the
barge, but Mayo did not hesitate TN get that
fellow & he announced cooly.
twelye-foot dory, the only boat aboard, totally
UNIT craft for the furious that was laundering
across the shoals Kicking of his boots, Mayo
and the other men, who begged him not to go as
1t would be certain death, ran the dory oversize.
How the captain of the wrecking crew kept his
fragile craft afioat, those who watched him from
the Fitzpatrick could mover understand. But he
did keep her afioat and the set of the tide and
the gale carried him down toward the capsized
life-boat to which Ellis chung now with the last
Of his ebbing strength.
The lifesaver said afterward that he saw a
dory thrown over the side of the Fitzpatrick as
he drifted near her, but that moment later the
scud and the spindrift were driven 80 thick and
ceaselessly before his eyes that he saw nothing.
until suddenly out of the mist a tiny, bobbing
boat doomed a dozen feet away. Then the occu-
pant of this boat shot her skilfully alongside the
swamped life-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 on the Fitzpatrick.
Necessarily the most thrilling stories OF the
coast-watchers are those In which loss of life Is
entailed and therefore. in a measure, they are
accounts OF the failures of the men Of the serv-
ice. But they are 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 un-
til November 80. $780, keeper of the Psaked Hill
Bar station. Cape Cod.
This man had followed the sea from boy-hood
whaling fishing and coasting In 1872 he became
keeper Of the Peaked Hill Bar station
Then came wild day In April 1872 and. as
1t appears in the chronicles OF the department
at Washington. SO blot fell across the record Of
Keeper Atkins"
On this April day the Schooner Sarah j. Fort
stranded near Peaked Hill Bar. A terrific sea.
coupled with an onshore hurricane and tempera-
ture very low for the time Of the year, faced At
kins 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 sea was so heavy that it
was thrown back on the beach, Time and again
in the twenty hours of watching and battling with
the storm that followed the keeper led his men
into the breakers with the boat but each time
they were beaten back. drenched with the winter