The Green Forest tribune., 1912-05-10

than there were only four men left in the rigging. Two of the six last seen had gone to join those who had pershed before them.
 Hope of rescue before morning was gone The lives of the four who still remained were in the hands of God. Could they live throughout the frightful night? None might say The watchers on shore at intervals burned signal lights to let the miserable wretches on the Place know they had not been abandoned.
 At last day came. Twentyfour hours had elapsed since the schooner stranded and those on shore strained their eyes in the ragged light to learn the toll the night had taken
 It apparent. But two men remained alive. Two others had been claimed by the storm
 The life-savers were themselves in a sad plight. For than thirty hours they had been on the beach in clothes that were little more than masses of ice without food pails of coffee that occasionally hurried from the station. Often they tottered unsteadily in their frozen oil skins as they went about their duties. But reel ing staggering they placed the surf gun and fired a shot which fell within few feet of the two poor fellows in the rigging of the schooner. But the made effort to get the line
 Still hopeful, another shot fired, laying it's line across the hull of the ship And then the men in the rigging appeared to give heed for the first time to the efforts that were being made to them Very feebly and slowly one man de- scended the shrouds. The tide had fallen off, and the section of the ship where the line lay above water. Working his way to the line, the man pulled on it weakly, but his efforts were fu- tile. In few moments he crawled back to the shrouds
 The breeches-buoy was then abandoned The short daylight died Night came again and the gale abated slightly. There nothing left but the surf boat. The feat at least possible now, for the was lower
 It was a splendid battle and fearful one But grim nerve triumphed. Half swamped, the surf boat lay alongside the shattered schooner the two men in the rigging reled to the rail of the stranded vesesl and toppled ifeessly into it. The curtain fell on one of the grmmest tragedies of the service.
 The rescued men were William Stevens and Soren Nelson. They were nearly dead. Nelsons feet were frozen solid in his boots During the forty-eght hours they clung to the rigging of the ill-fated craft while the life-savers battled to save them they had fought death by beating each others faces with their fists to shake off the lethargy of the cold. Stevens recovered, but poor Nelson died after having his legs amputated and lingering mserably for six months.
 The wreck of the schooner Place is a typical example of what the in the United States life-saving service are called upon to face.
 The night of February 21, 1904 was memorable because of it's extreme cold and wildpess. Dur ing the height of the storm, shortly before mid night the schooner Benjamin c. Cromwell of Port land, Maine, stranded just east of the Belport life-saving station. Great South Beach. Three crews of lfe-saving stations hurried to the scene to take seven men from the rigging of the wreck ed vessel All efforts to accomplish this, how ever failed, and at noon of the day following the night of strandng, the vessels masts went by the board with the exception of the foremast in which all the crew one had taken refuge.
 This single man who had not followed the ex- ample of his comrades was washed overheard