The Bottineau courant. (Bottineau, Bottineau County, N.D.) 1895-1929, 1913-04-11
OUR LIFE SAVERS.
Humble Heroes Who Do Brave
Work Along Our Coat.
DARING DEEDS IN THE SURF.

Battle with the Giant combsrs and
10y ssas When Storm Wrecked
Vessel Offers the Fearless Guards .
Chance 60 Rescue . Human Deina.
Through a bleak February night q
storm was raging up the Atlantic sea-
board. All along the coast the life
guards were out. punching into the
gale, p~atrolling the beaches. alert for
signs Of disaster. Just before mid
night one Of them east Of Bellport sta
ton. on Long Island. saw a schooner
foundering In the gray spindrift off,
shore. 1t was the Benjamin Cromwell,
and as the alarm swept down the
beach the crews Of three stations hur-
ried to the scene. Their work vas to
take seven men from the rigging Of
the wrecked vessel.
All efforts through the night and the
forenoon following failed. The wind
was too high. Then at noon the
s~chooner's masts. except the foremost,
on which all Of the crew save one had
taken refuge, crashed overheard. This
man went down in a welter of wreck
age, and to those on shore 1t seemed
as II he must surely be battered to
death. but as the breakers raced in
they saw him clinging to a plank that
had been swept away with him.
A furious surf was running. and tim
Der with which the Cromwell had been
laden was pitched up on the beach.
To add to the danger thick ice cakes,
heaved by the breakers, lifted their
jagged ends high In the air and crashed
down. splintering one upon the other,
and always the awful drive Of snow
and sleet. ripping the %onrushing waves
into tatters Of foam and spindrtft.
Surely no man could live in that
Instinctively the life savers moved
nearer the edge Of the surf and peered
ahead for some sign Of life. The beach
was fringed with skim ice. sharp and
pointed. that cut through rubber boots
and clothing as II through parchment
Helpless to aid the man whom they
knew must be plunging somewhere out
in that angry water, they huddled to-
gether az men will when a nfeless
body is about to be cast up before
them. They heard ice and wreckage
grind harshly: scattered debris washed
up to their feet Brave men all. yet
they saw nothing to do. They knew
not to what lengths the ocean would go
before giving up its victim.
At this juncture a figure sprang from
among them and. wrapping a line about
his waist. ran to the edge Of the surf.
he was Frank Rayner Of the Blue
| Point station, and he was about to
| commit what the other surfmen in
| stinctively told themselves was suicide.
The service demands courage. not fool
hardness. For q moment Keeper
| Rorke hesitated, undecided whether to
order Rayner back to the beach or not,
but he couldn't find it in his heart to
do it. 1t was q venture too heroic, too
splendid.
They watched Rayner as he stood
In the whirl of icy spray awaiting his
chance. He was half naked. His
clothes he had thrown OF as he ran.
The cold, biting into his flesh, tortured
him. Still the chance held of. Then
It came-the bit Of wreckage, the cling.
ing sailor, crashing into the boiling
breakers, and Rayner dashed forward.
Foot by foot through that roaring tn.
multi Of water. of plunging beams and
timber, lodging the splintered spars
that, leaping from giant combers, made
a. If to pin him, Rayner worked to.
ward his man. To those on shore be
was hidden the greater part Of the
time. Finally they saw his head bot
above a big billow. Near him noated
the wreckage bearing it's stn. motion
less burden. The next instant Raynel
vanished. swept under by q tremes
dous wave.
From the huddled group on shors
men started forward, but Albert -
than, also Of the Blue Point station
was first to plunge into the tumblinl
soas. Tearing throaghu them, b
reached .Rayner. who, Just crestng ,
breaker, snatched at the sailor. nov
unconscious. And together these be
roes Of the coast. hauled. their mai
through the rearing dmbers and Ice q
tho beach and to safety.
Not ten minutes later the Cromwell
broke, in pieces. From shore the w
savers saw men fall from the rigging
I'VE Of them, who fell, one by one, NIX
black plummets into the sea. One n
manned aboard. Then he 1ent. too
Z dark form clinging to the wrecke'
mart. now adrift. And again Rayne
and Latham plunged into the surf.
Now, weakened by their efforts an
the cold, they faced an even harde
task. The man torn from the mai
nearly drowned them with bis frer
xaed struggling. For twenty minute
the uneven fight between the sailo
and the surf on one side and the tw
------A AA~ ~>-A-~ Na thu AthA