Page:The Wireless Operator with the U.S. Coast Guard.djvu/187

 “Fire,” he called.

There was a loud explosion, the night was stabbed with a sheet of flame, and the projectile went hurtling out and up, tearing its way across the hundreds of yards of raging sea that still separated the two ships. For an instant those on board the Iroquois were blinded by the flash of their gun. Then they tried to trace, in the glare of the searchlight, the flight of the shot-line. Straight and true it winged its way toward the stranded ship. Then a rush of scurrying forms on the Capitol City told the watchers on the Iroquois that the shot had carried true. In a moment more the crew of the Capitol City were hauling in the little shot-line.

Already a heavier line had been bent to the end of the light shot-line, but first it had been passed out through one of the quarter chocks. Steadily the crew of the Capitol City drew this heavier line aboard their craft. This in turn was followed by a heavy hawser. But Captain Hardwick had no intention of risking defeat through the use of so uncertain a towing line as a manila hawser. He meant to make fast to the Capitol City with a wire cable. To that end young Belford had been busy with the blinkers, and the flashing lights of the Capitol City’s yardarm had answered back. Captain Hardwick had apprised his fellow-commander of his