Page:The Wireless Operator with the U.S. Coast Guard.djvu/254

 moment the shot was fired, the slender shot-line went hurtling squarely over the centre of the huge tanker, and the men on her seized it and began to draw it home. A heavier line was bent to it, and soon the end of this had been pulled aboard the Rayolite. Meantime a heavy towing hawser had been passed out through a stern chock of the Iroquois, and the bight of it brought forward, outside of the rail, where it was stopped up or tied with little stops or small ropes. This was to keep the hawser from fouling the propeller, when the cutter should swing around, stern to her tow. Then the hawser was rove round the cutter’s forward bitts. Through Henry the commander now sent a message to the Rayolite.

“Take hawser in through your forward chock and make it fast around your foremast,” telegraphed Henry.

The men on the Rayolite bent to their task and soon pulled the great hawser aboard. They made it fast to the mast.

“Everything ready,” came the message to Henry from the Rayolite.

The captain signaled for more speed. The Iroquois was pushed ahead to get slack. Then the bight of the hawser was cast off the bitts, and the speed of the cutter lessened. Gradually the hawser grew taut. It stretched as tight as a