Page:The Wireless Operator with the U.S. Coast Guard.djvu/255

 fiddle-string. Then slowly the giant tanker, pressed by the wind, began to turn. The hawser, led through her forward chock, held her bow fast. The wind drove her stern round until she was head to the Iroquois. In another moment the Iroquois herself began to swing. With a startling snap one of the slender stops that held the hawser to the rail parted. Another broke under the strain. The cutter swung further around. One stop after another parted. Finally the Iroquois lay stern to her tow, the hawser taut between them, with no danger of its fouling the propeller.

In turning, the little cutter lay for a moment in the trough of the sea. She rolled alarmingly. At her first pitch Henry’s chair went sliding across the floor, and pads and pencils flew from the desk. At the same instant a message from the Rayolite began to sound in the lad’s ear. He could not reach his fallen pencils. Instinctively he reached in the pocket of the jacket he was wearing. He found a mass of trash and drew it forth, hoping to find a pencil. There were strings, matches, cigarette papers, bits of chalk, and other articles. Among the mass shone two slender little cylinders of metal that made Henry’s heart fairly stop beating. They were two slender finishing nails.