Darry the Life Saver

Darry the Life Saver, by Frank V. Webster

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Title: Darry the Life Saver The Heroes of the Coast
Author: Frank V. Webster
Release Date: August 8, 2007 [EBook #22277]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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[Illustration: THEN A WOMAN WAS LOWERED BY MEANS OF THIS, AND SAFELY STOWED AWAY. Darry the Life Saver--Page 185]
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DARRY THE LIFE SAVER Or The Heroes of the Coast
By FRANK V. WEBSTER
Author of "Only a Farm Boy," "Bob the Castaway," "The Boys of Bellewood School," etc.
ILLUSTRATED
New York Cupples & Leon Company Publishers
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BOOKS FOR BOYS
By FRANK V. WEBSTER
12mo. Cloth. Illustrated. Price per volume, 40 cents, postpaid
ONLY A FARM BOY TOM, THE TELEPHONE BOY THE BOY FROM THE RANCH THE YOUNG TREASURE HUNTER BOB, THE CASTAWAY THE YOUNG FIREMEN OF LAKEVILLE THE NEWSBOY PARTNERS THE BOY PILOT OF THE LAKES TWO BOY GOLD MINERS JACK, THE RUNAWAY COMRADES OF THE SADDLE THE BOYS OF BELLWOOD SCHOOL THE HIGH SCHOOL RIVALS AIRSHIP ANDY BOB CHESTER'S GRIT BEN HARDY'S FLYING MACHINE DICK, THE BANK BOY DARRY, THE LIFE SAVER
Copyright, 1911, by CUPPLES & LEON COMPANY
DARRY, THE LIFE SAVER
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CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. The Hurricane 1 II. Saved by the Life Chain 10 III. Abner Peake's Offer 19 IV. The Cabin by the Sea 29 V. An Encounter on the Road 39 VI. Winning His Way 46 VII. The Midnight Alarm 55 VIII. Across the Bay 63 IX. The Signal Rocket 71 X. Jim the Bully 78 XI. A Glorious Prospect 86 XII. The Stolen Traps 94 XIII. Joe's Shotgun Secures a Supper 102 XIV. The Lonely Vigil of the Coast Patrol 110 XV. The Power of Music 117 XVI. Darry Meets with a Rebuff 124 XVII. Abner Tells a Little History 132 XVIII. The Imprisoned Launch 139 XIX. The Part of an Elder Brother 146 XX. Bad Luck and Good 154 XXI. Satisfying the Mortgage 162 XXII. Abner Hears the News 171 XXIII. Darry in the Lifeboat 179 XXIV. The Awakening 191 XXV. Conclusion 202
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DARRY, THE LIFE SAVER
CHAPTER I
THE HURRICANE
"Will we ever weather this terrible storm?"
It was a half-grown lad who flung this despairing question out; the wind carried the sound of his voice off over the billows; but there came no answer.
A brigantine, battered by the tropical hurricane sweeping up from the Caribbean Sea, was staggering along like a wounded beast. Her masts had long since gone by the board, and upon the stump of the mizzen-stick a bit of canvas like a goose-wing had been spread in the useless endeavor to maintain steerageway.
All around, the sea rose and fell in mountainous waves, on which the poor wreck tossed about, as helpless as a cork.
Though the lad, lashed to some of the rigging that still clung to the temporary jury mast, strained his eyes to the utmost, he could see nothing but the waste of waves, the uplifting tops of which curled over, and were snatched away in flying spud by the furious wind.
Darry was the cabin boy of the Falcon, having sailed with Captain Harley now for several years. The old navigator had run across him in a foreign port, and under most peculiar conditions.
Hearing a boyish voice that somehow struck his fancy, raised in angry protest, followed by the crack of a whip, and much loud laughing, the skipper of the brigantine had pushed into a caf�� in Naples.
Here he discovered a small, but sturdy lad, who had apparently been playing a violin for coppers, refusing to dance for a big brute of a sailor, an Italian, who had seized upon his beloved instrument.
When the boy had made an effort to recover the violin the bully deliberately smashed it on the back of a chair.
Then, laughing at the poor little chap's expressions of grief as he gathered up the pieces tenderly in his arms, the brutal sailor had seized upon a carter's whip, and cracking it loudly, declared that he would lay it over the boy's shoulders unless he mounted a table and danced to his whistling.
It was then that the big mariner strode in and stood between the lad and his cowardly persecutors.
When good-hearted Captain Harley heard the boy's pitiful story, and that he was a waif, having been abandoned some years before by an old man with whom he seemed to have been traveling, he offered to befriend him, and give him a chance to see something of the world as cabin boy on the good