and I should like to see it again, especially when I can do a little
missionary work on the side," he laughed cheerily.

And so it had happened that while Dan and Freddy were hauling in their
lines and delivering breakfasts along the shore, one of the trig motors
from the Boat Club was bearing a tall, broad-shouldered passenger, bronzed
by sun and storm, to the Life-Saving Station, whose long, low buildings
stood on a desolate spit of sand that jutted out into the sea beyond
Shelter Cove. It was Uncle Sam's farthest outpost. The Stars and Stripes
floating from its flagstaff told of his watchful care of this perilous
stretch of shore that his sturdy sons paced by day and night, alert to any
cry for help, any sign of danger.

Father Tom, whose own life work lay in some such lines, met the
Life-Savers with a warm, cordial sympathy that made his visit a most
pleasant one. He was ready to listen as well as talk. But Blake and Ford,
whom he had come especially to see, were on duty up the shore, and would
not be back for more than two hours.

"I'll wait for them," said Father Tom, who never let a wandering sheep,
that hook or crook could hold, escape his shepherd's care; and he settled
down for a longer chat of his own wild and woolly West, which his hearers
watching with trained eyes the black line in the horizon, were too polite
in their own simple way to interrupt. Their guest was in the midst of a
description of the Mohave Desert, where he had nearly left his bones to
bleach two years ago, when his boatman came hurriedly up with a request of
speedy shelter for his little craft.

"There's a storm coming up I daren't face, sir," he said. "We can't make
Killykinick until it blows over. You'll have to stay another hour or two
here."

"All right, if our good friends will keep us," was the cheery response.
"We are not travelling on schedule time."

And then Father Tom looked on with keen interest as the sturdy life-savers
made ready for the swift-coming tempest that was very soon upon them,
bringing Blake and Ford back, breathless and drenched, to report their
observations along the beach,--that there was nothing in sight: everything
had scudded to shelter. So all gathered in the lookout, whose heavy leaded
glass, set in a stone frame, defied the fury of the elements. And, thus
sheltered, the group in Uncle Sam's outpost watched the sweep of the
storm.

"It's a ripper!" said Blake, translating the more professional opinio