All his life a fisherman except the
five years he spent in the Arctic and the year he
served at Squan; later he had helped in the volunteer
crew alongshore. Loving the service, he had sent
word over to Captain Holt that he'd like "to be put
on," to which the captain had sent back word by the
same messenger "Tell him he IS put on." And he
WAS, as soon as the papers were returned from Washington.
Captain Nat had no record to look up or inquiries
to make as to the character or fitness of Sam
Green. He was the man who the winter before had
slipped a rope about his body, plunged into the surf
and swam out to the brig Gorgus and brought back
three out of the five men lashed to the rigging, all too
benumbed to make fast the shot-line fired across her
deck.
Charles Morgan's name followed in regular order,
and then Parks--men who had sailed with Captain
Holt, and whose word and pluck he could depend
upon; and Mulligan from Barnegat, who could pull
a boat with the best of them; and last, and least in
years, those two slim, tightly knit, lithe young tiger-
cats, Tod and Archie.
Captain Nat had overhauled each man and had
inspected him as closely as he would have done the
timber for a new mast or the manila to make its
rigging.
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