Page:The Wireless Operator with the U.S. Coast Guard.djvu/88

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82
The Wireless Operator

At noon the next day the Iroquois had reached the point marked B on the diagram. Here the lookouts discovered three pine boards. ‘They were floating almost exactly in the line the captain had drawn as the probable course of the derelict. Instead of standing on this leg of his grid as usual, the captain ran on for only three or four miles further, and then came about to starboard. This tack brought him once more across the supposed line of the derelict’s path. Here some bits of wreckage were seen. It now seemed certain that the wreck had come along the line indicated in the captain’s diagram, and must, therefore, be straight to leeward. A few moments later the matter was definitely settled, when one of the lookouts spied a floating hulk exactly in the direction indicated. The cutter was brought about and headed straight for the derelict. In less than half an hour the Iroquois was rolling upon the waves, only a few hundred yards from the derelict.

But how different this was in appearance from the craft Henry had been expecting to see. He had looked for a boat with its masts snapped off, riding low in the water, with the waves washing over its deck. Instead of that there lay before them about half of the hulk of a boat, bottom up. Evidently the craft had been broken in half by the storm. The after part had no doubt sunk, but