Transcriber’s Note This book has no Table of Contents, no List of Illustrations, and no Index. [Illustration: (cover)] [Illustration: GOING OFF TO A WRECK.] THE LIFE SAVERS OF CAPE COD [Illustration] BY J. W. DALTON _Sandwich, Massachusetts_ COPYRIGHT, 1902, BY J. W. DALTON THE BARTA PRESS, PRINTERS BOSTON, MASS. The Life Savers of Cape Cod. [Illustration: SURFMAN WALKER, ORLEANS STATION, DRESSED FOR STORMY NIGHT ON THE BEACH.] Cape Cod’s life savers are known the world over for their intrepid, enduring bravery, gallant deeds, and the success in rescuing life that they have achieved in their hazardous duties along the most dangerous winter coast of the world. Every night, along the shores of Cape Cod, from Wood End at Provincetown to Monomoy at Chatham, in moonlight, starlight, thick darkness, driving tempest, wind, rain, snow or hail, an endless line of life savers steadily march along the exposed beaches on the outlook for endangered vessels. The life saver’s work is always arduous, often terrible. Quicksands, the blinding snow and cutting sand storms, the fearful blasts of winter gales, are more often than not to be encountered on their journeys; storm tides, flooding the beaches, drive them to the tops or back of the sand dunes, where they plod along their solitary patrol with great peril. When a ship is in distress, whatever way the crew is rescued by the life savers, the task involves great hazard of their lives, hours of racking labor, protracted exposure to the roughest weather conditions, and a mental and bodily strain under the spur of exigency and the curb of discipline that exhaust even these hardy fearless coast guardians. In cases of boat service tremendous additional peril and hardships are added. Death has often claimed the life saver at his work. Or as a result of his gallant, unselfish toil for the safety of others in the rigors of winter, one life saver after another is compelled to retire from the service on account of shattered health. [Illustration: MAP OF CAPE COD, SHOWING LOCATION OF U. S. L. S. STATIONS. Small circles show where principal wrecks have taken place within past fifty years.] Beyond their wages of sixty-five dollars per month the surfmen receive no allowances or emoluments of any kind except the quarters and fuel provided at the stations.