The men listened gravely to the captain’s words and took up their duties.  Most of them knew them before, and no minute explanations were necessary.  Skilled men understand the value of discipline and prefer it to any milder form of government.  Archie was the only member who raised his eyes in astonishment when the captain, looking his way, mentioned the scrubbing and washing, each man to take his turn, but he made no reply except to nudge Tod and say under his breath: 

“Wouldn’t you like to see Aunt Lucy’s face when she comes some Saturday morning?  She’ll be pleased, won’t she?” As to the cooking, that did not bother him; he and Tod had cooked many a meal on Fogarty’s stove, and mother Fogarty had always said Archie could beat her any day making biscuit and doughnuts and frying ham.

Before the second week was out the Station had fallen into its regular routine.  The casual visitor during the sunny hours of the soft September days when practice drill was over might see only a lonely house built on the sand; and upon entering, a few men leaning back in their chairs against the wall of the living-room reading the papers or smoking their pipes, and perhaps a few others leisurely overhauling the apparatus, making minor repairs, or polishing up some detail the weather had dulled.  At night, too, with the radiance of the moon making a pathway of silver across the gentle swell of the sleepy surf, he would doubtless wonder at their continued idle life as he watched the two surfmen separate and begin their walk up and down the beach radiant in the moonlight.  But he would change his mind should he chance upon a north-easterly gale, the sea a froth in which no boat could live, the slant of a sou’wester the only protection against the cruel lash of the wind.  If this glimpse was not convincing, let him stand in the door of their house in the stillness of a winter’s night, and catch the shout and rush of the crew tumbling from their bunks at the cry of “Wreck ashore!” from the lips of some breathless patrol who had stumbled over sand-dunes or plunged through snowdrifts up to his waist to give warning.  It will take less than a minute to swing wide the doors, grapple the life-boat and apparatus and whirl them over the dunes to the beach; and but a moment more to send a solid shot flying through the air on its mission of mercy.  And there is no time lost.  Ten men have been landed in forty-five minutes through or over a surf that could be heard for miles; rescuers and rescued half dead.  But no man let go his grip nor did any heart quail.  Their duty was in front of them; that was what the Government paid for, and that was what they would earn—­every penny of it.

The Station house in order, the captain was ready for visitors—­those he wanted.  Those he did not want—­the riffraff of the ship-yard and the loungers about the taverns—­he told politely to stay away; and as the land was Government property and his will supreme, he was obeyed.