Dashing into the suds, he jerked two of the crew to their feet before they knew what had struck them; then sprang back for the others clinging to the seats and slowly drowning in the smother.

Twice he plunged headlong after them, bracing himself against the backsuck, then with the help of his steel-like grip all four were dragged clear of the souse.

Ever after it was "Uncle Isaac" or "that old hang-on," but always with a lifting of the chin in pride.
Samuel Green came next: Forty-five, long, Lincoln-bodied, and bony; coal-black hair, coal-black eyes, and charcoal-black mustache; neck like a loop in standing rigging; arms long as cant-hooks, with the steel grips for fingers; sluggish in movement and slow in action until the supreme moment of danger tautened his nerves to breaking point; then came an instantaneous spring, quick as the recoil of a parted hawser.

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.