eleven o'clock in the morning
The situation looked desperate both for the residents and for the officers and crew of the Coast Guard cutter . The officers of the _ Bear _ worked incessantly . In the dark they were here , there and everywhere , and Eric , filled with the spirit of the service , was on the jump . He was busy in the storehouse shortly before eleven o'clock in the morning when a man groped his way in , saying that he had just escaped an avalanche and that several men were marooned in a steamer lying off the cannery wharf half a mile below the dock . This was Eric 's chance . So often had he made the trip from the ship to the storehouse that morning that even in the dark and through the flying spume of yellow horror he made his way direct to the first lieutenant , and saluted . -LSB- Illustration : GOING TO PIECES FAST .