Washington standard. [volume] (Olympia, Wash. Territory) 1860-1921, 1874-02-28
A Steamboat Race.
ITS EXCITING INCIDENTS AND IT'S TERRIBLE
RESULTS.

ITS EXCITING INCIDENTS AND IT'S TERRIBLE
RESULTS.
At night the boat forged on through
the deep solitudes of the river, hardly
ever discovering a light to testify to a
human presence league after league,
mile after mile, the vast bends We're
guarded by unbroken walls of forest
that had never been disturbed by the
voice or football of a man, or felt the
sacrilesious AK.
An hour after supper the moon came
up, and Clay and Washington 1.-TWO
boys) asccnded to the hurricane deck
to revcl again in their new realm of
enchantment. They run races up and
down the deck, climbed about the bell 4,
made friends with the passenger dogs
chained under the life-boat, tried to
make friends with a passenger bear fas-
tened to the verge-staff, but were not
encouraged, skinned the cat" on the
hog -chains-in word, exhausted the
amusement possibilities of the deck.
Then they looked wistfullv up at the
pilot-house, and finally, little by little,
Clay ventured up there, followed diff
IDENTIFY by Washington. The pilot
turned presently to "set hia stern
marks, saw the lads, and invited them
in. The cosy little house, built en-
tirely of glass, and commanding a mar
velous prospect in every direction, was
Il ma2icans throne to them, and their
enjoyment Of the place was simply
boundless.
They sat themselves down on bench
and looked miles ahead, and saw the
wooded caps fold back and reveal the
bends beyond; and they looked miles
to the rear and saw the silvery high
way diminish its breadth by degrees
and close itself together in the distance.
Presently the pilot said:
by George, yonder comes the -1ma-
ru,thH
Aspark appeared close to the water,
several miles down the river. The pi-
lot took his glass and looked ut it stead
lily for moment, and said chiefly to
himself:
1T can't be the Blue Wing. She
couldn't pick us up this way. It's the
.lmayd,th. sure.
He bent over speaking tube and
said:
Who's on the watch there?"
\ hollow, unhuman voice rumbled
up through the tube in answer:
" | am. Second engineer"
Good! You want to stir your
stumps, now, Harry-1mayupM's just
turned the point, and she's just a-hump-
ing herself, too!'
The pilot took hold of rope that
stretched out forward, jerked it twice,
and two mellow strokes of the big bell
responded. A voice out on the deck
shouted:
"Stand by, down there, with that
larboard lead"
"No; l don't want the lead" said
the pilot, 81 want you. Roust out the
old man-tell him the .1mara,,Ms COM
ing. And so and call Jim-tell him."
" Aye, aye, sir!'
The old man" was the Captain
he is always called so on steamboats,
and ships; "Jim" was the other pilot.
Within two minutes both of these men
We're flying up the pilot-house stairway,
three steps at a jump. jim was in his
shirt-sleeves, with his coat and vest on
his arm. He said:
81 was just turning in. Where's
the glass ?"
He took it and looked.
Don't appear to be any night
hawk on the jack statf-it's the .lma-
'anth, dead sure!'
The Captain took long look, ant
only said:
Damnationw
George Davis, the pilot on watch
shouted to the night watchman on deck
" How's she loaded?'
"Two inches by the head, sir"
" 'Taint enough"
The Captain shouted now:
"Call the mate. Tell him to call all
hands, and get lot of sugar forrard-
put her ten inches by the head. Live.
ly, nowv'
"Aye, aye, sirr'
A not of shouting and tramplina
iioated up from below presently, and
the uneasy steering of the boat soon