The new dominion. [volume] (Morgantown, W. Va.) 1876-1904, 1877-09-15
OUR STORY TELLER.
THE STEAMER ON FIRE.
Adirondack Murray's New Book. !


Adirondack Murray's New BookI
The Captain stood another instant in
profound thought, during which his
quick and fearless mind had considered
all the contingencies, and, without a
word to the three men that were with
him, he started for the deck and the
pilot house. He summoned the Chief
Engineer and his officers around him,
and stated what he had discovered
laid the whole subject in few terse
words before them, and said:
Gentlemen, in five minutes the
saloons viii be like an oven, and the
windows of this pilot house will be
cracking. Have you any thing to
suggestT'
The first officer, sailor from boyhood,
whose head and beard were already gray,
said promptly:
Captain, we must beach her." The
Others looked their assent.
It's our only course" said the Cap
tain. Pilot" said he turning to the
man whose eye was on the lookout
Can you beach herr"
The other deliberated a moment. and
said:
Captain, am ready to take any re-
sponsibility that man in my position
should take. | am ready to execute any
order you give; but / will not take the
responsibility of running this steamer,
with six hundred passengers aboard, on
to coast that know nothing of beyond
the knowledge | have of the lights, the
reefs, and the harbors. 1t would be
mere chance if | got her within half a
mile of the shore"
The Captain actually groaned. He
saw and admitted the force of the pilot
assertion. For a moment not a word was
spoken, while the ship went tearing on
through the water, and the premonitions
of rising tumult came to their ears from
below, showing that the passengers were
already on the move. He looked an in
slant into each face before him, lifted
his hand and wiped the great drops of
sweat from his forehead, and said:
Gentlemen, what shall we do ? feel
the floor under my feet heatingl The
passengers are moving out of the saloon
What we do must be done quicklyl We
are overloaded. Our boats wouldn't ac-
commodate half, and besides boat
couldn't live in that sea. What shall
we do?'
Not a man spoke. They felt as if the
horror of death were shutting down
around them. They were brave, they
were calm. They showed no evidence of
fear. They could meet death as men
should meet it; but they could not tell
how to escape it. Suddenly the Captains
: face lighted, with a light which was the
reflection of hope, of a conjecture, of "A
possibility. He darted out of the pilot
house, swung himself down among the
crew, who were busy with the pumps
and the hose, and shouted, with the
concentration of voice that penetrated
the roar of the storm like knife:
Is there man here who knows this
coast?"
When the Captain dropped among
them the men stopped their work and
stood staring at him. Only the old
trapper and Herbert, each of whom stood
above the forward hatch, hose in hand.
directing the streams that the pumps
sent through the swelling tube, down
ward, kept their position. The Captain
waited a moment, while the light faded
from his countenance as no response
came, and then, as if in very despair, he
shouted:
Is there man here who knows this
coast?'
Again no reply came, and he was upon
the point of turning away when the
lad, who had been kneeling under the
protection of the bulwark trying to stop
rent which the pressure had made in
the hose that the old trapper was tend
ing, rose out of the shadow and approach
ing the Captain said:
" Yes, sir. / know the coast"
"Who. are you," said the Captain.
that claims such knowledge? Are
you not the youth / saw with the old
hunter at the table tonight? How
should you, born in the interior, know
anything about this coast?'
! was born in the woods" responded
the lad; Il was born within ten miles
OF where we are, and | know every
rock, and reef, and point, for / have
fished on them all; and know every
beach, for used to play on them when
a boy"
The Captain looked incredulous. He
had associated him with the hunter and
the wilderness, and it seemed incredible
that he should have been born where he
said he was born, and that he should be
on that boat that night, and be dis
covered by the merest accident at the
very instant of supreme peril.
Captain, said the old trapper who
sad drawn nigh Cap'n, whatever the
lad says We can sartiniy cake for gospel
truth. And if he says he was born
here, be was born here; and if he says