Watertown republican. [volume] (Watertown, Wis.) 1860-1906, 1881-08-24
ooh. / am not afraid. How could [

ming beach, the Preside; they were
nearing the fort at the gate. A sudden
swirl in the gate twisted the boat sharp
Iy around. Tom had been leaning for
ward, the better to talk to Laura, the
more easily to hold her hand perhaps.
As the boat shifted its direction, he in
stinctively reached for the oars. His
hand touched the empty rowlocks. The
oars were gone. He looked around, but
they were nowhere to be seen. A cry of
horror rose to his lips. Luckily he
stilled it there. He looked quickly, fur
lively at his companion. She had seen
and understood. He forced laugh, and
his companion was deceived by it.
"Then it was not so very bad?" she
said, and the color came back to her
cheeks. 3,
"No, it is a good joke" he replied.
"Only we will be out rather late. When
the tide turns we will go back boom
ing"
Really he had very little hope. His
Judgment told him that the tide had not
yet turned, and unless it did turn almost
Instantly, the swift current would carry
them out in the ofing, and amid the
breakers at the bar, where their frail
boat would not live an instant. And
then. He could not swim stroke.
If he could, the distance to the shore
was too far to make that of any use. IT
only they had rudder they might run
the boat ashore; but, unfortunately,
they had been in time to secure only the
very last rudderless skiff. "Thank the
fates it does not leak" "Does it leak 2"
He looked down, aud saw that the ir-
regular bottom of the boat was covered
with water to the depth of almost half a
foot. When they had started away from
the pier landing Tom had braced his
feet against a broad cross-cleet, and
Laura's stout boots rested on the same
dry foothold. Until then neither had
noticed the water.
Tom searched in the bottom of the
boat for q bailing-can. He could not
find one. Laura moved SO as to look in
to the little locker under the stern seat.
There was no can there.
"What shall we do ?" she said
"I must bad with my hat" he re-
piled slowly, as if thinking it out the
water must come in very slowly, it is a
long time since we left Washington
street wharf" He looked at his watch
it was then past 4, and they were nearly
opposite Fort Point. So far as they
could see there was not single sail in
the ofing. They looked back at the city
there were no out-coming tugs or steam
ers, or schooners even. Then they look
ed out through the gate and wondered.
There is an untranslatable poetic
thing about our Golden Gate that the
sympathetic beholder, incoming or out
going, or gazing upon it from any stand
point, never fails to realize something
which, perhaps, he acknowledges, but
may never put into fitting phrases.
Perhaps it is because it seems so to hold
the keys of our California life, that we
may not dislocate it from either our his
tory or our future. Perhaps it is be-
cause In looking at it one can never quite
discern its big beyond, of veal or of woe,
OF sunshine or of tempest.
owe should never have had this sun
set anywhere else, Laura" and Tom
pointed to the declining sun, hanging
without cloud above the Wilderness
of waves. They looked back at the city,
and all the western windows were
af1ame
81 did not think there was so much
gold in Frisco" said Tom.
cob, Tom, don't want to die and
leave it all, said Laura, tremblingly.
The dallying breeze hadshaken off the
spell. The air had grown suddenly
chill. Far ahead they could see the
ominous white of the careering swell,
and along the shore they heard the dull
boom of the surf. Lower and lower
sank the white electric dazzle; buff and
pink, and orange toning into narrow
belts of opal. Right ahead rose the
black Farallones, and as the sun sank
still lower. they stood out in unbroken
outline against the disk.
With his soft hat Tom made slow prog
ress in bailing. Until then the water
had oozed in SO slowly that danger from
leakage had not alarmed him, until then
the current, too, had carried them along
SO gently that the danger of upsetting
had not presented itself. But after
they passed the fort the motion of the
waves changed, not suddenly, but grad
ually, until at last the boat was rocking
like a cedar chip in the eddies of mill
race. And still the tide had not turned.
Ceasing his bailing for moment, Tom
thought he heard the sound of water
trlckl1ng into the boat. Perhaps 1t was
his instinct of danger and not his ears
that warned him, for the waves were
slashing against the outside, and themo-
ton caused constant tapping of the
wator within the boat Tom made a
careful examination, and at last found
little hole through which the water
poured in ftful itream as the boat rock
ed from side to side
81 must stop that Leak" he said.
"Can you bail?'
The sun had set, and the flush was
fading out of the western sky. Laura
took one long look around In all the
waste of waters there was no moving
object. It there had been ship in sight
she could have seen it, she thought,
almost despairingly.
She began to bail as we'll as she
could, with the felt hat, and in her
cramped position. A long line of gray
was coming up from the south.