Daily inter mountain. [volume] (Butte, Mont.) 1881-1901, 1899-09-23
II. The men won't have 1t. They're with
me- suffered the man.

1t. The men won't have 1t. They're with
me- suffered the man.
Possibly they are. I heard you all
growing down the hatch the other morn
Ing. You're a pack of small-minded ours.
I'll get another crew. Mr.. Todd he said
to the listening mate, steward told me
he was about out of coffee, so We'll break
a bag out o. the lazarette. It's a heavy
lift-2OO pounds and over-'bout the
weight of a man. So we'll hoist her up.
Let Tom here rig a whip to the %spanker-
gaff. He can see"
LAY, ay, sir" answered the mate. "Get
a single block and a strap and a gant-line
out O. the bo's'n locker, Tom"
rs it all right, capt'n?' asked Tom,
lowering hands with a deep sigh of relief.
II did what seemed right, you know"
rig that whip" said Swarth. turning
his back and ascending to the poop.
Tom secured the gear, and climbing
aloft and out the gait, fastened the block
directly over the lazerette hatch just for
ward of the binacle. Then he overhaulel
the rope until it reached the deck, and de-
scended.
Come up here on the poop" called the
captain. and he came.
Shall / go down n look on. SIR" he
asked, Z~ealously anxious to please.
Make a moose in the end of the rope"
said Swarth.
"Eh-what? A runnin' bowline? A tim
ber-hitch? No. no. he yelled, as he read
the captains face. You can't do it. The
men-' g
Make a hangman's knot in the end Of
the rope" Numbered the captain, his
pistol at Toms ear. M
With a haggard face he tied thesk knot.
Pass it around your neck and draw it
tight"
Screams burst from the throat of the
man, ended by a blow of the captains
iron-hard fist. He fell in the scuppers and
lay quiet, while Swarth himself adjusted
the moose. and bound his hands with his
own handkerchief. The men at the wheel
strained their necks this way and that,
with tense waves of conflicting express
slons fitting across their weary faces,
and the men forward, aroused by the
screams, stood about in anxious expect
ancy until they heard Swarth's roar:
Lay aft, here, the watch
They came, feeling their way along by
rail and hatch.
Clap on to that gant-line at the main
fiferail n lift this bag of coffee out o
the laZarette," sans out the captain.
They found the loose rope, tautened it,
hooked the blight into an open sheave in
the stanchion, and listlessly walked for
ward with it. When they had hoisted the
unconscious Tom to the gaff, Swarth or
uCICu. Delay " w lHC GIL III 81
forward
They obeyed, listlessly as ever, with no
wondering voice raised to inquire why
| they had not lowered the coffee they had
hoisted.
| Captain Swarth looked at the square
rugged ship, now on the port quarter-an
ill-detined blur to his imperfect vision.
Fine chance we'd have had" he NUT
tered. IF that happened to be a bulldog.
Angel he continued as the mate drew
near, hot coffee is good for moon-blind-
ness, taken externally as a blistering
agent, a counter-irritant We have no
fly-blisters in the medicine chest, but
smoking hot grease must be Just as good,
if not better, than either. Hav the cook
heat up a potful, and you get me out q
nice, small paintbrush."
Forty-eight hours later, when the last
Weakening vision among the 20 men had
taken cOgnizance of the grizzly object
! aloft, the gaff was guyed cupboard. the
rope cut at the ~fiferail. and the body OF
Tom Plate dropped feet first into the sea.