Iron County register., 1900-05-24

TINS InaJ the ScOWl IeII MS Iac6. ne
was dumfounded. It was as if dog
had spoken. Scotty lived aft with the
captain in the cabin, while / was only
an ordinary dredger. who lived for
ward in the forepeak. The cheek of my
asking for clean plate was something
unspeakable. And rage took the place
of surprise. He swore at me horribly.
He would show me, he said, and he
raised his fist to strike me. He knew
that he would have the captain and
mate at his back. Besides, to tell the
truth, he was a plucky little fellow.
But 1 had had enough of the whole
thing. 1 determined to take chances
if necessary-on getting long drop
and scragging rope. If l fought I'd
have to go the whole .-og. The chances
were I'd get shot. If l killed anyone,
there was no chance at all about it.
I'd get hung. But my blood was up.
AS Scotty raised his fist to strike me.
Irose suddenly and let'him have a swing
irs blow full in the mouth. His head
struck against the bulking of the cab
in. And l rained half-arm punches on
his face till it was a mass of blood. He
fought me as well as he could, but l
was much bigger and stronger man.
He hadn't a ghast of show. And all
the time / was punching him | felt
was fighting with a rope round my
neck, and when that's the case man
might as well go in for a sheep as for
Id NIB.
And the whole Internal degradation
of the life. broke in on me like light
ming flash while l was fighting. /
thought l might as well end it. And l
tried n Kill Scotty.
But : got away from me up the
cabin s,eps and onto the deck. He re-
allied that he was in danger of his
life, and the animal instinct to save
himself came uppermost in him. The
fight had been knocked out of him.
l followed him up on deck, where /
was faced with the captain and mate.
But | was ready for them too-and see
ing that l was ready they came to the
conclusion that the easiest way out OF
it was the best. The captain Gained
things down. l suppose it dawned
upon him that it was no joke doing
Inan up who was ready to fight for all
he was worth. During the whole af-
fair the men-my mates-stood in a
group forward. They didn't offer tc
interfere.
After that l always got clean plate.
The dredging season began in Oc-
tober and ended in March-the six
coldest and hardest months of the year.
Once l was on a sloop that was frozen
up in solid ice for nearly month.
Then we had Il good time. Nothing to
do but eat and sleep and go ashore oc-
casionally for water. We were an
chored about hundred yards from tho
shore and we had to cut channel
through the ice, so as to get little
yawl backward and forward. One
afternoon another fellow and myself
got the yawl ashore, so as to bring
aboard a barrel of water and some
-four and bacon. 1t was freezing very
hard. We loaded up the yawl, and be-
gan to work our way back to the sloop,
out when we got about half way we
were blocked up. The loose ice floating
in the channel had become frozen to-
gether. We worked for an hour, and
made hardly any headway. And one
hour reached into two hours, and two
hours into three hours. Then we saw
that perhaps we couldn't make the
s.oop that night. So we thought it
better to make for the shore again.
But in this we were stopped. too. The
loose ice had frozen together behind
us. Nor could we land on the ice on
either side of US. for the reason that
there were large pieces of looEe ice on
both sides of the yawl, and stepping on
them would mean falling into the wa
ter. which would mean death. The
lads on the sloop kept shouting to US
from time to time to cheer US up. But
we were getting anxious. If we had
20 stay in the yawl through the night
it would mean that we should be frozen
stiff by morning. And now darkness
and night had come upon us. We
worked on and on, smashing at the ice
with our oars. And after what seemed
to me an eternity the ice slowly began
10 move. We fought it foot by foot
along the channel to the sloop. They
had put lights on the roof of the cabin,
so that the reflections would show Us
where to strike the ice. At last we
got near enough for them to throw Us
rope. which we made fast to the
yawl, and then, with the help of their
tugging, we got alongside the sloop.
They pulled us aboard and gave us a
big stiff drink of whisky, which fixed
us up all right. 1t was midnight. Il
had taken us about eight hours to so
hundred yards.
On Saturday NIGHTS we would 90 10
Cambridge-a little town on the east
ern shore of the bay-and tie up TIL
Monday morning. Then we would get
an advance perhaps of dollar apiece
from the captain. Armed with this,
we would go up into the town to have
good time. \ 1ou can buy a lot of whis-
ky in Cambridge for a dollar. And
whisky is what we all bought. In
other words, we used to get drunk.
Then we used to fight with one anoth-
er. or fight with the police, if they
tried to interfere with us. We were
looked upon as the scourings of the
earth-which, as a matter of fact, we
were, the dredgings of the earth. We
were bad lot. But we weren't too bad
to do the beastly work of dredging.
Yes. we used to get drunk. And why
not? 1t was the only thing left open
for us. We were dirty, rough lot of
uncouth men, we dredgers.
Years and years have gone by since
that time, but the faces of the men, the
dredgers l knew. are still clear in my
memory. Aye. their hard. weather
woyn faces rise before me. Where are