The daily chieftain. [volume] (Vinita, Ind. Ter. [Okla.]) 1898-1902, 1900-04-18
PROPELLER LOOSE ON DECK.
Runaway Cannon of Hugo's s'Ninety-
Three" Duplicated on Tramp
Steamer.

The perils of the underballasted
tramp, steaming to the westward with
head gales lashing the seas into fury,
furnish the marine reporters of nearly
every Atlantic seaboard city, every
winter, with columns OF vivid stories.
The tramp skipper is undaunted by the
appalling dangers OF his underpaid
profession. The business of following
the sea is the only one he knows any
thing about, and he must either risk
starvation on shore or boldly face the
manifold dangers of rover OF the
oceans Of the world, which little notes
the loss Of tramp steamship here and
there. When tramp skipper loses his
job-he never gives it up--there are
dozen or more applications for 1T, de-
spite its perils and its meager pay.
All the smaller tramps that Wis
it ports without facilities for pro-
viding or repairing machinery, ear
nv usually on the main deck aft
or between decks a spare propeller.
There have been several instances in
which tramps with these extra pro-
pellers have just escaped destruction
in heavy weather. A little British
tramp that came into New York from
the Mediterranean several years ago
had spare propeller made fast be-
tween decks aft. One night, when she
was within few days of Sandy Hook,
plunging and rolling in a cyclone, the
propeller broke from its lashings, and
began laundering about the deck. The
only illumination aboard ship was by
means of fickering kerosene lamps.
The skipper and several of his crew
went down into the gloomy space be-
tween decks and made an effort to
check the erratic fight of the three
winged iron monster.
They were armed with wooden and
iron bars and pieces of dunnage, which
they tried to use as levers. 1t was diff
cult to keep the ships head up in the
swell. She persisted in dropping off,
and every time she rolled the demon OIL
propeller rumbled across the steel
deck, to port or starboard, threatening
to smash through the ships side. The
skipper sent one of his men to the
bridge to tell the officer in charge to
try to keep the ships head up, the
movements of the propeller being less
dangerous while the ship was pitching,
but she wouldn't answer her helm.
The mass Of metal stopped at times
lust long enough to allow the skipper
and his adventuresome men to get
within reach of it. Then it stirred like
asentient thing, and appeared to spring
at them. They saved themselves from
injury by jumping aside, or leaping
over it. AT last, as the ship lurched
heavily to port the propeller whirled
down the inclined deck and smashed
against the side. One of its blades
went through plate; it hung for
moment against a rib of the ship; then,
loosening itself as the ship rolled and
heeled to starboard, it bowled athwart-
ship again. A fountain of sea water
spurted through the mole made by the
propeller blade as the tramp rolled to
port again, and the propeller slid that
". n
side would have caused her to take in
somuch water that she would have been
in danger of laundering, and the skip
per began to wish that the propeller
had gone all the way through and
dropped into the sea.
There was one passenger aboard the
tramp, a stout young fellow who had
experience as a cowboy on the Texas
plains. He had heard the booming Of
the spare propeller, and he went to the
skipper and volunteered to check it in
its mad course. AT first it revealed
itself only dimly to him, huge, batlike
shadow. under the faint and unsteady
glow of the kerosene lamps. After the
cowboy had become somewhat accus-
toned to the gloom and had spent
few moments dodging the propeller, he
took a lasso, which he made Of a hawser,
and with the unerring aim of an expert
bull puncher, he rung one of the blades
with the moose. He made turn with
the other end around a winch, about
amidships, and the propeller was sub
dued. Then the skipper and his men
fell upon it as if it were living thing.
and with beams and bars, and chains
and ropes they made it so fast that all
the storms of the North Atlantic could
not have broken it loose again.-Sam-
uel A. Wood, in Ainslee's Magazine.
Womcn's Rule.
It is q singular fact that the reign
Of every queen in modern times has