Freeland tribune. (Freeland, Pa.) 1888-1921, 1901-12-06

| ululHS-rOOn table HOatlnS around fight
side up under my feet"
| Then thought had to do with an
idiot, and went on hammering planks.
| 1t was no time to argue, for shortly
there came forward movement of the
John Andrews, and knew what is the
feel of a sinking ship-it makes your
stomach go into knot.
4 ran and caught Harry by the collar,
and cried, She's sinkingr
"Sink nothing. Let go my collar."
he said. "She amt sinking. There's
water coming. Twill put out the fire."
The calmness Of him staggered me;
he might be right.
why won't she sink?"
"All wood. Wood don't sink less
it's waterlogged. Where was you
brought up? She's nothing but a raft,
this here John Andrews. What you
want to make another for? Why, look |!
If she settles enough to put the fire
out, that's good. If she DOM, let her
burn. She can't burn past the waist,
which is mostly under water, anyway.
Stands to reason, don't it? No. Fact"
| he ended, with heavy sarcasm, "you
might say it seldom does"
Now according 10 shipwrecks as
| had heard of them, when q ship settles
she goes down. Anyway, it makes a
man nervous to watch her settle, hold
| ing only to another's mans theory that
| she won't sink. Even if he knows she
| won't, he's more or less afraid she will.
l went and sat on my raft. Harry
pretended he thought it all very ordi-
| nary.
There's canned things below" he
said. Fact. There's deviled ham and
canned peaches and cold soup. Fact.
Here's what gets 'em."
He slipped over the side of the great
hole l had made in the deck, and 1
heard him splash in shallow water,
grunting a little at that.
The John Andrews did not settle at
our end at first, but rose so far as. 1
could see in the mist she might have
been riding altogether.
Harry put his head up. "Sink! Sink
nothing. She's going up like one of
them Sunday-school angels" and
| dropped again.
could plainly hear the whistle and
hiss of steam, and knew that the fire
was being put out. l judged now that
it burned down from the portfolios till
stopped above water-line. After that
the water would come in but slowly
for n time, till as the stern sank it
would come in faster and faster, and
naturally as the stern sank the PROV
went up, but she couldn't stay up
there forever like forsaken old kite.
You notice that barges have high
decks fore and aft, and that the sides
run low between. So that when the
stern of the John Andrews sank deep
it began to pour into the waist in riv
ers with a great noise. The PROV
dropped, and the water rushing for
ward spouted on the fore-deck. Harry
came up pretty wet and scared, but he
had his shirt full of tins.
The John Andrews settled slowly,
you might say inch by inch, the black,
tumbling water coming nearer us up
the side. 1t made me fidgety, that's
tAC u ulh. bo"h VIC Sdhh III thS
water lay over the sides of the ships
middle, maybe two feet. and then
stopped.
Harry said, 81 told you so. Fact. I
did," and began chiseling at tins with
| his jack-knife. THAT there raft of
yours, that's a fancy steam yacht, that
| is. Fact" All the same, he was sit
.i,,rr hn 1,,ft n1,i oI
| tins till the John Andrews quit set
! Ting.
We felt better, of course, and ate
| near a can of timed meat apiece, and
! drank peach juice out of its natural
| can, and some kind of cold soup.
"Trouble with you." said Harly-he
had a can of peaches in his hand and
his knees punched up under his chin
trouble with you is them novels about
| the Pacific Ocean. Land! l don't
read anything else myself"
The night came on very dark, with
hours a week long, and some hundred
or more of them. It's well enough not
to be drowned or burned, but to be
cold and wet and sleepless isn't real
happiness. We lay close together shiv-
ering, and told everything we knew or
remembered TO make the time pass by.
| Harry said the current set east, what
there was of it, and we might drift to
Canada in day or two, if the mist
didn't rise before and let some craft
sight us, but we might not drift ashore
anywhere, and the mist might not rise.
Never mind about the rest of the
night. 1t wasn't a success. Morning
came and we looked longingly for the
mist to rise, but it didn't. We were
miserable, cold, discouraged, but in
time we felt the sun through the fog
gratefully, and l fell asleep at last,
stretched fiat on the deck.
l woke to hear low roaring and to
see Harry standing over me. Going
ashore?" he asked, coolly.
l sat up and stared, and knew the
roaring to be the surf, although moth
ing could be seen but the white mist.
"How?"
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