Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1902-03-20
IN THE FACE
OF FEAR.
BY WILLIAM B. MAC HARG.



BRONSON, an Englishman, had made
- a,lumber camp on the shore OPP
posite Fisherman's Island, which lay
beyond six hundred yards of shifting,
oily water. About the island the ba.
by waves ran crosswise among half a
mile of hidden reefs and shadows.
Everywhere along the shore stood
the brown cedar trunks, straight and
clear, and back of them the hemlock,
and farther still, where the glacial ice
had cut range beyond range of low
hills, the ash and beech and maple
all marketable timber, waiting for the
AK. Yet the camp was foredoomed to
failure because Bronson knew nothing
about numbering, and had spent $780,
900 on things for which there was no
need. All n summer was spent by
the st. Clair in bringing up to Bron-
sons great chained and timbered dock
the needless things Bronson had
bought.
Larson-"Shocky' Larson, is years
old, big, light-haired and clumsy, was
the porter of the st. Clair. Once on
the lakes there had been built 20 or
more boats all exactly alike-high-
sided, stubby craft, made to fit the
locks of the canals and called canal
boats; and they turned out to be the
best rough-weather boats the lakes
had ever seen; puffy little boats,
smelling of the galley, but Indifferent
to wind or II floating ice-and
the st. Clair was one of them. But
Shocky Larson laughed at the st.
Clair and called her 1.-THE tub"
Shocky was driftwood. He had been
east to the beginning of the St. Law
renee, and west to the Mississippi;
he had seen a little of the lakes and
a little of the land, and he was no
more than a boy, he Dragged. He
Dragged to Van Clede, a stoop-shoul-
dered man with child-like eyes,, who
was chief engineer of the st. Clair;
he Dragged to the hangers-on who
waited at table on the st. Clair, and
to the men upon the docks; but most
of all he Dragged to the men at
Bronson's camp, a loud-voiced, simple
folk, who did their duty as they knew
it, but had seen little of the world.
Il suppose, now" said Bronson's
camp boss, you could bring the boat
in as well as the old man."
I'D not lose a fender at every
Dock" said Shocky.
"All right, boy" said the camp boss
he was a squares brown man,
marked in more than Il place by the
return swing of the double-bitted ak
-'all right, boy, we'll vote for YOU"
"For what?"
"When they're electing the cham
pion liar"
Shocky saw that they were laugh
ing at him, but the laughter slipped
off his shoulders like water, and he
told both question and answer to
Van Clede, who listened, saying moth
ing. Van Clede liked Shocky; he called
him 'son," which was condescension
On Van Clede's part, but he had tried
once to take Shocky down, and had
failed. He did not try again.
All summer the st. Clair went up
and down the lake and in and out at
Bronson's, poking her nose into mud
holes and losing a fender now and
then in pinches where she might have
lost more with small blame; all sum-
mer Van Clede watched his engines,
and Shocky looked out for baggage
and silver quarters. In the very end
of the summer there came q long hot
spell, when the piled timber at Bron-
sons was hot to the touch, and shin
giles dropped from the roofs of the
warehouses. Day after day to the
north and west the smoke Of forest
fires hung like a fog yer the lake.
The hot spell was broken by a wind
out of the east, at first dry and
burning from blowing over miles of
baked clearing and scorched forest,
later damp and chilly, and bringing
with it banks of gray and yellow
cloud and the promise of rain. The
wind found the st. Clair steaming
mo%notonously through the night, and
set her to wallowing in the troughs
of little off-shore whitecaps.
Now, aft of the after gangway, on
the port side of the st. Clair, was a
species of cubby-hole where the stew
ard lived, and aft of the after gang
way on the starboard side was anoth-
er just like it, where the clerk kept
his books, and slept with his boots
on and a lead pencil behind his ear;
and between the two, in a little coop,
slept Shocky.
1t wa just at the change OF watch
es that Shocky awoke with the sound
of the clerks voice in his ear, and the
knowledge that something was
wrong. Beyond his open door the
between-decks of the st. Clair was
gray with smoke, through which men
moved like shadows.
On the upper deck the second officer
knocked at Capt. Willis door, and en-
tered without waiting for an answer.
"We're all afire, sir" said the sec
ond officer, "for'ard of the engine
room."
Tho st. Clair was on her out trip