The Aberdeen Democrat. (Aberdeen, South Dakota) 1???-1909, 1903-12-04
@.@,@:@"@.0.@.l Post.
The Lightship ofg
O. Frying-P Pan Shoal 6
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T HE day vas bright, and a light haze
/ blurred the Carolina coast line.

THE day was bright, and a light haze
/ blurred the Carolina coast line.
The long summer now drawing to a
close, had been ~singularly free from
squalls and transforms, and as a con-
sequence the water on and around Fry
en- rocks jutting out into the channel
a perpetual to all sea-going
craft, had been unusually peaceful and
somnolent, and the lightship Dora
had mostly rocked like a cradle in
gentle oscillations, for the motion Of
a lightship never ceases.
A solitary figure, that of a man
athletic and powerful, stood leaning
against the wheel, looking musingly
out at the broken line of distant shore,
more sharply defined where the sun
light fell on a wooded cliff, which swept
down to the edge of the sea.
Except for the veil of mist along
the oceans edge, the atmosphere was
~singularly clear, and the Dora seemed
closer, to land than usual and the
monotony of her incessant roll back
and forth should have been soothing
to the man on board.
Judging by his face. hoHeyerAthere
was a pent-up storm within him not
at all in accord with the placidity and
beauty of the late September day and
the tranquil waters of the Atlantic as
they purled and rippled in seeming in
nocence over Frying-Pan reef.
When McNair had applied for the
position OF keeper of the lightship sta
toned off that dangerous coast his age
was considered an objection; not that
he was too old, but too young.
That, he had been a good seaman,
had spent the last few years in east
ern waters, had served Uucle Sam with
courage and fidelity out in the Philip
pines, as a still troublesome wound
in the shoulder testified, seemed sufi
cient reasons for his appointment to
the prison life of the lightship near
Cape Hatteras, one OF. the most danger
Gus on the Atlantic coast.
A word in his favor from some one
in congress who held the ear OF the
navy department decided the matter,
and McNair was put In charge of the
lightship Dora, vacated unwillingly by
his predecessor, and only because he
had been crushed to death on the
jagged rock points, when the Dora.
dragging her anchor during a winter
gale. had been swept V Q on the reef.
There were two men aboard beside
the master, and the regulations of the
department allowed them to come
ashore alternately every six months
for asshort. reprieve from the monotony
of their life amid ocean, aloof from all
contact with mankind, and the conten-
tions and turmoil of life ashore.
They were both grizzle-haired sail
ors, fishermen who had a thorough
acquaintance with the shoals and cur
rents. the harbors and places of ref
uge, along the coast frem Hatteras to
the gulf.
MeNair pretended to no such knowl-
edge.
@A good 'un, McNair. But he never
handled nothing but a yacht. / can
tell that, old Anderson remarked to
Bill Peters, his companion, as they sat
busy with their lines for deep-sea
fishing and watched McNair's gloomy
abstraction and the heavy frown on
his clean-shayen face.
Sailor? Before the mast? Not
much! Tom Anderson knows a thing
or two, and a swell when he sees one.
McNair's d tiptop fellow. Has grit.
and he'll stand by a mate. If it warn't
for him--that last time ashore, when
broke sullivan's head. and good for
him. too--its not on the deck Of the
DoraI'd be sitting this day
eMcNais's all right. Smart chap,
too.
But queer. Seems to me he's got
something ID his mind. Maybe MUIR
de.. But its his lookout, and he's4gfair
and square, and the kind Of fellow
you want in aIight place, when there's
danger around. Ever noticed how
queer and soft-Iike hesIooks when tt
blows and how he kinder smiles when
Erying-Pan gets nasty, ana IT looks
bid 9 Doras Can't be nothing
nut murder. and 4 LIT of fellows ought
be shot II theyo heir deserts.
kHxHEs MeSSaiI was when he Drlt
60se ~ him. uusss he came on he
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