Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1905-12-09

threw her on her stern just as suddenly
checked horse falls back on its launches.
1t was as we'll for the little boat. Other
wise she would have rammed herself. nose
on, against the sharp cutwater of the I'M
peria.
UP there on her high bridge nobody even
saw the tug. miss is as good as a mile
and the captain Of the harbor boat was left
TO curse and swear in solitude. In the
brightly lighted social hall of the big ship
the passengers sat with suddenly loosed
good fellowship. Everybody was talking to
everybody else. The millionaire persons
even talked to others whom they suspected
darkly OF not being millionaires at all. No
body looked through the windows at the
boring.
Anxious Time for the Pilot.
On the bridge there was no boredom.
Every minute was crowded. Guided by the
same sense that enables person to find
his way about a familiar room in an utter
darkness. the pilot picked up the channel.
picked up the southwest spit buoys picked
up red buoy and black buoy turning buoy
and range buoy. though they bobbed out of
the DARKNESS only for the thousandth parts
OF GREATNESS seconds and vanished again
He nearly picked up Portland schooner
too. laundering around with all canvas set
Tor a place to anchor. The lookout In the
crows nest mechanically ducked his head
to save 1t from her gait as she swept by,
30 close to port that she was almost aboard
Once for frishtful three breaths a huge
SQUARE scow lay, almost under foot. The
lmper1as propellers reversed, kicking I'D a
small Niagara and sucking the mud from
the very bottom Of the channel In the giant
attempt to check the Roadway Of her 1900
tons. But the Christmas ship would have
mace port with blood on her prov for all
that had the scow's tug not happened by
blind luck to tauten her hawser that very
instant.
The scow rumbled and bumped along sixty
mighty muddy sea, but the seven white
faced men aboard lived to send enthusiastic
curses from trembling lips at the Imperia.
BY the Lord Harry" said the pilot to
himself, "d--n that girl 1 guess that I'll
take my wife Christmas present Of a re-
voked license If don't look sharp"
Just why diversified scows and barges
hauled by underpowered tugs always choose
the foggiest day to grope their way down
the lower harbor OF the busiest port In the
world no one knows; least of all the deep
sea pilots. who have been puzzling over the
matter for two generations. On this Christ
mas day every barge and other perfectly
helpless variety of craft that was ever built
in the Americas was In the main ship chan
mel. and every tug that was hauling them
did so at the end of the longest possllie
hawser, and while the tug Numbered slowly
to pick up the channel marks the tow, drift
Ing on the slack hawser cheerfuly laid
Itself across the channel.
Many Narrow Escapes.
80 many narrow escapes did they have
that the pilot did not care to count them.
Still less did he care to think Of how many
had passed unseen. Unseen they passed the
harbor lighthouses, unseen they passed
Swinburne and Hoffman Islands, unseen
they passed the Narrows. and surprised the
health officer at quarantine by booming out
their signal almost at his front door.
Great Scottl" said he. Don't tell me
that liner has come up!'
And smoking Jehosophat," said the cap
tain of the revenue cutter IroQuos, lying at
the lower end Of New York, as he read the
dispatch from quarantine. What do you
think? The Fnperia has come up through
thisi'
Darn I'll" said the men In the little ship
news office at the Battery. Darn 1t, what
the devil did she want to come up for?
Why couldn't she lay off the bar like the
rest Of EN-? Now therell be lot of stuff
to write and our little scheme for a Christ
mas dinner is knocked to pot"
And so they wrote their accounts and they
said good deal about the good seamanship
and the good pilotage that had brought the
big ship home through the worst fog of
twenty years in time for Christmas day
ashore. But nobody wrote because nobody
knew, the best part of the story.
But said the pilot, after he had told it,
'the next girl with Irish gray eyes can cry
them out for all of me. If any more Christ
mas ships come my way in the fog they'll
stay there till next Christmas if necessary,
and don't you forget ii"