The daily morning journal and courier., 1906-01-04


 islands, then about twenty-five miles away My boat made the lee all right, and we laid there in the dense fog all that night, all the next day and the greater part fo the next night. We had become separated from the other boats and had heard nothing of them Late the second night the fog lifted and away off to south'ard 1 saw a riding light Our provisions were all gone and we were down to our last pint of water We pulled for the light and found it to be on the schooner J. Ham, ilton Lewis, Captain Alexander Me Lean. told him there were five other boats with three men each lost some where in the vicinity, and we cruised about for three days before we picked them up, four of them.
 Poor fellows, they were about all in Their water was gone and they had had nothing to eat but raw seal meat for three days, One was dead and two wounded, shot by Russians. They told us that the five boats had approached the islands, seeking shelter, but the Russian guards, thinking it another raid, opened fire without warning. One man dropped in boat, shot through the head, another was shot in the breast and another through the leg. Four boats immediately put about for sea; they contained the dead and wounded; the fifth boat signalled its distress and was permitter to land. l heard afterward that they were fairly well treated until they could be sent to the mainland.
 We kept a sharp lookout for our schooner, but failed to raise her, and Captain Mclean abandoned his sum mer cruise and stood away for San Francisco. He said the men he had picked up were in sore straits, and there would be mourning in eighteen families if he did not make port before the c. White. You see, we had cruis- ed about, and falling to see any sign of wreckage concluded that the captain and cabin boy had abandoned the search Mclean is a driver, and Lord how he did send the Lewis down from 55 degrees north! The little White beat us in three days, Captain Hagman and the boy brigning her all the way alone watch and watch. There was weeping and wailing among the families of those supposed to- be lost, but when l walked into my house the wife looked 1 up, gave a little sob and said: 'Oh! Danny! 1 knew you would come and told others SO Hagman had poked about in the fog for two days and when it lifted and he failed to see us he thought we had gone down. He never l had any idea that we would make the lee of the islands in that strong south- easter.
 Some owners would send the sealers out in any kind of a hold tub. Now adays l take a look over the vessel before I ship. but in 1889 I was not so l cautious. That was the season I sall- | ed in the Mary Deleo The first little { blow started her seams. We had patent pumps that were geared to from 40 to 1,600 strokes every four hours. We | kept that up for the seven months we were out in that old hulk. When we came back and she went on the ways l heard that it was found her seams had | been calked with half inch rope and pitched over I never investigated the truth of the report. I feared 1t might be true, and did not want to meet the owners.
 l Tn the '90s I was Tn schooner that was driven head on by a gale into the rocks south of Drake's Bay. Some of the crew launched a boat. It was swamped before it got a length from the vessel and a few of those abroad reached the rocks. 1 with others went to the rigging, for the sea was breaking over the deck, She began breaking ur and heeled over until the high seas reached us. Now and then a man would go. You could see his white face and clenched jaws through the black of the night, a sea would strike us and when it passed he would Joe gone. Do you want to know what held me to that rigging all that night? It was the thought of my wife knowing l would come home When morning dawned l was alone in the rigging.
 Two years later was lost in the fog in my otter boat south of the same spot. l was picked up by a schooner bound north, and the next day. oppo- site Drake's Bay, I had the captain put me off nmy boat, as I was confident that I could make the bay. The bar was breaking, my boat was capsized, and l dashed upon the rocks. I stretch ed and climbed, slipped back into the water, climbed, again and was- drawn back by the waves and climbed again, until I reached the highest part of the rocks, and even there the waves would break over me. l held on, and in the morning was taken off. Not many yards below could see the rotting hulk of the schooner in which was wreck | ed two years before.
 Another season I was hunting otter off Gray's Harbor. I was in one boat alone, and we had two other boats out with two men each. A gale came on, and our little schooner was driven into the breakers on the bar before the two men on board knew what was coming | They managed to drive her through however, and made the harbor I was driven inside the breakers and into the surf, but could not make the entrance to the harbor. The shore, a few yards ] away, was precipitous rock, and to be dashed against that meant death, so ]