The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1906-04-15
)krvival of the Fittest By MORGAN ROBERTSON

Breaking at the deck, it crashed over
the bow at the end of the line, catch
ing and carrying away the port bow
spirit shroud as il went; and with her
momentum and the wheel still to port,
the barge swung around, lost Roadway
ana, pointing her nose to the north
shore, drifted to leewaTd, with all the
rigging of the bowsprit and jibbOom
gone on the port or weather side.
The much-Wrought UP old skipper,
who had barely escaped the flying
towpost, sprang to the rail and
screamed his curses on the steam
barge Think I'm goin { anchor. do
ye? Anchor in this passage-a' wait
for you to take nights sleep at tn
dock fore Se come back? Not much,
we've carried way my headgear, but
I'll find a better place. / run t
Buffalo How's her head?" This to
the wheel
Nor by east. sir"
Bring her east by south, half south,
when she'll come. Give her the stay
sail. boys"
This sail was Ioosed and hoisted half
up and lost in the thick maze to lee
ward as a sudden puff of the increas-
ing gale blew it to pieces.
With decks awash as the seas board
ed the weather rail and spilled out
the lee scuppers, and in that binding
snOwstOrm, the flakes of which were
attaining a needle-like sharpness, the
gray old skipper was more resolved
than ever not to anchor in a dangerous
channel, and his men began rigging
preVenter guys to the bOwsprit-fOr
head sail must be carried to bring her
before the wind. The boy was told
to drop the wheel and lend a hand.
The darky cook was called and sent
out on the bOWsprit With the rest as
they endeavored to hitch a heavy
hawser around the end of the spar. 1t
was icy cold. The waves made hum
CRY ticks at their legs as they worked.
and their fingers were numb and the
ropes and spar slippery with ice. But
they completed the task and started
in when one of those vicious Lake
Erie seas. the first of the three which
travel in company, lifted up to wind
ward a gray, nearly perpendicular
wall.
on
When the sea had passed on and the
captain had Strengthened UP he saw
one dark object clinging to the icy
gear under the spar, while from the
blanket of snow to leewardl came Surg-
ling cries. Then, as the next sea
crashed over the bows, he heard.
Help. cappen," as the cook also was
swept away.
Unable to save them. and trembling
with horror. the old man crawIed aft
and went below. where he buried his
Great Cod" he gTOaned, AL gone.
every man; and all in half an hour"
He sat there. wet, lonely and IN ser
able, until daylight Shone in on him;
then he remembered the deckhand in
the forecastle. and started forward to
arouse him, if he, too, had not died in
the night.
1t had stopped showing, but the
snow was replaced by the drift from
the sea, which, freezing where it fell.
had already encased the deck, rail and
gging in a coating of ice. 1t was
slippery walking. or, rather, creeping.
for an old man of 20. with the craft
rolling both rails under, and it is no
wonder that an incoming sea swept
his legs from under him, bringing him
down with a thud on the icy corner of
the fOre-hatch. He could not rise His
legs were useless. and he hitched and
crawled as best he could, and in time
reached the forecastle hatch, where he
called-called until his voice grew
weak; then gasped his prayer for
help, while the man below slept on
1t was high noon when the sleeper
opened his eyeS-On strange quarters,
with an icy ladder leading UP to
square of light, blocked by a gray face
fringed with icicles, on which death
had stamped the agony of it's owners
last moments He shivered with cold
as he turned out. He dressed himself.
with many upward chances at the
grueSOme thing above. Then he
mounted the slippery ladder shutting
his eyes as he neared the staring face.
and not opening them until he had
climbed over it and f1Oundered on to
the deck beside the body covered now,
like the deck itself, with a frozen man.
tie
He made his way aft. and calling
down the cabin door: ANY one here?"
Hearing no sound, he descended and
Cd oil no ct- hut
found no one. 1t was situation to ap-
pail the heart of even an experienced
sailor. The vessel had once been a
fine three-masted schooner, degraded
later 10 a barge by sending down her
topmasts. Now she was a dismantIed
hulk, with ice on deck making a curve
from the rails inboard to where it
raised in hummOcks over the matches.
And on this diSmantled. icebound hulk
rolling in the trough of the sea, some
where on Lake Erie, he was alone with
a dead man. This much he knew.
'.Somethin' orfuI's happened" he
muttered. "S'pose every one got
washed off-Or mebbe, they're in the
boat; that's gone. Wonder what
killed the man fOrrard? I've got t do
SOmethin'.'
He noticed the humping of the spars
alongside, where they had held by the
rigging. and concluded to cut them
away: they might knock hole in her.
An AK alone would do it. He looked
at the frozen deck. Axes suggest wood
piles and wood piles suggest stoves.
This inductive reasoning brought him
to the galley, where he found a hatch
ct: and with this he chopped at Ian
yard and running gear until the spars
drifted away. The jib-bOO had
snapped at the bOwsprit end, but the
bowsprit still stood.
He saved as much of the running
rigging as he could; not that he know
why; ne obeyed an instinct. He exam
med a hummOck of ice amidships.
a black skeleton of iron Cen
terboard winch" he said. Another pill
lar of ice Enclosed the capstan; the
steam barge had carried these things.
Creeping aft, he looked over the stern,
and discovered the rudder. ice-covered.