The citizen-Republican. (Scotland, Bon Homme County, S.D.) 1???-19??, 1907-07-25
CHAPTER XIII.


CHAPTER XIII.
A PIRATES HARBOR.
MINDLESS swell and a burning sky,
Ahead broken palings Of mop headed
tree trunks growing straight across the
sea, On n beam scattered patches of
white where the surf crumbIed over
the hidden coral reef, on the other the
bright blue water of the Mexican gulf
With Its yellow floating tangles of weed.
A steamer lunging through the rollers
at a small six knots
on her decks was visible one man,
ana one alone, and he was on the upper
bridge, with his fists on the spokes of
the steam steering wheel. He was
swaylng with WEAKNESS; his eyes were
u and 1eaden; his cheeks We're of an
unwholesone yellow because tan would
mot let them turn pale white. Yet his
task was n which put to strain every
piece of his alertness. He was taking
a steamer drawing 10 feet through a
channel whose very existence no mar
on earth besides himself had ever
guessed. and already he was deep in
sea territory which the charts Of 1898
SUN marx as u~nsurveyed. He had
vaguely found the channel some months
before IN an open boat and written
cross compass bearings on the back of
a crumpled envelope. These he carried
IN ms mead now and used as the sea
1870 ~ IosoCd DuI llley We're a tTH1l reed
for much dependence.
FOR such work a leadsman is an alb
solute necessity, and on board the Port
1des a 1eadsman vas an absolute i'm
possibility. The remaining two of her
manning We're working as ten men to
keep up any head Of steam for her en-
glnes. And SO Patrick Cambel took his
sound1ngs with eye and nostrils, as do
some OF the more ancient of the coaster
loik, ana instinct did not, upon the
whole. serve him badly. Twice he
secured the steamers bottom plates
over branching coral plants, which
broke away with Gathering lars and
let her through to deeper water be-
yond, and once he ran upon a tail of
white sand, which pinned her Just for
ward OF midships. But he rung off the
engines, waited till the scream of the
and then on a flowing tide put her fun
speed astern and slid clear.
me skipper in the stokehold below
waXed blasphemous at the man who
had got the shore on board" but he
a!d not cease shoveling Goals. Neither
old the big d~onkeyman, save at those
moments when the clang Of the tele-
graph bell called him to stand by the
throttle or reversing gear in the engine
room.
So the Port Edes drew UP this mar
row unknown sea river trough the
shadows which fill that bight Of the
southwest Fioridian coast, and the tired
ma Who was governing her steered
every hour with stronger confidence
ana duller consciousness. Now he held
on 10 what was apparently an I'M
broken line of sand, where. if the
steamer stuck. she would be a stove in
wreck within the hour. hut as she
closed with it a passage opened out
Whlch took her through in clear water.
me yeasty surges of the back
wash would leap like live things far up
her sides ard scream and below
through the Now he doaged.
with helm hard s%tarboard one minute.
nard TO the port the next, among an
archipelago OF unnamed keys, where
2 flfst n~lan2rove trees were getting to
work at building these outlying scraps
of animal stone into part Of the NORTH
American continent.
Beyond was a broad, smooth lagoon
snllnAlering in the sunlight, dancing
with lutte silver waves, and beyond
was a wall of woodwork rowin
IN n solid mass of trunks from be-
hind the tangle of Shiny nlansroyes
which sprawlcd along the waters edge.
Bare and was to be seen nowhere. All
was blotted out by the rank luxuriance
OF the subtropical flora.
me steamer held on her course
thwa chs placid sea lake, aiming
straight as a rifle shot for what an
peared to be the densest part of the
forest. But as h neared an overlap
ping cape gradually distinguished itself
from the rest of the greenery, and d.
rectiy afterward banks of milky sand
spranS out, with a gut of river between
them.
grating now and holding the wheel one
handed by the lower spokes, and in the
fat, hot stew OF the stokehold below
Kettle and the d-onkeyman shoveled
coal to the light of reeking slush lamps
and the tune of furnace roar.
The steamer in the grip of the river
stream swung round the bights and
twisted, finding deep water everywhere.
though often she could not make the
turn quickly enough and bruised with
her forefoot the Shiny stems
which marked the bank. But the cur
rent was strong and each time swept
her clear. and those below were scarce
ly conscious cf the Craze.
Knot by knot the brine of the Mexi-
can gulf was being left behind, and the
noises CT the woods and odors of the
trees and the swaIcEs were closing in
on them. The swell tanning out from
the steamers wake wet the alligators
In their basking places behind the saw
grass. and the reek from her smoke
stacks scared the silt legged water
fowl afsh in the shadows. She coasted
round a bayou of black water walled
IN Dy stern fankS OF cypress trees. She
cut across another with graceful leaved
palmetto scrubbed on either hand and
ragged cabbage palms spouting
out from above. And then she swung
|again where the river forked and
steamed down a straight. answering
water lane which led to the very heart
Of the Everglades.
But the pace was slowing now, slow
ing indeed till the steamer would hard
~ steer against the current, which ever
and anon gripped her by the head or
the tail and carried her with sullen
sheerfngs dead onto cluster
or tree clad bluff. and the reason was
that the head Of steam was falling.
Captain Owen Kettle, like more Chris
tian men have done before, ignored HIS
own previous preachings when the APP
plication came in and proved only hu-
man soon after he had taken up the
role of fireman. Driven half lunatic by
the heat OF the work. he kept dipping
This lips In the water bucket and drink
Ing heavy drafts. AS
that unpoetical complaint-crainp in
the stomach-overtook him at last and
Eticd him into those ungainly knots Of
torture which he had so frequently OBJ.
Ene.-ua5 1frnYf ccfanfiHraY H. ~xN--.