Custer weekly chronicle. [volume] (Custer City, S.D.) 1890-1931, 1910-11-05
CAPRICIOUS AND MOODY
AS GIRL SAYS WRITER.

estimated that 100, 900 persons cross
and recross daily from Oakland,
Berkeley and Alameda to San Fran
/ cisco, for business. employment and
shopping purposes. 1t might be pre-
sumed that one who makes the round
trip across the four miles of water
| 300 times a year would learn all
there is to know about this bay, but
it is not the case, for it never ap-
pears twice the same. 1t has as
many moods as the spoiled girl of
twenty and it rings their changes
just as often.
Today the great bay may lie with
out more than the modulated rip
pie that the tides set up, simmer
ing in the sunlight, that penetrates
a slight haze, through which the
surrounding hills are seen but in
distinctly, the more distant of them
entirely lost to view. A score or
more of sailing craft are always in
sight, making their lazy way-trim
pleasure yachts, all manner of fish
ing boats that bear canvas, square
proved schooners peculiar to the riv-
er trade bringing in hay, farm, gar
den, dairy and factory products
from towards Sacramento and Stock
ton. There are as many power craft
l-tuuo op hurry y,icoiOpo othar f,,uc
with heavy tows, half dozen or
more ferry-boats, all black with hu-
manity, government boats going
from one supply station to another,
steam cutters from the warships,
gasoline launches, all crossing and
recrossing each others courses and
avoiding collision by the steam sig
nails that tell the pilot whether the
approaching boat is going to pass by
the port or starboard, and all thread
ing their way among and between
the sailing boats, which according to
the laws of navigtion must be given
right-of-way by those power-driven,
for evry captain knows that the heav-
lest steamship Is to turn out of the
road for the tiniest fishing smack,
and that in case of collision the ad-
miralty laws place the burden OF
proof upon the steamship.
Tomorrow the scene is entirely
changed. There is breeze, the haze
is gone, there Is scarcely a cloud,
and the hills, from shore-line clear
to their submits, stand out in a
strong blue relief. White-caps are
perhaps running, and compatriots of
the sailing boats we saw yesterday
are pounding along with their can
vas full-bellied. Then it is that San
Francisco, rising on the hills of the
peninsula to the westward, gives of
, its greatest play of subdued color
, contrasts-to many of US one of the
most beautiful, and the most love-
able cities in the world.
, Another day we are awakened by
the moaning Of whistles-there is
fog. Our ferries, which ordinarily
run on twenty-minute schedules, q
set Of boats starting from opposite
sides simultaneously, are running
, every forty minutes and all starting
from the same side. At the docks
and slips the bells are changing in.
cessantly. The fog horn on Goat
Island let's out a prolonged below
every thirty seconds, to which the
crossing boats respond with short
blasts at the same intervals, and
where our boat usually makes g
headway of twenty miles an hour il
is now making only ten, virtually
feeling her way, guided largely by
the sound of the fog horn and keep
, ing out Of the way Of other boats
moving in the same direction by at
tention to their answering signals
for although the fog does not appear
few lengths out on the water, ant
= the ferry captains have twice theil
ordinary human cargoes to be care
} full Of Perhaps as We round the
end of Goat Island, and are under
= the islands nose, our captain hear!
r a whistle or bell ahead that b,
r has not counted on, so he comes t.
! a stop and keeps pulling his owl
= whistle-cord until he ascertains wha
and where it is and how headed
maybe a tug whose blasts show tha
= she is moving onto one quarter, Of
=, that gradually comes into dim sigh
and passes. AS soon as she has beer
t located we hear the bells janglint
3 in our own engine room, and W,
steam ahead.
: For few minutes after passinl
Goat Island we proceed smoothly anc
think we are going to make the fer
! ry on the San Francisco side withou
? further interruption when suddenl!
: here is another alarm ahead, o,
: bells below sound sharply, and oul
3 propellers are reversed, churnint
} the water into souring foam, Will,
> our boat swings to an acute angl,
3 with its course. BY the time she II
checked there looms UP $50 clos
that it almost brushes our sides ;
g black mass opt of the fog-a ran
t you, damn you liner" just heading
out for the gate on her way t.
: China, and we realize from a surve!
! of her vast bulk as she glides s!