Weekly independent. [volume] (Elko, Nev.) 1887-1914, 1913-02-07
OCEAN DERtLICTs

NaHN e.o SAS N'~Ahs
sea is made hazardous by their pre-
sencs. They have crashed into
liners and into junl S of the China
sea. To them all vessels are alike
something to be destroyed. They
crash against them in the dead of
night, when inky blackness hides
their coming. Wrecks themselves,
they seem to strive to drag all
others to their own fate.
So they go drifting on the seven
seas. More particularly they seem
to swarm eagerly in he gulf stream.
From Cape Hatteras -eaching
north to the Grand banks Of New
foundland is the graveyard of the
Atlantic" 1t is a rolling waste
where many ships are buried. 1t
is a place where derelicts borne by
the sweep of the gulf stream and
the counterchurn of the Labrador
current dart about like angry
sharks, eager to fatten their maws
on the null of some ship.
In the photographic Office at some
seaport the wireless is sounding.
A message is coming through the
void. Ii is a message of peril COM
ing from a steamship. 1t warns
that a derelict has been sighted
squarely in the path Of ocean travel.
For days the men at the station
have been waiting for word of this
derelict. Its position on the chart
that all photographic offices keep
has not been moved for a week.
They have lost track of it. Its
driftIngs are as a mystery. The
station men have been unable to
wire back over the seas warning
captains of its whereabouts. Any
moment they may hear that it has
attacked-and wrecked.
But now the derelicts has come
into the the light. The Baltic has
sighted il and sent a warning
humming over the seas. Now the
men at the station are quick to act.
At a word from their thief they
relay the message tn the commander
of the revenue cutter Seneca living
by. The Seneca, has been waiting
for this message-waiting for the
derelict's whereabouts to he re-
vealed. And now, knowing them.
1t gets NJ steam and sails forth, a
purger If the seas. on destruction
bent.
Of derelicts there are two kinds
those that float observed and
those that float unobserved. Most
people imagine that wrecked ships
are ultimately driven ashore and
that vessels reported sinking at the
time of abandonment 20 down soon
after. That is not true Abandon
ed ships breed vampires of the deep.
For months they float. Water
logged. half sunken. pitched and
torn by storm. they yet somehow
seem to survive. They will live
in gales that send the stanchest
vessels &c the bottom. 0niy time
can destroy them-that is unless
electricity takes a hand.
Too heavy TO raise to the surface
and not yet water soaked enough
to sink to the bottom and remain
there, they crawl along just under
the riding swells. Their abiding
place is nowhere. From the un-
travelled tracks of the sea- they may
be carried by a storm directly in
the path Of navigation. Whittier
they 20 no word goes before them.
They descend unobserved, grimly
quietly. Not until they nave struck
is their presence known. Then
they take their toll. They destroy
a ship, and from it another of their
kind is made. 1t is their way of
multiplying and spreading the
breed. That is why it is so i'm.
portant that they be destroyed.
But now the Seneca has steamed
into the province of the derelict.
High in the mast the lookout is
casting his eyes on all sides. If he
is not alert the drelict may attack
those on board the Seneca. Self
preservation is strong in a vampire.
But now the tip Of a submerged
mass rises above a distant swell.
Caught in a sudden pitch Of the sea,
the derelict has revealed itself.
From the lookout's nest the cry
sounds. The speed of the Seneca