Five Mile Beach weekly journal., 1915-11-19

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hinder us-jam the bay with logs or
tie us up some way"
might, only I've had John Teeter.
pole an klamath Sam walkin' tn
shores fer five days-an' they're the
two worst Siwashes on tn reservation
Hampden knows they're workin' fer
S'letz, an that when l said shoot or
cut they'd shoot or cut-ef it took -four
years an a dark night to do it."
That first day drifted by very swift.
ly, soft and sunny between showers.
and by four O'Clock the ebb of the tide.
grown slower and slower. had ceased
altogether. Daily and the rest tied up
the raft, head and tail on both sides.
using heavy steel ropes and chains, to
which they gave plenty of slack. They
cooked supper ashore and Sandry
thought he had never tasted better
fare. Afterward they lay about the
fire all together, smoking, and only
the silence Of the Siletz marked the
line of color. Triumph filed the heart
of the young fnancier and his last
drowsy thoughts were of the steamer
that was even now blowing down from
Portland to meet them, the huge check
that would follow his delivery Of the
logs-how he would lift a certain
mortgage of the load that hung upon
the Dillingworth, its greatest menace
in point Of time.
He walked to see the heavy chains
drawn taut, to hear the mass of tim.
bers creaking and grumbling as it
strained upstream. and knew that the
tide was in. The Siwash cook walked
the men by moonlight for breakfast
They must be ready to take advantage
OF the first motion toward the sea.
The casting loose, the slow start,
the moving of the night shores-San-
dry wished Miss Ordway might see
tit might be a bit of local color In
the mysterious book she was writing
in the little south room. His mind
went over that little room. He saw
the stand with the ancient Bible. He
shuddered a bit with the night chill
as he saw again the words, "Oh, Alb
salon! My son, my sonl"
Those were the last words that the
mind of the fastener were to know
for many days. The nose of the raft
where he was standing suddenly rose
under him like a thing of life. The
night opened, flame shot upward from
the dark waters, Unreasonable sound
smote his eardrums to silence, pain
that was uncomfortable stretched and
tore his limbs. He sailed away into
night and the world was not.
When the thing was Owe John Daily
picked himself up from where he had
been blown clear of the raft and the
water, landing in a tangle of %blueberry
vines, and screamed a curse at the
serene heavens. /.
"Oh, God damn his soul to hell" he
cried, half after the ann of a
prayer; he's blcwed her up at lastEE"
In the awful silence that fell IN the
first moments there set up a great
grooming of the timbers. The wrecked
and opened Prov of the raft slowed
to the right, jammed into the shore,
and was holding the rest, while the
strong tide urged it hard upon itself.
Above it Daily lifted his voice and
called his Indians, and there was an
guish in his heart. {
"Koottahl Snamishta! Memmilool"
From here and there voices an.
swered, some far, some near, and pres
emily figures crept fearfully into the
moonlight from the matted ferns, gath
ering about the foreman.
Here n dragged an injured ankle,
another stanched the blood from q
ragged scalp with his hands, and there
one wavered drunkenly from the fall
he had got, but all eight accounted for
themselves.
Boys" said Daily tensely, "all who
can swim get into the water quick!
Sandry was standin' alone at her nose.
It's a hundred to one he's done for!"
No one asked a question, the Indians
accepting with their pathetic fatalism
this disaster which would have set the
tongues of white men flying.
Silently the five who were unframed
except for bruises slipped into the
heavily running tidewater and disap-
peared amid the 1lotsam and jetsam Of
the long bay which travelled always
aimlessly back and forth.
The grooming Of the raft grew in vol
ume for a few minutes, then subsided
as it locked and settled. Daily on the
shore began threshing the ferns, filling
the night with his s%tentorian voice as
he called upon Sandry's name. From
time to time he listened. Then he
lighted a torch and widened his circle,
peering into every covert Of fern, be-
hind every log, and even searching the
branches of the trees. He had seen
the pines bear CHASTITY fruit a time or
two when a blast of giant powder had
gone wrong. i
After a long time he Strengthened
and his muddy face was blanched.
Done for!" he said aloud to the
dusk of the forest, bitterly. Down an
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