American Falls press. [volume] (American Falls, Idaho) 1907-1937, 1917-06-15

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It Was a Short, Sharp Battle.
as barratrous conduct on the part Of
tie skipper Enough to prove him In
sane
And. further 10 strengthen this pos
silla aspect of the case. Elisha found
a blank space on the leaf of the log
book which recorded the first meeting
and bargain to tow and filed it with
The potential sentence, steamers com
mander acts strangely" For a well
kept logbook is excellent testimony in
court.
Elisha possessed a fairly practical
and ingenious mind and with a flexible
steel straight edge rule and a ckrss-
room globe in the shippers room laid
out his course.
The third days sun arose to show
them an empty deck on the schooner,
over a dozen specks far astern and
to the southwark and an eastbound
steamship on their port bow. The
specks could be nothing but the dories,
and they were evidently trying to in
terCept the steamship. Elisha yelled
In delight.
They've abandoned ship-just what
/ hoped form the dories. They've no
case at all nOwr'
but what for, Elisha ?" asked Mar
tin. Mus be hungry, | t'ink."
"Mebbe, or else they think that liner,
who can stop only to save life-carries
the mails. you see-wlll turn round and
put EN- In charge here. Why, nothin'
but an English man-o'-war could do
that now"
They saw the steamship slow down.
while the black specks docked up to
her, and then go on her way. And they
went on theirs. But three days later
they had reasoned out a better expla
nation Of the Englishmen's conduct.
Martin came on deck with a worried
face and announced that, running short
Of salt meat IN the harness cask, he
had broken out the barrels OF beef.
pork and hard bread that he had count
ed upon and found their contents alb
s~olutely uneatable, far gone in pu-
t~rescence, alive with crawling things.
Must ha' thought he was fitting out
a Yankee hell ship when be bought
this" said Elisha in disgust as he look
ed into the I'll smelling barrels. over
board with it. boys
They resigned themselves to a gloomy
outlook. gloomier when Amos reported
that the coal IN the bunkers would last
but two days longer.
He had been mistaken, he said. He
had calculated to run compound en-
gines with Scotch boilers. not a full
powered blast furnace with six inches
n scale on the crown sheets.
And they knew this, groaned Eli
sha. That's why they chucked the
STUFF oyerboard-to bring us to terms
and never thinkiu they'd starve first.
They were dead luny, but we're
lunier."
They stopped the engines and visited
the schooner In the dory Not a scrap
Of food was there. aud the fish kettle
was scraned brixht. They returned and
went on With plenty Of coal there
was still six days run ahead to New
York. How many with wood fuel
chopped on empty stomachs and burn
ed IN coal furnaces. they could not
guess. Bur they went to work.
There were three axes, two top mauls
and several handspikes and pinch bars
aboard. and with these they attacked
bulkheads and spare woodwork and
fed the fires with the fragments, for a
glance down the matches had shown
them nothing more combustible and
detachable in the cargo than a few
layers Of railroad iron. which covered
and blocked the openings to the lower
hohi.
With the tools at hand they could
not supply the rapacious fires fast
enough to keep up steam, and the en-
gines slowed to a five knot rate. AS
this would not maintain a sufficient
tension on the dragging schooner to
/ steer by. they were forced to sacrifice
the best item in their claim for salvage.
They spllced the tiller ropes and steer
ed from the pilot house.
However, Elisha made no entry In
the log Of the splicing. trusting that a