The Mellette County pioneer. [volume] (Wood, Mellette County, S.D.) 19??-1971, 1922-06-16

orders began TO become audible. Alan,
~scrambling TO his knees, put an arm
under old Burr, half raising him the
form encircled by his arm struggled
up. The skipper, who had knocked
Burr away from the wheel, ignored him
now. The old man, dragging himself
up and holding to Alan, was staring
with terror at the snow screen behind
which the vessel had disappeared. His
lips moved.
1T was a ship" he said he seemed
speaking more TO himself than TO Alan.
Yes" Alan said. at was a ship;
and you thought"
1T wasn't there!" the wheelsman
cried. 'It's-it's been there all the
time all night, and ibid steered
through 1t ten times, twenty times,
every few minutes; and then-that
time it was a ship"
Alan's excitement grew greater; he
seized the old man again. "You thought
1t was the Miwaka! !" Alan exclaimed.
THE Mlwaka! And you tried to steer
through 1t again"
The Miwaka! !" old Burr's lips relt-
Grated the word. Yes; yes-the Mi
waka!"
He struggled, writing with som
agony not physical. Alan tried to hold
him, but now the old mar was beside
himself with dismay. He broke away
and started aft. The captains voice
recalled Alan TO himself, as he was
about to follow, and he turned back TO
the wheelhouse.
The second officer, who had gone be-
low to ascertain the damage done to
the ferry, came up TO report. Two of
the compartments, those which had
taken the crush of the collision. had
flooded instantly; the %bulkheads were
holding-only l1lking a little. the Off
Ger declared. Water was coming into
a third compartment, that AZ the stern;
the pumps We're fighting this water.
The shock had sprung seams else
where; but If the after compartment
did not fill, the pumps might handle
the rest.
Alan was at the bow again on look
Out duty, ordered to listen and to look
for the little boats. He gave to that
duty all his conscious attention: but
through his thought, whether he willed
it or not, ran q riOtOus e~XultatiOn. AS
he paced from side to side and hailed
and answered halls from the bridge,
and while he strained for sight and
hearing through the gale-swept snow,
the leaping pulse within repeated,
I've found him! I've found him !"
Alan held no longer possibility of
doubt Of old Burr's identity with Ben
jamin COrvet, since the old man had
made plain to him that he was haunt
i'll the house on AstOr street, when
SDearman shouted to Alan that name,
everything having to do with the Sc
cret of Benjamin COrvet's life had led,
so far as Alan could follow it, to the
Miwaka all the change, which Sher
for, Alan had laid to that. Corvet
only could have been so haunted by
that ghostly ship, and there had been
guilt Of some awful sort in the old
mans cry. Alan had found the man
who had sent him away to Kansas
when he was a child, who had support
ed him there and then, at last, sent
for him; who had disappeared at his
coming and left him all his posses
sions and his heritage Of disgrace, who
had paid blackmail to Luxe, and VINO
had sent, last, Captain Stafford's
watch and the ring which came with
1.-THE wedding ring.
Alan pulled his hand from his glove
and felt In his pocket for the little
band Of gold. What would that mean
to him now; what Of that was he to
learn? And, as he thought of that,
Constance Sheriff. came more insist
emily before him. What was he to
learn for her, for his friend and Ben
jamin COrvet's friend. whom he, Uncle
Benny, had warned not to care for
Henry Spearman, and then had gore
away to leave her to marry him? For
she was to marry him, Alan had read.
More serious damage than first re-
ported! The pumps certainly must be
losing their fight with the water in the
port compartment aft; for the bow
steadily was lifting, the stern sinking.
The starboard rail too was raised, and
the list had become so sharp hat wa
ter washed the deck abaft the fore
castle to port. And the ferry was
pointed straight into the gale now;
long ago she had ceased to circle and
steam slowly In search for boats; she
struggled with all her power against
the wind and the seas, a desperate in
sistence t%hrObbing In the thrusts of
the engines; for Number % was fee
ing-feeing for the western shore. She
dared no turn to the nearer eastern
shore to expose that shattered stern
to the seas.
Four bells beat behind Alan; II was
two o'clock. Relief should have come
long before; but no one came. He
was numbed now Ice from the spray
cracked upon his clothing when he