Williams news., 1922-10-13
Copyright by Edwin Balmer CHAPTER xX-Continued

Eherrill asked.
 'What were the relations between Benjamin Corvet and Captain Staf- ford?"
 Sherrfll thought a moment.
 "Corvet," he replied, twas very able man; he had insight and mental Rrasp-and he had the fault which sometimes goes with those, hesitancy of action. Stafford was an able man. too, considerably younger than Corvet. Twenty years ago, when the conflict of competing interests was at It's height, Corvet was the head of one line, Stafford was head of another, and the two lines had very much the same connections and competed for the same cargoes."
 q. begin to r' Father Perron ex- claimed. "Please go on."
 "In the early nineties both lines still were young; Stafford had, I believe, two ships; Corvet had three"
 "So few2 Yes; it grows plainer '"
 'Tn 1894, Stafford managed stroke which, If fate had not intervened, must have assured the ultimate extinction of Corvet's line or its absorption into Stafford's Stafford gained as his part ner Franklin Ramsdell, a wealthy man whom he had convinced that the lake traffic offered chances of great profit; and this connection supplied him with the capital whose lack had been ham, pering him, as it was still hampering Corvet. The new ffrm-Stafford and Ramsdell-projected the construction, with Ramsdelrs money, of a number of great steel freighters. The first of these-the Miwaka, test ship whose experience was to guide them in the construction of the reSt-waS launched in the fall of 1895, and was lost on its maiden trip with both Stafford and Ramsdel1 aboard. The Stafford and Ramsden interests could not survive the death of both owners and disap- peared from the lakes. Is this what you wanted to know?"
 The priest nodded. Alan leaned tensely forward, watching; what he had heard seemed to have increased and deepened' the priests feeling over what he had to tell and to have aided his comprehension of it.
 "His name was Caleb Stafford" Fla ther Perron began. "(This is what Benjamin Corvet told to me when he was dying under the wreckage on the ferry.) He was as fair and able a man as the lakes ever knew. l had my will of most men in the lake trade in those days; but I could not have my will of him. With all the lakes to trade in. he had to pick out for his that traffic which already had chosen for my own. But fought him fair, Fla ther-I fought him fair. and I would have continued to do that to the end.
 "T was at Manistee, Father, in the end of the season-December fifth of - 1895. The ice, had begun to form very early that year and was already bad ; there was cold and high gale. I had laid up one of my ships at Man1stee, and I was crossing that night upon a tug to Manitowoc. where another was to be laid up. I had still a third one loading up on the northern peninsula at Manistique for a last trip which, if it could be made, would mean a good profit from a season which so far, be cause of Stafford's competition, had been only fair. After leaving Manis- tee, it grew still more cold, and I was afraid the ice would close in on her and keep her where she was so I deter mined to go north that night and see that she got out. None knew, Father except those aboard the tug, that had made that change.
 "'At midnight, Father, to westward of the Foxes, we heard the four blasts of a steamer in distress four long blasts which have sounded in my sou ever sincei We turned toward where . we saw the steamers lights; we wen nearer and, Father, 1t was his grea ship-the Miwaka We had heard two days before that she had passed th' Soo; we had not known more than tha of where she was. She had broken hel new shaft, Father, and was intact ex cept for that. but helpless in the rising gea
 The priest broke off. 1.-The Miwaka did not understand all that that ha' meant to him until just now-the nev ship of the rival line, whose bufldfni meant for him failure and defeat!
 "There is no higher duty tran tn rescue of those in peril at sea. He Benjamin Corvet, who told me this swore to me that, at the beginnin none upon the tug had any thought e2 cept to give aid A small line wa drifted down to the tug and to this
 hawser was attached which the hauled aboard. There happened the the first of those events which le those upon the tug into doing grea wrong. He-Benjamfn Corvet-ha taken charge of the wheel of the tug three men were handling the hawse
 in ice and washing water at the srer
 The whistle accidentally blew, whic
 those on the Miwaka understood
 mean that the hawser had been g
 e,,rea- 70 they drew tn the slack: ti