Licking Valley courier., 1922-03-23
CHAPTER |.

The Man Whom the Storm Haunted.
Near the northern end of Lake
Michigan, where the bluff-bowed ore
carriers and the big, low-lying, wheat
laden steel freighters from Lake Su,
perior push out from the Straits Of
Macklnac and dispute the right of
way, In the standardized channel,
with the whlte-and-gold, electric-light'
ed, wireless-equipped passenger steam.
ers bound for Detroit and Buffalo,
there is copse Of pine and hemlock
back from the shingly beach. From
this copse-dark, blue, primeval, silent
at most times as when the Great Mani.
tou ruled his inland waters-there
comes at time Of storm sound like
the booming Of an old Indian drum.
This drum beat, so the tradition says,
whenever the lake took life; and,
as sign perhaps that II is still the
Manitou who rules the waters in spite
Of all the commerce Of the cities, the
drum still beats Its roll for every ship
lost on the lake, one beat for every
life.
So-men say-they heard and count
ed the beatings of the drum to thirty
five upon the hour when, as afterward
they learned, the great steel steamer
Wenota sank with twenty-four of Its
crew and eleven passengers; so-men
say-they heard the requiem Of the
Ave who went down with the schooner
Grant; and Of the seventeen lost with
the Susan Hart; and so Of a score Of
ships more. Once only, It is told, has
the drum counted wrong.
At the height Of the great storm of
December, 1895, the drum beat the
roll of a sinking ship. One, two,
three-the hearers counted the drum
beats. time and again, In their inter,
mittent booming, to twenty.four. They
waited, therefore for report of ship
lost with twenty-four lives; no such
news came. The new steel freighter
Miwaka, on her maiden trip during
he storm with twenty-hve-not twen-
ty-fOur-aboard never made her port;
no news was ever heard from her; no
wreckage ever was found. On this ac-
count, throughout the families whose
fathers, brothers and sons were the
officers and crew Of the Mlwaka, there
stirred for q time desperate belief
that one Of the men on the Mlwaka
was saved that somewhere. somehow.
he was alive and might return. The
day of the destruction Of the Mlwaka
was fixed as December 3 by the time
at which she passed the government
lookout at the straits; the hour was
fixed as five o'clock In the morning
only by the sounding Of the drum.
Storm-the stlnglng, frozen sleet
slash of the February norther whls.
tllng down the iloe-jammed length of
the lake-was assGulting Chicago. So
heavy was this frost on the panes of
the Fort Dearborn club-One OF the
staidest Of the downtown clubs for
men-that the great log fires blazing
on the open henrths added appreclable
light as well as warmth TO the rooms,
The few members present at this
hour Of the afternoon showed by their
lazy attitudes and the desultorlness
nf thair annVapsottnn thn J,,tIt,.. 80
vitality which warmth and shelter
bring on day OF cold and storm. On
one, however, the storm had had con
trory effect. With swift, uneven step
he paced now one room, now another;
from time to time he stopped ub
ruptly by window, scraped from +
with finger nail the frost, stared out
for nm instant through the little open
Ing he had made then resumed as ab
ruptly his nervous pacing With n man.
ner so uneasy and dlstrnught that,
since his arrival ut The club I'm hour
before, none even among those who
knew him best had ventured to speak
to him.
The man who was pacing restlessly
and alone the rooms Of the Fort Dear.
born club on this stormy afternoon
was the man who, to most people, bod.
led forth the life underlying all other
commerce thereabouts but the least
known the life Of the lakes,
The lakes, which ng.s. unmIstak.