Williams news., 1922-09-22

| 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 SHOW screen behind | which the vessel had disappeared. His lips moved. l '. "It was shipi" he said he seemed | speaking more to himself than to Alan. "Yes," Alan said. '.It was a. ship {; and you thought"
 "It wasn't there i':s the wheelsman cried. 'It's-it's been there all the time all night, and Td-Td1 steered [ through, 1t ten times, twenty times, every few minutes st and then-that time 1t was a shipI" f -'ef Alan's excitement Erew greater; he seized the old man again: "You: thought 1t was the Miwaka In Alan exclaimed
 ;''The Miwaka! And zou tried to steer l through it again.
 .'The Miwaka I'' old Burr's lips reit-
 erated the word. "Yes: yes-the Mi waka I' =. =: He struggled, wrf5hing with some agony not physical. Alan tried to hold him, but now the old man. was beside himself with dismay1 He broke ,away and started aft. The captains voice recalled Alan to himself, as he was about to fellow, and be turned back. to
 the wheelffouse. s .f&s. -f- r. 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 leaking a little, the off,
 cer declared. Water was coming into
 a third compartment, that at the stern;
 the pumps were 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 a riotous exultation 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 Ieaping pulse within repeated,
 I've found him I've. found him I''
 AldA lelu AO lOuSeT pOSSlDlllIy OI
 doubt of old Burr's identity with Ben jamin Corvet, since the old man had made plain to him that he was haunt ed by the Miwaka. Since that night: ill the house on Astor= street, when Spearman shouted to Alan that name, everything having to do with the Se- cret of Benjamin Corvet's life had led, so far as Alan could follow 1t, to the Miwaka; all the change, which Sher- Till described but could not account for, Alan had laid to that. Corvet only could have been so haunted by that yhostly 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 sfons and his heritage of disgrace, who had paid biackmaiI to Luke, and who had sent, last, Captain Staffords 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 SEerr1u came more insist | ently before him. What was he to learn for her, fo,' his friend and Ben 5aIntn Corvet's fr4end, whom he, Uncle | Benny, had warned not to care for | Henry Spearman, and then had gone away to leave her to marry him7 For she was to marry him, Alan had read. i More; serious damage than first re- | portedi The pumps certainly must be l 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, 6nG the list had become so sharp that wa | ter washed the deck abaft the fore | castle to port And the ferry was i! 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- l sistence throbbing in the thrusts of | the engines; for Number 25 was flee | fng-heeing for the western shore She | dared not turn to the. nearer eastern | shore to expose that shattered stern | to the seas.
 Four bells beat behind Alan 1t 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 moved, and 1t fell in flakes upon the | deck. The stark figure on the bridge | was that of the second officer; so the | thing which was happening below l