The Iron Boys on the Ore Boats Part 13

"That's where I have you. There is a bank of fog or mist settling over the lake. If you will raise your eyes a little to the right of the red light you will make out two faint blurs----"

"I see them, sir."

"Those are her masthead lights. I know the set of the masts of the Wyckoff boats, that's all. So will you, after you have been at sea long enough. It is all a matter of experience. I have been drilling up and down these lakes for the past thirty years. I ought to know a few things about them and the fellows who are navigating them. It's going to storm."

"Yes, sir," agreed the lad, but he did not see any signs of rain. The stars were bright overhead and the moon was shining brightly. "I see I have a few things to learn about the weather," he muttered.

A few minutes later Steve discovered that the moon and the stars had suddenly disappeared. The captain knew they would, for the wind had veered to the southeast and he had seen the fog bank settling down since the first moment he entered the pilot house. The rain started in shortly afterwards in a thin drizzle.

"Hey, up there, it's getting wet down here!" shouted Bob. "Hand me down an umbrella or something."

"Keep a sharp lookout, lads," warned the captain. "Remember we've got a load of coal across our bows."

"Aye, aye, sir," answered Steve. "I think I can see quite a way ahead of us."

"That is a mistake. You can't see a ship's length ahead. Keep your eyes open."

"I will, sir."

"Where is your raincoat?"

"I am afraid I have none. I never thought to bring one with me."

"Tell your friend Jarvis to go to my cabin and ask the steward for two coats."

Steve did so, and a few minutes later the lads were well protected from the storm, which was now upon them in full force. The rain was coming down in blinding sheets by this time, beating into the faces of the Iron Boys.

Suddenly Steve leaned over the edge of the bridge, shading his eyes with his hand. Something that he thought he had observed in Bob's position had attracted his attention. He gazed more keenly, then uttered a little gasp. Jarvis was standing with his head down, facing away from the storm toward the stern of the ship. He looked very comfortable and contented.

"Bob!"

Steve's tone was stern.

"Bob!"

"What do you want?"

"Turn around and be quick about it!" Steve was speaking too low for the officers in the pilot-house to hear. "Don't you know that the safety of the ship depends largely on our watchfulness at this minute, and----"

"Clang, clang, clang, clang, clang clang," interrupted the ship's clock in the pilot-house.

Steve grasped the cord attached to the clapper of the big bell in front of the bridge, giving it six steady jerks.

"Six bells, eleven o'clock. All lights are burning brightly, sir," Rush called in the singsong voice of the sailor.

"Aye, aye," answered the deep voice of the mate from the darkness of the pilot-house.

"Reduce speed to one-half," commanded the captain, in a low voice. He usually gave his commands calmly, no matter how great the stress or emergency. "Do you see anything of that coal carrier, Rush?"

"No, sir; she must be some distance away from us by this time."

"She ought to be, but she isn't."

"May I ask how you know that, sir?"

"I get her smoke."

"I don't make it out, sir."

"Neither do I, by sight, but I see it through my nose. I smell it."

"Well, doesn't that beat all!" muttered Rush.

He bent every energy toward piercing the black bank ahead. For the first time Steve Rush experienced a sense of uneasiness, and for the first time he realized what the perils of the sea meant. Before, it had seemed to him that, unless a ship were laboring in a great storm, there could be little danger. Once a minute the siren far back in the darkness, near the engine superstructure, would wail out a long, dismal blast which, a moment later, was answered by the ship out there somewhere ahead. The sound of the other boat's siren did not seem to Steve Rush to be getting any nearer, but to the experienced ears of Captain Simms quite the contrary was plain.

"Look steady, down there!" he warned in a sharp tone which told Rush there was something that he did not know about was likely to happen.

"Look sharp!" he repeated to Bob Jarvis.

"I'm looking. I'm----"

Steve Rush's voice cut in quick and sharp, though there was little trace of excitement in it.

"Sheer off! Ship dead ahead!"

"Hard a-port!" commanded the captain, at the same time sounding a long wailing blast on the siren.

A deafening crash followed almost upon the command.

CHAPTER VIII

THE CRASH IN THE FOG

STEVE was thrown flat on his face on the bridge, while Bob Jarvis doubled up, wedged into the forepeak of the boat on the deck below.

"Full speed astern!" roared the captain.

The chains of the pilot-house telegraph rattled ominously and the propeller, nearly six hundred feet aft of the bridge, began whirling the other way at tremendous speed.

"Hey! What--what--what's happened?" shouted Bob Jarvis. "Have we hit the sh.o.r.e?"

"Close the water-tight bulkheads!" commanded Captain Simms. The mate threw over the electric switch that gave the signal for the closing of all water-tight doors and bulkheads.

"Sound the general alarm!"