第23章

They might have wondered more about it, but it was just at this time that they heard the shouts from the rescue boat--the big Mackinaw lifeboat--that had put out from the town with fourteen men at the sweeps when they saw the first rockets go up.

I suppose there is always something inspiring about a rescue at sea, or on the water.

After all, the bravery of the lifeboat man is the true bravery,--expended to save life, not to destroy it.

Certainly they told for months after of how the rescue boat came out to the Mariposa Belle.

I suppose that when they put her in the water the lifeboat touched it for the first time since the old Macdonald Government placed her on Lake Wissanotti.

Anyway, the water poured in at every seam.But not for a moment,--even with two miles of water between them and the steamer,--did the rowers pause for that.

By the time they were half-way there the water was almost up to the thwarts, but they drove her on.Panting and exhausted (for mind you, if you haven't been in a fool boat like that for years, rowing takes it out of you), the rowers stuck to their task.They threw the ballast over and chucked into the water the heavy cork jackets and lifebelts that encumbered their movements.There was no thought of turning back.They were nearer to the steamer than the shore.

"Hang to it, boys," called the crowd from the steamer's deck, and hang they did.

They were almost exhausted when they got them; men leaning from the steamer threw them ropes and one by one every man was hauled aboard just as the lifeboat sank under their feet.

Saved! by Heaven, saved, by one of the smartest pieces of rescue work ever seen on the lake.

There's no use describing it; you need to see rescue work of this kind by lifeboats to understand it.

Nor were the lifeboat crew the only ones that distinguished themselves.

Boat after boat and canoe after canoe had put out from Mariposa to the help of the steamer.They got them all.Pupkin, the other bank teller, with a face like a horse, who hadn't gone on the excursion,--as soon as he knew that the boat was signalling for help and that Miss Lawson was sending up rockets,--rushed for a row boat, grabbed an oar (two would have hampered him), and paddled madly out into the lake.He struck right out into the dark with the crazy skiff almost sinking beneath his feet.But they got him.They rescued him.

They watched him, almost dead with exhaustion, make his way to the steamer, where he was hauled up with ropes.Saved! Saved!!

They might have gone on that way half the night, picking up the rescuers, only, at the very moment when the tenth load of people left for the shore,--just as suddenly and saucily as you please, up came the Mariposa Belle from the mud bottom and floated.

FLOATED?

Why, of course she did.If you take a hundred and fifty people off a steamer that has sunk, and if you get a man as shrewd as Mr.Smith to plug the timber seams with mallet and marline, and if you turn ten bandsmen of the Mariposa band on to your hand pump on the bow of the lower decks--float? why, what else can she do?

Then, if you stuff in hemlock into the embers of the fire that you were raking out, till it hums and crackles under the boiler, it won't be long before you hear the propeller thud thudding at the stern again, and before the long roar of the steam whistle echoes over to the town.

And so the Mariposa Belle, with all steam up again and with the long train of sparks careering from the funnel, is heading for the town.

But no Christie Johnson at the wheel in the pilot house this time.

"Smith! Get Smith!" is the cry.

Can he take her in? Well, now! Ask a man who has had steamers sink on him in half the lakes from Temiscaming to the Bay, if he can take her in? Ask a man who has run a York boat down the rapids of the Moose when the ice is moving, if he can grip the steering wheel of the Mariposa Belle? So there she steams safe and sound to the town wharf!

Look at the lights and the crowd! If only the federal census taker could count us now! Hear them calling and shouting back and forward from the deck to the shore! Listen! There is the rattle of the shore ropes as they get them ready, and there's the Mariposa band,--actually forming in a circle on the upper deck just as she docks, and the leader with his baton,--one--two--ready now,--"O CAN-A-DA!"