I suppose the people on the Mariposa Belle would have had to settle down
there all night or till help came from the town, but some of the men
who had gone forward and were peering out into the dark said that it
couldn't be more than a mile across the water to Miller's Point. You
could almost see it over there to the left,--some of them, I think, said
"off on the port bow," because you know when you get mixed up in these
marine disasters, you soon catch the atmosphere of the thing.
So pretty soon they had the davits swung out over the side and were
lowering the old lifeboat from the top deck into the water.
There were men leaning out over the rail of the Mariposa Belle with
lanterns that threw the light as they let her down, and the glare fell
on the water and the reeds. But when they got the boat lowered, it
looked such a frail, clumsy thing as one saw it from the rail above,
that the cry was raised: "Women and children first!" For what was the
sense, if it should turn out that the boat wouldn't even hold women and
children, of trying to jam a lot of heavy men into it?
So they put in mostly women and children and the boat pushed out into
the darkness so freighted down it would hardly float.
In the bow of it was the Presbyterian student who was relieving the
minister, and he called out that they were in the hands of Providence.
But he was crouched and ready to spring out of them at the first moment.
So the boat went and was lost in the darkness except for the lantern in
the bow that you could see bobbing on the water. Then presently it came
back and they sent another load, till pretty soon the decks began to
thin out and everybody got impatient to be gone.
It was about the time that the third boat-load put off that Mr. Smith
took a bet with Mullins for twenty-five dollars, that he'd be home in
Mariposa before the people in the boats had walked round the shore.
No one knew just what he meant, but pretty soon they saw Mr. Smith
disappear down below into the lowest part of the steamer with a mallet
in one hand and a big bundle of marline in the other.
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.