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!"