When Blackburn felt the drowsiness coming over him, he stood up and baled
as the boat filled. The third day dawned without a ray of hope, and not a
morsel to eat or a drop to drink, so he stuck the oar through his wounded
fingers and rowed again.
The fourth day he saw land. He did not reach it until the afternoon of
the fifth day, when he landed at a deserted fish-wharf. No one could be
found, and he was too weak to move farther. So he lay down, more dead than
alive, and tried in vain to sleep, munching snow to quench his thirst.
The next day he went out in the dory to try to find some signs of life,
and in about three hours, the last remnant of his strength being gone, he
saw smoke and the roofs of some houses, and he knew that he was saved.
Even when he reached the shore in a pitiable condition, he would not go
into the house until they promised him to get the body of his dory-mate.
This heroic man lost his hands and the most of his toes, but he reached
Gloucester alive. The story of his grit and devotion to his dory-mate are
to-day told to the young fishermen of the fleet, and the men of the Banks
will sing his praises until Time shall have wiped out all things which
remain unrecorded.