The Powerful Tow Boat Used ix the Operation 



LAKING 



Bv W. R. Brown 



IT WAS the still hour just preceding 

 dawn, a time of almost supernatural 

 calm, broken only by the intermit- 

 tent puff-puff of our smoke stacks, 

 alternating with the chug-chug of paddle 

 blades as they churned the water. A 

 few clear stars reflected into the 

 infinite lake that stretched mirror like 

 to the shadowy shores, and at the stern 

 of our great boxlike boat, lay a vast 

 floating field of logs, at which it tugged 

 unceasingly, and w^hich extended, 

 blacker than the black water to lose 

 itself in the night. Above, a dim 

 light in the pilot house, and below, an 

 occasional glow from the ruddy fur- 

 naces, alone told of human vigilance. 

 The Captain was nodding over his 

 wheel, and the stoker had chosen this 

 propitious moment for a comfortable 

 doze in the warm corner of the boiler 

 room, when somewhere in the vague 

 distance came the sound made by the 



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splash of an oar, losing itself, and again 

 becoming more and more regular and 

 distinct . 



Almost simultaneously wdth this defi- 

 nite punctuation of the night, arose the 

 long, w^eirdcry of the loon far up the lake, 

 and at this peal of tremulous laughter 

 the Captain shook himself from stupor, 

 and with a characteristic tug at his hat, 

 as if to assure himself of attention, 

 w^ent outside on the upper deck to 

 determine the location of that mournful 

 chuckle and read the potents of the 

 dawn. Soon the cry of the wilderness 

 arose again in the North, foretelling 

 the wind that would surely come from 

 that quarter with sunup, and, in the 

 intenseness that followed the echo of 

 those lonely notes, carae again the 

 regular creak of the oarlocks over the 

 water. 



As the Captain climbed down the 

 short ladder from the pilot house into 



