THE WRECKER 279 



mands, to sometimes outwit and confound the keenest 

 of the Cape Cod barristers. 



For a week I had been with four of these rugged 

 sea dogs, all of them seasoned with more than half a 

 century (one of them seventy years of age), and yet 

 when the winds are fierce, the fogs dense, the snows 

 blinding, they are one and all on the qui vive for the 

 signals of distress from some unfortunate coaster, or 

 steamer, or full-rigged ship, as the case may be. One 

 day I walked for miles along the beach, threading my 

 way among a cargo of southern, hard-pine lumber of 

 over two hundred thousand feet, which was piled high 

 and dry on the sand from the wreck of the Altamaha, 

 a Scotch vessel built forty-five years ago. This 

 lumber has been sold since for $2.75 and $2.25 per 

 thousand feet, but the purchaser had his hands full in 

 getting it to the Boston market, and his brain puzzled 

 to solve the question, not how much profit he would 

 reap, but how much he would lose on the purchase. 



Close by the island lay the wreck of Mr. Vander- 

 bilt's famous yacht, Alva, whose walnut fixtures and 

 trimmings were coming daily to shore. It took a con- 

 tractor some time to blow her to pieces and remove 

 the obstruction, the Government having awarded him 

 the contract for about $9,000, which was only half 

 the amount asked by the next lowest bidder. As a 

 working base for his operations the contractor brought 

 a little steamer down from Brooklyn. I saw the boat 



