DREAMS OVhk A DRIFTWOOD FIRE 





and to accelerate h f :r motion. A 

 main spencer of h< anvas 



on her mainmast and she was 

 at last head to the wind. She was 

 then motionless, so far as passing 

 through the water was concerned, 

 but she was far from motionless as 

 to pitching and rocking. 



All through the dreary, dismal 

 night we lay in this way. Th< 

 fell and the wind howled without 

 the slightest intermission. Morn- 

 ing brought no improvement. Of 

 course it was somewhat lighter, but 

 the thickly falling- snow made a haze 

 almost as impenetrable as night, 

 and any object more than a length 

 distant was invisible. 



At 10 a.m. the main spencer burst 

 and the ship began to pay off again 

 in spite of all effort. One or 2 

 storm stay-sails were set, but no 

 sooner did they feel the force of 

 the wind than they, too, burst off, 

 and the ship forged ahead, before 

 the ever increasing gale, into the 

 waste of unknown waters. 



This continued without change 

 until about 3 in the afternoon, 

 when suddenly the lookout forward 

 shouted : 



" Land ho, dead ahead." 



Scarcely a ship's length away a 

 perpendicular mass of rock, nearly 

 a hundred feet high, loomed up 

 through the driving snow, but we 

 had no time to contemplate this. 

 Scarcely had the voice of the look- 



out died a hen the ship struck 



with a fearful crash. 



So hard was the blow that I 

 man in the foretop was hurled far 

 out on the cliff, with a portion of the 

 spar to which he was clinging. The 

 ;el herself was torn open almost 

 to her foremast, and sank instantly 

 with all on board. The man in the 

 top was landed in the soft snow and 

 practically unhurt, but the terrible 

 blow received by the storm-tossed 

 ship roused me from my dreams. 

 In my struggles with the sailors I 

 had kicked over my writing table, 

 and the final crash was produced, so 

 far as I was concerned, by a pitcher 

 of ice water which hid been stand- 

 ing on the table and which by the 

 fall was thrown into my face. The 

 old piece of board on which the 

 name of the ship was carved had 

 slipped from my hands, the fire was 

 low and smoking, the romance was 

 over. 



A few days later I showed the bit 

 of board to an old man of these parts 

 who said, 



" I remember hearing my father 

 talk of that wreck. It happened 

 when he was a boy. But one man 

 was ever heard from. He was 

 thrown from the rigging just as the 

 ship struck." 



Why tell the tale again ? He re- 

 peated my dream almost as I had 

 appeared to see it. I leave it for 

 those who can explain. 



FROZEN OUT. 



" Jack broke his engagement with that 

 Boston girl and went to the Klondike." 

 "What for?" 

 " He said he wanted to get warm." 



