

Juty 27, 1907:] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
129 
———EE 

carried Poquosin’s flag in the lead of one part 
of the flotilla to Lynn Haven, forty miles down 
the bay. Another Poquosin canoe led the others 
into the lee of Old Point Comfort. In the stress 
of meeting the wind, not one had seen the 
Thomas canoe foul the stake, nor were the two 
missed in the divided fleet. : ; 
The men on the stake hoped the storm was a 
mere squall which would pass in an hour or 
two, but they were disappointed.’ When the 
flurry of the advance had passed by, .the broken 
gusts gave way to a steady blow. The tempera- 
ture fell 30 degrees in half an hour, chilling the 
cotton-clad men to the bone. The short, fast 
waves changed to huge rollers which, breaking 
over the spit, buried the men in the smother 
and passed on, leaving them swung in the air 
on the cutting twine. Time and again they re- 
covered their footing on the bolt-rope, only to 
be swept from it by waves that bent the stakes 
far over and stretched them out in the foaming 
crests. At last they hung limp. The cut of the 
cord was eased by numbness of nerve and chill 
of cold. 
As each wave passed by, they shook the water 
from their eyes and looked about them. They 
could tell how far they could see almost to a 
fathom, for the pound stakes were six feet apart. 
Looking along the line of hedging, they could 
count eight or ten stakes, and beyond these 
they could see a blur of three or four more. 
In a moment of lull, Dave shouted: 
“We got ‘em sot purty straight, Did!” e 
Yasseh! They won’t blow out nuther—sot 
solid!” 
Hardship and endurance were not new to 
these men. They were their daily experience. 
Cold or heat “burned” their faces, salt water ate 
into their flesh and unremitting toil bent their 
shoulders till they ached with unceasing pains. 
Yet now the day seemed longer than usual, 
and one thing affected them much—they were 
helpless. They could hardly bring -themselves 
to realize that the answer to the question of 
life or death depended upon something utterly 
beyond their own control. ? 
Finding the waiting monotonous, they fell to 
counting the stakes; watched the waves coming 
till the water overwhelmed them; studied the 
patterns of foam. With an awe they had never 
felt before, they saw the daylight fade from be- 
fore their eyes, vanishing in a gloom of driving 
rain. 
The night was not without its spectacles. The 
crest of every wave was aglow with phosphor- 
escent fire; against the windward sides of the 
stakes the gleam rose and fell with every passing 
swell. Looking down they saw the same pale 
fire rising about’ their own bodies. Watching 
the varying shades and streaks of lhght, each 
began to see tresses and banners of flame, some 
of them apparently borne by spectres of the 
storm and night—and all were hurtling down 
wind, a shrieking host. 
The twine which bound them to the stake had 
cut deeply by this time, smarting most of all 
when the waves tugged at them. Thirst dried 
their throats, so that they turned their open 
mouths to the sky and caught the rain—but even 
that was salt, laden with driven spume. 
Once in the night there -came a rift in the 
storm. For a moment the York Spit Light was 
visible, but it disappeared again as the men 
fixed their eyes on its comforting rays. When 
it was gone, the night seemed blacker and 
longer than ever. A time came when. eacli 
hung for moments at a stretch, unseeing and 
thoughtless. After such an interval, Did -sud- 
denly came to himself to find that dawn was at 
hand. 
“Dave! Dave!” he cried hoarsély, “Hit’s 
day!” ; 
“Yassuh!’”’? came the response, “the wind’s 
laid some, too!” : 
Their eyes were turned southward now. Per- 
haps the steamer Mobjack, bound from Nor- 
folk to wharves on Mobjack Bay inlets, would 
come. But as the minutes passed they grew 
faint, thinking the steamboat hour had gone 
by, nevertheless they tried to encourage each 
other by saying that “time ain’t goin’ fast!” 
Captain Caffey left Norfolk that morning as 
usual. The Mobjack came up the bay and 
BLACK SKIMMERS NESTING WITHOUT FEAR 
found thick, rough weather. She passed York 
Spit Light and went into North River without 
seeing the victims of the storm. As she passed 
Dave caught a sound in the roar of the gale 
which he thought was the Mobjack’s whistle. 
He said as much,- but Did had not caught the 
murmur. They looked eagerly about for a 
time, hoping to see the boat, but gave up and 
settled down to another twenty-four hours on 
the stake. .Then up wind both men heard a 
sound that was unmistakable—a steamer mak- 
ing landing at New Point Comfort. 
“Hit’s the Mobjack!” both men cried, but 
when they tried to look up wind, they could not 
twist their bodies far enough to see that way. 
Though they tried, they knew that on such a 
day they could not see the steamer a mile. Then 
they heard her as she left the landing—the last 
of her round—and headed for Norfolk. . In a 
desperate effort, they succeeded in twisting 
themselves enough so that both could turn their 
eyes toward York Spit Light, out of sight 
in the murk. The steamer would cross the 
shoal somewhere between the light and the two 
men on the stake. Did, who was on that side, 
could see furthest north, and he watched with 
increasing hope, while the steamer came nearer, 
She came in sight not a mile away, booming 
before the gale, homeward bound. 
At first a mere shade in the gray murk, the 
steamer gradually loomed clearer. and clearer 
until both men could see the stacks and pilot 
house—could almost see the man at the wheel. 
As she came abreast of them, both men uttered 
a cry and waved their arms feebly. They 
watched for the puffs of steam which would in- 
dicate a whistle answer to their signal, but none 
came. She kept to. her course. They saw her 
fade slowly from view. 
“Lawse!” Dave cried, 
anotheh day!” 
Their strength Japsed and left them utterly 
weak; their splendid courage, the development 
of two hundred years of unflinching seaman- 
ship, fell from them; hope at last disappeared. 
For the first time they realized that they, men 
unwilling to die, were face to face with death. 
Then a strange thing happened. There came a 
rift in the gray murk, and gazing, almost 
stupefied, down wind, Did saw the steamer once 
more. She was far away, but as clearly defined 
against the background down the lane in the 
storm as though she were running in sunlight. 


“we gotter stay yeah 
At the sight, Did gathered all his strength, 
raised both arms to make the most appealing 
gesture the human form can show, and then 
fainted. 
Capt. Caffey was in the pilot house of the 
Mobjack, looking back on the wake of his boat. 
Far astern he saw the black lines of pound-net 
stakes, and on one he noticed a curious lump. 
Picking up his glasses, he focused them on it 
just as Did’s arms came up. \ 
“T knew what they were looking for,” Capt. 
Caffey said afterward, “and I grabbed the 
whistle lever—four blasts!’ 
WHILE 

THEM, 
WARDEN SPRINKLE SITS AMONGST 
Dave saw the puffs of steam, and counted the 
blasts aloud. 
“One-two-three-four! They 
yelled. -“Did! They see us!” 
the starboard side of the Mobjack was be- 
ginning to lengthen as she came about, when 
the rift in the storm failed, and they were once 
more shut in by a waste of murk and waters. She 
next appeared looming huge in the storm scarcely 
half a cable length away. She ran past the two, 
around the end of the pound, and came to a 
stop to windward. A life boat was cleared and 
the crew came down-to the stake, where they 
finally succeeded in cutting the two loose. Then 
the boat was hauled back to the steamer by a 
long line, and all hands were swung up in the 
davits. 
A few hours later the two brothers were in Nor- 
folk hospital, from which they emerged after a 
time, perhaps as well as ever, but they will wear 
to the grave the marks of the cords that lashed 
them to the stake. 
see us!” .he 
Effects of Gulf Storms. 
THE storm which raged in the Gulf of Mexico 
in ‘September, 1900, culminating in the destruc- 
tion of Galveston, was severe enough; but ‘the 
storm of Sept. 26, 27 and 28, 1906, in my opinion 
was the worst that ever visited that region. For 
instance, in the southern part of the State of 
Mississippi, situated in the great pine forests, 
are some of the largest saw mills in this coun- 
try, and yet they have not at this writing begun 
to cut all the fallen timber which was thrown 
down on the last mentioned date. ‘The presi- 
dent of one big concern recently told me that 
notwithstanding the fact that his mill had been 
running day and night since the storm cutting 
“wind falls,” his company would lose upward of 
a million dollars’ worth of timber which would 
be injured by worms before they could get to it. 
Out on Breton Reservation, off the southeast 
coast of Louisiana, the storm was particularly 
severe. Southwest Harbor Key, a shell reef of 
probably a thousand acres in extent, was slashed 
and torn until only a remnant is left. Grand 
Cochere, the wonderful bird breeding island, was 
bodily torn out of the gulf and scattered far and 
wide. Since then it has slowly built up, but the 
accompanying photograph, showing the island at 
low tide, will give a faint idea of that desolation. 
After the waters of the gulf ‘had destroyed 
these two islands they turned their attention te 
Breton Island. Breton Island was six miles long 
and three-quarters of a mile wide at its greatest 
width. It had stood for ages presenting a chal- 
lenging and unbroken front to the wild scrim- 
mage of the hurricanes which rush in from the 
tropical seas. 
The waters did not attack the island at its’ 
most vulnerable point—that were too easy. But 
at one certain spot where stood a sand bank 
thirty feet high, three hundred feet long and two 
hundred feet wide, the assualt was concentrated. 
What took place no eye saw, but to-day one 

