Page:A strange, sad comedy (IA strangesadcomedy00seawiala).pdf/207

Rh afternoon was gray, and a biting east wind was blowing.

The Colonel got to the landing in ample time, but it would be dusk before the great river steamboat would arrive. Meanwhile, he went into the little waiting-room, with its red-hot stove, and conversed amicably with the wharfinger, a blacksmith, and two drummers, waiting to take the boat "up the bay." It was almost dark when a long, shrill whistle resounded, and everybody jumped up, saying, "The boat!" A truck loaded with boxes and freight of all sorts, and the drummers' trunks, and drawn by a patient mule, was started down the tramway on the wharf that extended nearly four hundred yards into the river. The Colonel, like most country gentlemen, liked to see what was to be seen, and walked out on the wharf to watch the exciting spectacle of the boat making her landing.

The sky had darkened still more, and it looked as if more snow were coming. The great, broad salt river, with its fierce tides and foaming like the ocean that it was so near, was quite black, except for the phosphorescent glare left in the steamer's wake as she