Page:Athletics and Manly Sport (1890).djvu/412

Rh the radiance of this aroused Southern Cinderella, as she reaches northward for her borrowed coronet.

But we have kept the tug waiting more than an hour, and the captain, a manly, weather-tanned fellow, apologizes for having to keep an engagement to tow a railroad float across the harbor, before he starts with us for the lock.

What matter for a few hours' delay here or there? We have cut our social and orderly bonds, and we gladly sit and smoke on the tug, while she pulls and pushes and screams and at last backs the tremendous float into open water, and buckles to her heavy tow with the grunting earnestness of honest toil. We also improve the waiting by arranging our baggage, oiling gun and rifle, fixing hooks and lines, and otherwise giving a last touch to the arrangements.

At one o'clock the tug started with us for the lock. There was a queer nervousness about us as we neared the place, caused by our complete ignorance of what the swamp was like.

"You see that schooner yonder?" said the captain of the tug, looking across the fields round which the crooked river winds. "She is lying at the lock of the canal, loading with lumber from the swamp."

Presently one of the hands on the tug pointed