Page:The Indian Drum (1917 original).pdf/374

356 "His name was Caleb Stafford," Father Perron began. "(This is what Benjamin Corvet told to me, when he was dying under the wreckage on the ferry.) 'He was as fair and able a man as the lakes ever knew. I had my will of most men in the lake trade in those days; but I could not have my will of him. With all the lakes to trade in, he had to pick out for his that traffic which I already had chosen for my own. But I fought him fair, Father—I fought him fair, and I would have continued to do that to the end.

I was at Manistee, Father, in the end of the season—December fifth of 1895. The ice had begun to form very early that year and was already bad; there was cold and a high gale. I had laid up one of my ships at Manistee, and I was crossing that night upon a tug to Manitowoc, where another was to be laid up. I had still a third one lading upon the northern peninsula at Manistique for a last trip which, if it could be made, would mean a good profit from a season which so far, because of Stafford's competition, had been only fair. After leaving Manistee, it grew still more cold, and I was afraid the ice would close in on her and keep her where she was, so I determined to go north that night and see that she got out. None knew, Father, except those aboard the tug, that I had made that change.

At midnight, Father, to westward of the Foxes, we heard the four blasts of a steamer in distress—the four long blasts which have sounded in my soul ever since! We turned toward where we saw the steamer's lights; we went nearer and, Father, it was his great, new ship—the Miwaka! We had heard two days before that she had passed the Soo; we had