Page:The Indian Drum (1917 original).pdf/58

42 wrecking. Steamers were taking their place. Towing had come in. The first of the whalebacks was built about that time, and we began to see those processions of a barge and two, three, or four tows which the lakemen called 'the sow and her pigs.' Men of all sorts had come forward, of course, and, serving the situation more or less accidentally, were making themselves rich.

"It was railroading which had brought me West; but I had brought with me the Alabama money to put into ships. I have called it sentiment, but it was not merely that; I felt, young man though I was, that this transportation matter was all one thing, and that in the end the railroads would own the ships. I have never engaged very actively in the operation of the ships; my daughter would like me to be more active in it than I have been; but ever since, I have had money in lake vessels. It was the year that I began that sort of investment that I first met Corvet."

Alan looked up quickly. "Mr. Corvet was—?" he asked.

"Corvet was—is a lakeman," Sherrill said.

Alan sat motionless, as he recollected the strange exaltation that had come to him when he saw the lake for the first time. Should he tell Sherrill of that? He decided it was too vague, too indefinite to be mentioned; no doubt any other man used only to the prairie might have felt the same.

"He was a ship owner, then," he said.

"Yes; he was a shipowner—not, however, on a large scale at that time. He had been a master, sailing ships which belonged to others; then he had sailed one of his own. He was operating then, I believe, two vessels;