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I vow I will not move one step, unless carried away. Come what will, here I remain. We went this morning to see the cotton burning a sight never before witnessed, and probably never again to be seen. Wagons, drays, everything that can be driven or rolled, were loaded with the bales and taken a few squares back to burn on the commons.
There is the rush of passengers, the banging about of luggage, the hurrying to and fro on the decks, the roar of escaping steam, the working of immense steam cranes hoisting and lowering great bales of merchandise and luggage from the wharf to the hold, and here and there in quiet corners, away from the rush, are tearful people bidding good-bye to one another.
The dirty offscourings of all ragdom, first seen in the original bales, and gathered from the four corners of the globe, have endured many buffetings, many bruisings and tribulations, and having been washed come forth pure, sweet, and clean.
One of the expedients adopted by the enemy was to roll before them large bales of cotton, under which they managed to approach very near the walls. A well-directed fire from the batteries soon, however, set fire to these novel defences, and the skirmishers, panic-struck, took to flight before the main body had begun to advance.
The low building was evidently the stable, and into this I crept, for the door was unlatched. The place was full of bullocks and sheep, gathered there, no doubt, to be out of the clutches of marauders. A ladder led to a loft, and up this I climbed, and concealed myself very snugly among some bales of hay upon the top.
A brigade in the Hudson Bay service consisted of from four to twenty boats; each boat was supposed to carry from eighty to a hundred pieces of goods or bales of fur in addition to the supplies for the men. They were made out of spruce or balsam, and were like large skiffs, sharp at both ends. They were manned by nine men.
The two boys shoved the apparatus to the opened doors. Another shove and it toppled over and out. It landed safely, as they learned later. "Come on, here are some bales of hay and straw. Might as well save them, too," suggested Bert. "The fall won't hurt them, and the men can roll them out of the way before the flames reach them."
"I propose, therefore, that we go to some distance, out of their sight, and make a tent for ourselves. We shall find sufficient materials from the bales of cotton cloth which have been washed up." Mike and Nat agreed. "But, shure, they've got the iron kettle, and how are we to cook our mate without that?" exclaimed Mike.
Along the railway grade likewise there was activity, of construction trains laden high with rails, ties, boxes and bales, puffing out, their locomotives belching pitchy black smoke that extended clear to the ridiculous little cabooses; of wagon trains ploughing on, bearing supplies for the grading camps; and a great herd of loose animals, raising a prodigious spume as they were driven at a trot they also heading westward, ever westward, under escort of a protecting detachment of cavalry, riding two by two, accoutrements flashing.
And, when they had lighted their lanterns, the second mate jumped down the hatchway into the smoke, and four sailors jumped down after him. And they began tumbling about the bales of things; but they couldn't tumble them about very much, for there wasn't room, the cargo had been stowed so tightly. And the second mate asked Captain Solomon to rig a tackle to hoist some of the things out on deck.
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