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She decided to run to the railroad track and climb a telegraph pole a feat which, owing to her free life on the ranch, she was perfectly capable of. Once up the pole, she could rest on the cross-tree, in perfect safety from the wolves, and she would be sure to be seen and rescued by the first train that came along after daybreak. She approached the track over perfectly dry ground.
It was an exhausting run over the rough, little-used road, now darkened by the overhanging trees; but at length Jack recognized the point at which he had been carried from the woods, and turning in, soon found himself at the railroad. Hurrying to the nearest telegraph pole, he swarmed up to the cross-tree, and quickly filed through the wire on one side of the glass insulator.
Like caged eagles the crews passed many a weary week of dull monotony without the chance of swooping on a chase. "Smoke ho!" would be called from the main-topgallant cross-tree. "Where away?" would be called back from the deck. "Up the river, Sir!" and there it would stay, the very mark of hope deferred.
With a choice of evils he should have preferred walking the plank, or even dying quietly in his bed, to being stifled by a rope. To dangle from a cross-tree like a half-filled bag offended all instincts of picturesqueness, and first and last he had been picturesque. He asked at once for pencil and paper. His wishes were obeyed with deference.
Now Faith didn't care anything about Dan, except the quiet attachment that she couldn't help, from living in the house with him, and he'd always petted and made much of her, and dressed her like a doll, he wasn't the kind of man to take her fancy: she'd have maybe liked some slender, smooth-faced chap; but Dan was a black, shaggy fellow, with shoulders like the cross-tree, and a length of limb like Saul's, and eyes set deep, like lamps in caverns.
He came back to the captain and leveled it in the direction indicated by the captain. "Do you see anything?" "I do, sir." "What is it?" "I see the top gallant of a ship." "I thought I was not mistaken. Can you make out her colors?" "I will go aloft, captain, and see." The mate ascended to the foretop cross-tree, and took a long survey of the stranger.
"Lambert, go up to the cross-tree and keep a sharp lookout, as the sun comes up, and see if you can make land." "I can make out the land, sir," the sailor called down as soon as he reached the cross-tree. "It stands well up. I should say that you can see it from deck." The mate and Frank walked further aft and looked out under the boom. The land was plainly visible against the glow of the sky.
A song is as necessary to sailors as the drum and fife to a soldier. They can't pull in time, or pull with a will, without it. Many a time, when a thing goes heavy, with one fellow yo-ho-ing, a lively song, like "Heave, to the girls!" "Nancy oh!" "Jack Cross-tree," etc., has put life and strength into every arm.
But the cross-tree saved him, as the lad figured that it would. One hand was clinging to Bruiser's tail, the other arm thrown about the mast. Now, Bruiser took a hand. With a snarl of rage he fastened in the hair of Teddy Tucker's head, causing that young man to howl lustily.
What's that figgerhead in y'r main to'gallan' cross-tree? I was the mate, you know. I talked to that chap. He learned something about getting the booze out of him before he came aboard. He got a move on. "We were over four months making 'Frisco that voyage, and she the sailer she was. Why, she's logged thirteen knots. But she could get nothing right, not for long.
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