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Updated: May 29, 2025
Then the steering-engine rattled as the rudder was pulled across and Oreana headed for another mark. The work was nervous, because dangerous shoals bordered the channels and Davies must let the steamer go. He knew when a risk must be run and the engineer was staunch. The trouble was, Oreana's boilers were bad; the money Cartwright durst not spend on repairs would have been a good investment now.
Cartwright shivered, but reflected that Davies, fighting the snow and gale, was no doubt colder. For a day or two he must bear the suspense, and then, if no cablegram arrived, he could take it for granted that Oreana had reached the Atlantic. After dinner he sat by the fire and smoked while Mrs. Cartwright knitted. "In the afternoon I went to Mrs. Oliver's and met Mrs. Seaton," she said presently.
Montgomery was moved, but he saw there was no more to be said and asked quietly: "Will you tell me what you think about the prospects of the line?" "On the whole, I imagine the prospects are good. We have got a useful boat for a very small sum, and the last report was Oreana could probably be floated without much damage when the St. Lawrence ice breaks.
I left Oreana at noon to go to Humboldt, but my horse sprained his foot on the rough mountain road, and I have had to come at a snail's pace ever since." "You are sadly out of your way, indeed, if you are going to Humboldt, for it is a good ten miles from here.
Cartwright glanced at the pictures in tarnished gold frames. Oreana, drawn plunging across an Atlantic comber, was the best of the fleet, but her engineer had for some time demanded new boilers. Since the reserve fund was low and other boats needed expensive repairs, Cartwright resolved to wait.
"No, sir; but the train on which I started met with an accident this morning, which was liable to detain it several hours, and being impatient of the delay, I procured a horse at Oreana, thinking I could easily reach Humboldt by evening, when I could return it by rail.
Oreana had sailed for Montreal, loaded to the limit the law allowed, and he had booked her return cargo before the Conference knew he was cutting rates. Mrs. Cartwright talked, but she talked much and Cartwright hardly listened, and looked across the lake. A canoe drifted out from behind a neighboring point, and its varnished side shone in the fading light.
"Yes, sir," said a voice he knew. "Cablegram from Davies just arrived, part in code. I'll give it you slow " "Go on," said Cartwright. "Oreana ashore east Cape Chat, surrounded ice, water in fore hold. Think some plates broken; have abandoned ship. Salvage impossible until ice breaks." There was a pause, and Gavin added: "That's all. Have you got it, sir?" "I've got enough," Cartwright replied.
As a rule, cargo is plentiful at Montreal shortly before the St. Lawrence freezes and the last steamers to go down the river do so with heavy loads. Cartwright's plan was to run a boat across at the last moment and pick up goods the liners would not engage to carry, and he had sent Oreana because she was fast. When the drift ice began to gather, speed was useful.
Cartwright mused about Oreana and pictured Davies sheltering behind the wind-screens on his bridge and trying to pierce the snow, and the look-out man half frozen in the spray that leaped about the forecastle. Oreana was a wet boat when she was loaded deep. Now and then, perhaps, a buoy loomed in the tossing flakes. One tried to read the number and see the color.
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