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Her sails hung unfilled, her streamers were drooping, she had neither side-wheel nor stern-wheel; still she moved on, stately, in serene triumph, as if with her own life.
Ahead, a big side-wheel steamer was forging, foam-ringed, toward her, with the tall spars of a four-master towering behind, and stately pines, that apparently walled in the harbor, a little to one side. To starboard, beyond the wide stretch of white-flecked water, mountains ran back in ranks, with the chilly gleam of snow, which had crept lower since her arrival, upon their shoulders.
In 1843, the manufacture of marine engines was commenced by building the engine for the first propeller on Lake Erie, the "Emigrant." About the same time work was commenced on engines for the large side-wheel steamers, the largest of their day being fitted out with machinery from these works.
Considerable excitement was occasioned when, on the second day after leaving Blanquilla, a prospect of an encounter seemed to present itself. It was still early morning when a sail was reported on the lee bow, and soon the stranger was made out to be a large side-wheel steamer, barque-rigged, and standing towards the Alabama.
Helen declared, in a whisper to Ruth, that she had never known her twin brother to be so overpoweringly polite and thoughtful. The trip down the lake on the little side-wheel steamer was very interesting to all three. First the Camerons and Ruth Fielding went about to see if they could find any other girl or boy who appeared to be bound to school like themselves.
Another objection was that they were side-wheelers, and it would be a very easy thing for a cannon ball to knock an exposed side-wheel into a worthless condition.
Among the gunboats there were three that had side-wheel engines, the machinery of which is necessarily more above water, and so more exposed than that of a screw a condition which, although their batteries were powerful for their tonnage, emphasized the necessity of sheltering them behind other ships during the furious few minutes of passing under the guns of the fort.
At 6.20 beat up to quarters, manned the starboard battery, and loaded with five second shell; turned round, stood for the steamer, having previously made her out to be a two-masted side-wheel, of apparent 1,200 tons, though at the distance she was before dark we could not form any correct estimate of her size, &c. At 6.30 the strange steamer hailed and asked, "What steamer is that?"
She made one short cruise, during which she fell in with two United States men-of-war, that avoided a fight with her on account of her superior strength. At the end of her cruise the war was over, and she was sold to the Mikado of Japan, whose flag she now carries. The "Nashville" was an old side-wheel passenger-steamer, of which the Confederates had made a privateer. Her career was a short one.
Wake up by and by, and look to see what done it, and maybe see a steamboat coughing along up-stream, so far off towards the other side you couldn't tell nothing about her only whether she was a stern-wheel or side-wheel; then for about an hour there wouldn't be nothing to hear nor nothing to see just solid lonesomeness.
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