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As before explained, the Deal lifeboat was unable to attract the attention of the passing tugboat, and it was therefore decided to wire to Ramsgate to explain that Deal was helpless, and ask the Ramsgate lifeboat to go to the rescue. By an extraordinary combination of misfortunes the Ramsgate lifeboat and tugs were also helpless, and having been suddenly disabled were laid up for repairs.
On the scab tugboat Edison, moored at the north side of the dock, men armed with rifles lay in waiting. The Everett Improvement Dock to the south was also prepared for action.
It seems absurd to compare a tugboat skipper to a centaur: but he reminded me somehow of an engraving in a little book I had as a boy, which represented centaurs at a stream, and there was one, especially in the foreground, prancing bow and arrows in hand, with regular severe features and an immense curled wavy beard, flowing down his breast. Falk's face reminded me of that centaur.
Over on shore the Preston boosters let their lungs loose in cheering yells. "Wait for a tugboat, Prescott!" "You're up against the real thing, Gridley!" "Come on in, Hartwell! The other canoe is tied to the shore!" "More steam!" ordered Dick. "More steam! Your best, prize winning stroke now." Again Hartwell glanced backward.
It will be remembered that Captain Guzman and Martella were seated at the bow, facing those at the stern. Thus the moonlit river beyond was in clear view, and the sombre, motionless form of the tugboat could be made out where it snuggled against the southern bank.
All the while the whistle on the tug was blowing and I was afraid people would come around and maybe they'd all be on the side of the tugboat man and be mad at Uncle Jimmy. Jiminy, I wasn't mad at him, anyway. And I could hear that old man shouting about all the things he was going to do and about the bridgeman deserting and leaving him in the mud.
Heading across the river, and edged gradually over by the raft continuing to work toward her, the ship took the ground a little above Fort St. Philip, but still under its batteries. While in this dangerous position, the raft, whose movements proved to be controlled not by the current but by a small tugboat, was pushed against her port quarter.
Then, at last, the “Hudson,” uninjured, ran off into deep water and shortly afterwards anchored in safety. It was a moment of tremendous relief for Mr. Mayhew. “Call the tugboat captain aboard, and I’ll settle with him at my own expense,” proposed the lieutenant commander.
And she shall have three masts instead of two, and carry half a million feet of lumber instead of two hundred thousand. First, however, I must build a steam tugboat to tow my schooner in and out over Humboldt Bar. And after that ah, well! That is sufficient for the present." Thus did John Cardigan dream, and as he dreamed he worked.
The skipper kept the Johnnie going till the right time and then, when the tugboat people thought it was too late, he shot her about on her heel and into the dock with her mainsail coming down on the run and jibs dead. A couple of East Side loafers standing on the wharf cap-log were nearly swept away by the end of our bowsprit, we came on so fast.
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