The Whip Hand: A Tale of the Pine Country

CONTENTS


A THICK, wet night on the southwest coast of Lake Michigan a dozen years ago; a wind that sweeps over the pitching lake and on over the dim white beach with a rush that whirls the sand up and away. Trees are bending up there on the bluff. The sand and the rain are in the air—or do we feel the spray from yonder line of breakers, a hundred yards away?
And deep in a mudhole on the lonely road that skirts the bluff—the four horses, fetlock-deep in the sticky clay, straining forward like heroes, the members of the student crew in their oilskins throwing their weight on the wheels of the truck—is the Evanston surf-boat.
The driver has pulled his sou'wester hat down on his neck behind and swung the U. S. L. S. S. lantern on his arm; he stands beside the forward wheel, cracks his long whip and swears vigorously.
“Hold on a minute, boys,” he calls over his shoulder; and he must shout it twice before he is heard. “Whoa, there! Stand back! Now, boys, get your breath and try it together. When I call——— Now. All ready! Let her go!”
The men throw themselves on the spokes, the horses plunge forward under the lash of the whip. A moment of straining—an uncertain moment—then the wheels turn slowly forward, the horses' feet draw out with a sucking sound, and the boat rolls ahead. The driver unbuttons his oilskins at the waist and reaches beneath an under coat for his watch. They have been out two hours; distance covered, two miles. Before him is darkness, save where the lantern throws a yellow circle on the ground; behind him is darkness, save for the white boat, the little group of panting, grunting men, and, a long mile to the southward, the gleaming eye of the Grosse Pointe lighthouse, now red, now white. But somewhere in the darkness ahead, somewhere beyond the white of the breakers, a big steamer is pounding herself to pieces on the bar. So he buttons his coat and shifts the reins and swears at the horses. He seems to swear easily, this young fellow; but he is thinking of the poor devils on the big steamer, lashed to the mast perhaps, if the masts are still standing; and he is wondering how many of them will ever ship again.