Billy Whiskers' Travels

by Frances Trego Montgomery

ALONE IN AN OCEAN STORM

oor Billy! Once more he had lost his mother! He looked for the ship to turn round and send out a boat as it had done when Hans fell overboard, but it did nothing of the sort. Instead, it steamed straight ahead. In the excitement nobody had noticed that Billy had been thrown into the water.

The cook got a life preserver and threw it over after Billy, thinking it a good joke, then the cook went below and Hans stood at the stern railing shaking his fist at the poor goat. Billy swam as long and as hard after the boat as he could, but it was no use; he could not begin to keep up with its great speed. Presently, however, he came to where the life preserver floated. It was a big circular one and Billy put his front paws upon it. His weight made it tip on edge and Billy was surprised and delighted to find that it held him up in the water, making the work of swimming much easier. In trying to get his legs further into it he slipped once or twice, but finally in his struggles his head and horns went through it, and, after swimming and wriggling a little bit, he got his front shoulders through and there it clung round him, holding him up splendidly. It was too small to pass backwards over his body, and it could not get off over his head on account of Billy's horns.

It was a lucky thing for Billy that this happened, for that night a terrific storm came up. The wind shrieked and howled, the lightnings glared, the thunders rolled, and great foam-capped waves, some of them nearly as high as a house, broke over Billy, one after another, nearly drowning him and sometimes almost crushing him by their weight.

In all his life Billy had never passed such a terrific night as this, but through it all the big life preserver held him up and carried him safely through. Many times there seemed to come a lull in the storm and Billy began to breathe easier, thinking that he would get a little rest, but the storm would break out again with new fury each time, until, when morning came, the poor goat was battered and bruised and nearly dead. With the dawn, however, the storm calmed down. The skies began to clear, the waves grew smaller, and the wind, shifting by-and-by to the opposite direction from that in which it had been blowing all night, beat back the waves and smoothed them down until by ten o'clock the ocean was quiet, only ruffled by gentle swells over which Billy and his life preserver bobbed in comfort, although he was very tired and beginning to get hungry.

Ever since the sky had cleared he had seen smoke away off where sea and sky seemed to join. Billy knew what smoke meant. Wherever there was smoke there were people, and wherever there were people there was food, so he started toward it, swimming a little bit and resting a long while between times. The smoke grew blacker and presently he saw a little speck under the smoke. It grew larger and larger, and by-and-by he was able to make out that it was a big ship coming in his direction. Poor Billy swam harder than ever then, and fortunately for him the ship was coming almost straight toward him. Still more fortunately, the captain, sweeping the sea with his glass, made out the life preserver holding up something white, and immediately thought it must be a woman in a white dress. He altered the direction of the ship slightly so that it came nearer to Billy, and had ordered a boat to be lowered before he made out that it was only a goat, otherwise he might have passed on by. The boat, however, was already lowered, so he let it go.

The ship was coming almost straight toward him.

The ship was a big passenger steamer, and by this time scores of passengers were thronging to the rails to see what the excitement was all about, and when the boat was drawn up, Billy, a comical looking sight with his big life preserver around him, was placed on the deck. A boy among the passengers at once ran forward with a shout.