"Without nothin' but a Michigan man's spunk. Well, siree, those four men clumb into that yawl, an' a bunch of others jumped into the mush-ice an' toted her 'way out to clear water. With a yell, the fisherman put her nose inter the gale an' pulled. But it wa'n't no use. No yawl what was ever made could have faced that sea. The spray friz in the air as it come, an' the men were pelted with pieces of jagged ice, mighty near as big 's a bob-cherry. Afore they was ten feet away from the mush, a sea come over 'n' half filled the boat. It wa'n't no use much ter bail, for it friz as soon's it struck. They hadn't shipped more'n four seas when the weight of ice on the boat begun to sink her."
"Fresh water, of course," said Eric. "It would freeze quickly. I hadn't thought of that."
"In spite o' the ice," continued the veteran of seventy Lake winters, "two o' the men were for goin' on, but the oldest man o' the crowd made 'em turn back. He was only jest in time, for as the yawl got back to the edge o' the mush she went down."
"Sank?"
"Jest like as if she was made o' lead."
"And the men?" asked the boy eagerly.
"They was all right. I told you it was nigh the beach. The crowd got to the yawl 'n' pulled her up on shore. They burned a flare to let 'em know aboard the wrecks that they was bein' helped an' to hold out a hope o' rescue, but there wasn't no answer. Only once in a great while could any one on shore see those ghosts o' ships 'way out on the bar. An' every time the snow settled down, it was guessin' if they'd be there next time it cleared away, or not.
"Seein' that there was nothin' doin' with the yawl, the crowd reckoned on callin' us in to the deal. We was the nearest life-savin' station to Chocolay bar, an' we was over a hundred miles away."
"A hundred miles!"
"All o' that an' more. We was on Ship Island, six miles from Houghton. As I was sayin', seein' that nothin' could be done from their end, Cap'n John Frink, master of a tug, hiked off to the telegraph office at Marquette, 'n' called up Houghton. That's a hundred 'n' ten miles off, by rail. He told 'em o' the wrecks 'n' said he thought as we could get 'em off if we could come right down. The wires were down between Houghton 'n' Ship Islan' and there wa'n't no way o' lettin' us know. The operators sent word all over, to try an' get a message to us, an' mighty soon nigh everybody on the peninsula knowed that we'd been sent for.