Then while the smooth swell lapped level with one depressed rail the Shasta shook in every plate, and the men who came scrambling to her slanted deck looked at him anxiously. There was, however, no clamor or any sign of undue consternation. The men had almost expected this, and the energy, which for want of direction now and then in such cases leads to purposeless and unreasoning scurry, had been washed out of them. Jimmy leaned quietly on the rails, and nodded in answer to their glances.
"Yes," he said, "we're hard on. If the propeller won't shake her loose in the next ten minutes, we'll see about laying out an anchor. Mr. Lindstrom, will you clear the two boats ready, and ask Fleming if there's any more water in his bilges?"
It was twenty minutes before the pounding engines stopped, but the Shasta had not moved an inch astern. The lower side of her lifted as the long gray swell lapped gurgling to her rail, and then came down again; but that was all. In the meanwhile the hand-lead armed with tallow had shown the bottom to be soft, and Fleming quietly reported that there was no sign of any water coming in. Then Jimmy turned to Lindstrom, who once more had climbed to the bridge.
"If this fog lifts and the breeze gets up as usual, she'll certainly break up," he said. "If it doesn't, I don't think there's any reason why we shouldn't heave her off. We'll try it first with the coal in. It's a long way to Wellington, and I don't want to dump a ton if I can help it."
The big Scandinavian went down the ladder, and by and by half the men on board the Shasta were engaged under his direction in lashing a platform of hatch-planks between the two boats that lay beneath the forecastle. The long heave drove them banging against the Shasta's side, and jerked the planks loose as they strove to lash them fast; but at last they accomplished it, and, while the dimness that stands for the Northern summer night crept into the fog, the men on the forecastle head lowered the anchor down. It was of the old, stocked pattern, and though the Shasta was not a large vessel, they found it and the cable which came down after it sufficiently difficult to handle upon a slippery platform that heaved and slanted under them. Still, the thing was done because it was necessary; and with oars splashing clumsily, because there was little space for the men who pulled them, they paddled off into the fog.
When they came back the cable was unshackled and the end of it led in through the mooring half-moon on the vessel's stern, and there then remained the second anchor to lay out. The cable of this one was unshackled too, but wire-rope purchases were rigged to the end of it from the after winch, and by the time all was ready it was six o'clock in the morning. The men were worn out, and Jimmy's eyes were heavy with want of sleep, but nobody made any demur about facing the further work before him. They knew what would happen if the fog lifted and the breeze that rolled it back should find the Shasta there.
Jimmy pressed down the telegraph on his bridge. Winch and windlass groaned and rattled, the wire-rope screamed, and the clanking cable tightened suddenly. Then the thudding propeller shook the ship until she quivered like a thing in pain each time the smooth swell lifted one side of her. Steam drifted about her, wire and cable were drawn rigid, but she would not budge an inch in spite of them, and Jimmy's face was a trifle grim when he flung up his hand. The thud of the propeller slackened, and there was a silence that was almost oppressive when winch and windlass stopped. The gurgle of the gray swell about the steamer's plates and the drip of moisture from the slanted shrouds emphasized it. Then Jimmy signed to one of the men.
"Send Mr. Fleming here," he said.
The man disappeared, and the engineer looked grave when he climbed to the bridge.
"You'll be wanting to dump my coal now?" he asked. "How are you going to take her home without it?"