“Look at those funny old scows, with little dinky engines and long spouts, skimming along! What on earth are they?” exclaimed Phil, pointing to a score or more of such craft that were scurrying, crablike, down the river.
“Those are sand-suckers,” explained the mate. “When they get to their positions they drop those spouts into the sand and then suck it into the boats; the water runs out and the sand is left in the scow.”
A terrific screech on the Admiral’s whistle called their attention to one of the suckers that had crossed her bow so near that only a sharp throwing over of the wheel prevented a collision.
Roundly Captain Perkins berated the man in the pilot house, but a grin was his only answer.
Approach to the dock quickly diverted the skipper, however, as he called orders to his wheelsman that brought the six-hundred-foot carrier alongside as easily as though she had been no more than a launch.
Lake carriers are met by no linesmen to help them on the docks, or throw their hawsers over the spilings, and as the boat swung alongside the heavy timbers, members of the crew sprang to the wharf. To them the lines were thrown, and in an incredibly short time the Admiral was fast, bow and stern.
Towering above the dock was a structure resembling a huge skeleton elevator shaft, along the top of which extended an iron shield that drew together from both sides in an enormous shute.
Back of the dock was a labyrinth of tracks and switches, upon some of which stood strings of loaded coal cars, and even as the Admiral made fast, a switch engine began to puff and snort, jerking a line of cars onto the track that ran between the uprights of the elevator-like structure.
Directly behind the tracks rose a sand bank, along the top of which an occasional trolley car passed.
The boat docked, Captain Perkins ordered the discredited oiler brought to him.