“Only one thing lazier and that’s a New Orleans roustabout. I’ve seen the time down there when the shippers wanted to load cotton quick and offered those niggers double wages, yet they wouldn’t lift a finger ’count of its being Sunday.”
As the three came within hailing distance of the Admiral, Captain Perkins ordered them to hurry.
Already men were dragging her hawsers toward the spiles and cleats for the first lock, and, jumping aboard, Phil and Ted hastened to the bridge.
“If there’s a twenty-foot fall between Lake Superior and Lake Huron, how in the world do we get up it?” asked the younger boy.
“Wait and see, don’t bother anybody with questions now,” quickly admonished his brother, in a low voice.
And the warning was timely, for if there is one occasion more than another on an ore carrier when officers and crew are busy, it is when they are locking through the canal.
The second mate takes charge of the stern, giving orders to the men at the lines both on shore and on the boat; the first mate renders similar service at the bow, and the captain gives instructions to both, regulates the speed of the vessel as she enters the locks, that she may not ram the lock gates and thus put the entire canal out of commission, at the same time taking care not to scrape or jam the plates against the side of the canal—no trifling task with a boat whose beam is only a couple of feet less than the width of the lock.
At last the Admiral was in position, held fast bow and stern by hawsers running to each side of the canal.
“I don’t see anything happening yet,” observed Ted, in disappointment, peering ahead intently.
“Just look astern and you will,” replied the captain.