of river yawp.

The fog was so dense that even the lookout posted at her fore windlasses
was a hazy figure as seen from the pilot-house. A squat ferryboat, which
was headed across the river straight at the slip where her shore gong
'was hailing her, splashed under the steamer's bows, two tugs loafed
nonchalantly across in the other direction--saucy sparrows of the river
traffic, always underfoot and dodging out of danger by a breathless
margin.

Whistle-blasts piped or roared singly and in pairs, a duet of steam
voices, or blended at times into a puzzling chorus.

A steamer's whistle in the fog conveys little information except to
announce that a steam-propelled craft is somewhere yonder in the white
blank, unseen, under way. No craft is allowed to sound passing signals
unless the vessel she is signaling is in plain sight.

Captain Mayo could see nothing--even the surface of the water was almost
indistinguishable.

Ahead, behind, to right and left, everything that could toot was busy
and vociferous. Here and there a duet of three staccato blasts indicated
that neighbors were threatening to collide and were crawfishing to the
best of their ability.

Twice the big steamer stopped her engines and drifted until the squabble
ahead of her seemed to have been settled.

A halt mixes the notations of the log, but the mates of the steamer made
the Battery signals, and after a time the spidery outlines of the first
great bridge gave assurance that their allowances were correct.

Providentially there was a shredding of the fog at Hell Gate, a
shore-breeze flicking the mists off the surface of the water.

Then was revealed the situation which lay behind the particularly
emphatic and uproarious "one long and two short" blasts of a violent
whistle. A Lehigh Valley tug was coming down the five-knot current with
three light barges, which the drift had skeowowed until they were taking
up the entire channel. With their cables, the tug and tow stretched for
at least four thousand feet, almost a mile of dangerous drag.

"Our good luck, sir," vouchsafed the first mate. "She was howling so
loud, blamed if I could tell whether she was coming or going. She's got
no business coming down the Sound."

Captain Mayo, his teeth set hard, his rigid face dripping with moisture,
as he stood in the open window, stopped the engines of his giant charge
and jingled for full speed astern in order to halt her. He had no desire
to battle for poss