orning and what it looks like on the
way home.

In the morning everybody is so restless and animated and moves to
and fro all over the boat and asks questions. But coming home, as the
afternoon gets later and the sun sinks beyond the hills, all the people
seem to get so still and quiet and drowsy.

So it was with the people on the Mariposa Belle. They sat there on the
benches and the deck chairs in little clusters, and listened to the
regular beat of the propeller and almost dozed off asleep as they sat.
Then when the sun set and the dusk drew on, it grew almost dark on the
deck and so still that you could hardly tell there was anyone on board.

And if you had looked at the steamer from the shore or from one of
the islands, you'd have seen the row of lights from the cabin windows
shining on the water and the red glare of the burning hemlock from the
funnel, and you'd have heard the soft thud of the propeller miles away
over the lake.

Now and then, too, you could have heard them singing on the
steamer,--the voices of the girls and the men blended into unison
by the distance, rising and falling in long-drawn melody:
"O--Can-a-da--O--Can-a-da."

You may talk as you will about the intoning choirs of your European
cathedrals, but the sound of "O--Can-a-da," borne across the waters of a
silent lake at evening is good enough for those of us who know Mariposa.

I think that it was just as they were singing like this: "O--Can-a-da,"
that word went round that the boat was sinking.

If you have ever been in any sudden emergency on the water, you will
understand the strange psychology of it,--the way in which what is
happening seems to become known all in a moment without a word being
said. The news is transmitted from one to the other by some mysterious
process.

At any rate, on the Mariposa Belle first one and then the other heard
that the steamer was sinking. As far as I could ever learn the first
of it was that George Duff, the bank manager, came very quietly to Dr.
Gallagher and asked him if he thought that the boat was sinking. The
doctor said no, that he had thought so earlier in the day but that he
didn't now think that she was.

After that Duff, according to his own account, had said to Macartney,
the lawyer, that the boat was sinking, and Macartney said that he
doubted it very much.

Then somebody came to Judge Pepperleigh and woke him up and said that
there was six inches of water in the steamer and that sh