the men
who had gone forward and were peering out into the dark said that it
couldn't be more than a mile across the water to Miller's Point. You
could almost see it over there to the left,--some of them, I think, said
"off on the port bow," because you know when you get mixed up in these
marine disasters, you soon catch the atmosphere of the thing.

So pretty soon they had the davits swung out over the side and were
lowering the old lifeboat from the top deck into the water.

There were men leaning out over the rail of the Mariposa Belle with
lanterns that threw the light as they let her down, and the glare fell
on the water and the reeds. But when they got the boat lowered, it
looked such a frail, clumsy thing as one saw it from the rail above,
that the cry was raised: "Women and children first!" For what was the
sense, if it should turn out that the boat wouldn't even hold women and
children, of trying to jam a lot of heavy men into it?

So they put in mostly women and children and the boat pushed out into
the darkness so freighted down it would hardly float.

In the bow of it was the Presbyterian student who was relieving the
minister, and he called out that they were in the hands of Providence.
But he was crouched and ready to spring out of them at the first moment.

So the boat went and was lost in the darkness except for the lantern in
the bow that you could see bobbing on the water. Then presently it came
back and they sent another load, till pretty soon the decks began to
thin out and everybody got impatient to be gone.

It was about the time that the third boat-load put off that Mr. Smith
took a bet with Mullins for twenty-five dollars, that he'd be home in
Mariposa before the people in the boats had walked round the shore.

No one knew just what he meant, but pretty soon they saw Mr. Smith
disappear down below into the lowest part of the steamer with a mallet
in one hand and a big bundle of marline in the other.

They might have wondered more about it, but it was just at this time
that they heard the shouts from the rescue boat--the big Mackinaw
lifeboat--that had put out from the town with fourteen men at the sweeps
when they saw the first rockets go up.

I suppose there is always something inspiring about a rescue at sea, or
on the water.

After all, the bravery of the lifeboat man is the true
bravery,--expended to save life, not to destroy it.

Certainly they told for months after of how the re