first officer, through whose heroism and
determination was checked what promised to be a mad scene of disorder
and dismay, such as ensued when the Arctic went down and that "stern,
brave mate, Gourlay, whom the sailors were wont to obey" was not there
to check the undisciplined rush to the boats. For forty-eight hours and
thereafter the first officer modestly declared he had merely done his
duty, sir, and no good seaman would have done less. The public dinner to
be given in his honor, however, languished as a project on the later
arrival of survivors from Monterey, and then inquiries began to be made
for Lieutenant Loring and new stories to appear in papers that had not
already committed themselves to other versions of the affair, and then
it transpired that something had gone amiss at Department Headquarters.
Lieutenant Loring, after an interview with the commanding general, had
hastened to Monterey in search of the captain and purser. The former he
found there prostrate and actually flighty, so much so that he could
give no coherent answer to questions propounded to him. In the marine
hospital, suffering from a gunshot wound, was the huge sailor who had
felled the commander to the deck in the rush for the remaining boats, a
rush in which he was ringleader, and a piteous tale he told--that he had
been shot by a passenger whom he was trying to prevent from getting into
the boat they were holding for the women. The gallant little second
officer had gone to his wife and children in the southern part of the
State, and was not there to tell the truth. The captain was almost
delirious. The first officer in San Francisco had been tacitly posing as
a marine lion, and could not well be expected to volunteer information
that might rob him of his laurels. The survivors among the passengers
were scattered by this time, and the purser, whose testimony might be of
great value, had disappeared. "Must be in 'Frisco," said the agent who
had been sent down to see that every man was furnished with clothing and
money at the company's expense, and sent on his way measurably
comforted. "Traynor had a desperate squeak for life," said the agent.
"He was in the captain's boat when she sunk and was weighed down with
his money packages, belted about him underneath his coat, and was
hauled ashore more dead than alive, and some of his valuables were
lost--he couldn't tell how much."

And this was the man Mr. Loring most needed to see. There had com