d, which forced a ship from
Oregon to Chile to swing far out from the coast, and make a deep
southward dip before catching the south-west trades, which would
likely stay by her to her port of discharge.

They had sailed on a Friday, and on Wednesday, the eleventh of the
third month following, their real troubles began. Steve's diary, as
interpreted by him, after the foregoing, was substantially as follows,
the color being all his:

"From the day we sailed we were at the pumps for two weeks to bale
the old tub out. Then she swelled, and the seams became tight. There
was bad weather from the time we crossed the Astoria bar. The old man
would carry on because he was in a hurry to make a good run. The mate
used to beat us, and it's a wonder we didn't kill him. We used to lie
awake in our watch below and think of what we'd do to him when we got
him ashore. All the men were sore on him. He cursed us all the time,
and the captain said nothing. You can't hit back, you know. He would
strike us and kick us for fun. I felt sure he'd be murdered; but when
we got into difficulty and could have tossed him over, we never made
a motion.

"On the seventy-third day out, came the terror. The wind is from the
southeast. There is little light. The sea is high, and everything is
in a smother. We took down the topsails and furled the spanker. The
wind was getting up, and the call came for all hands on deck. We had
watch and watch until then. That's four hours off and four hours
on. When the watch below left their bunks, that was the last of
our sleep on the El Dorado. A gale was blowing by midnight. We were
working all the time, taking in sail and making all snug. There was
plenty of water on deck. Schooner was bumping hard on the waves and
making water through her seams. We took the pumps for a spell.

"We had no sleep next day. In the morning we set all sails in a lull,
but took them down again quickly, because the wind shifted to the
northwest, and a big gale came on. Now began trouble with the cargo. We
had the hold filled with lumber, planks and such, and on the deck we
had a terrible load of big logs. These were to hold up the walls and
roofs in the mines of Chile. Many of them were thirty-six feet long,
and very big around. They were the trunks of very big trees. They
were piled very high, and the whole of them was fastened by chains
to keep them from rolling or being broken loose by seas. In moving
about the ship we had to walk o