e rest--was
launched in the fall of 1895, and was lost on its maiden trip with both
Stafford and Ramsdell aboard. The Stafford and Ramsdell interests
could not survive the death of both owners and disappeared from the
lakes. Is this what you wanted to know?"

The priest nodded. Alan leaned tensely forward, watching; what he had
heard seemed to have increased and deepened the priest's feeling over
what he had to tell and to have aided his comprehension of it.

"His name was Caleb Stafford," Father Perron began. "(This is what
Benjamin Corvet told to me, when he was dying under the wreckage on the
ferry.) 'He was as fair and able a man as the lakes ever knew. I had
my will of most men in the lake trade in those days; but I could not
have my will of him. With all the lakes to trade in, he had to pick
out for his that traffic which I already had chosen for my own. But I
fought him fair, Father--I fought him fair, and I would have continued
to do that to the end.

"'I was at Manistee, Father, in the end of the season--December fifth
of 1895. The ice had begun to form very early that year and was
already bad; there was cold and a high gale. I had laid up one of my
ships at Manistee, and I was crossing that night upon a tug to
Manitowoc, where another was to be laid up. I had still a third one
lading upon the northern peninsula at Manistique for a last trip which,
if it could be made, would mean a good profit from a season which so
far, because of Stafford's competition, had been only fair. After
leaving Manistee, it grew still more cold, and I was afraid the ice
would close in on her and keep her where she was, so I determined to go
north that night and see that she got out. None knew, Father, except
those aboard the tug, that I had made that change.

"'At midnight, Father, to westward of the Foxes, we heard the four
blasts of a steamer in distress--the four long blasts which have
sounded in my soul ever since! We turned toward where we saw the
steamer's lights; we went nearer and, Father, it was his great, new
ship--the _Miwaka_! We had heard two days before that she had passed
the Soo; we had not known more than that of where she was. She had
broken her new shaft, Father, and was intact except for that, but
helpless in the rising sea...'"

The priest broke off. "The _Miwaka_! I did not understand all that
that had meant to him until just now--the new ship of the rival line,
whose building meant for h