mi_ by wireless and stated that she had
sighted the _Northwestern_, but gave her position twelve miles to the
westward of the point first quoted. It was evening before the steamer in
distress was sighted. The Coast Guard cutter ran up under her stern, and
asked if she could hold on for a while. The captain of the steamer
answered that he could.

"I'm all right, so far," he shouted back through the megaphone; "it's
that blithering bally-hoo of a propeller!"

His language was picturesque, fluent, and convincing, and everybody on
board the cutter grinned while the old sea-dog expressed a highly
colored opinion of the whole tribe of ship-fitters, machinists, and
mechanics generally. After ten minutes of descriptive shouting, during
which he never repeated an adjective twice, he wound up by saying that
he considered "an engine-room an insult to a seaman's intelligence,"
and said that "he'd like to pave the bottom of the sea with the
skeletons of engineers diving a thousand fathom for his lost propeller!"
Following which, he seemed to feel better, and discussed what was best
to be done with his ship.

The situation was dangerous. The sea was far too rough for the lowering
of a boat, no matter how well handled. The gale was such that it was
unsafe for the _Miami_ to anchor. In the case of the _Northwestern_,
anchoring had been her last resort. There was fully twenty fathom of
water, and fortunately the steamer's anchors held. The captain had put
ninety fathom of chain on each anchor, and though the weight pulled her
nose into the water, so that she snubbed into the sea like a ram trying
to butt down a wall, still everything held. The _Miami_ stood by all
night, keeping close to the imperilled vessel.

Next morning the conditions were no better. The advantages of daylight
were more than overcome by the increased fury of the sea. The
_Northwestern_ lay in an angry rip, for the gale had come on in full
force and was countering the long rollers from the southeast that had
been blown up by the storm of two days before, the same which had
driven the _Miami_ to shelter and which had crippled the big steamer,
twice the size of the revenue cutter. The _Miami_ stayed near by, hove
to, waiting for the storm to abate. But of this there were no signs. The
force of the gale increased steadily through the day.

[Illustration: MAN'S WATERSPOUT. A DERELICT'S END.

Courtesy of U.S. Coast Guard.]

[Illustration: PREPARING TO BLOW UP