Adventure Magazine Cover — page 76: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

70° come along just as we went about. She headed right in. You'll see her bones in there beyond the north jetty. A sixteen- hundred-ton vessel—mail-carrier, Johnson finally got another hunch, and we started in about half a mile or so astern of the Lorena. “She gets in between the jetties opposite the breakers on the north spit, and then as I was watching her right up out of nowhere breaks a whopping big sea—just a pure freak. I yelled out—I couldn’t help it— as I saw her picked up by a wall of water higher than her stack. It carried her clear over the north jetty and dropped her into the shallow breakers. Dumped on to the sand so hard that it broke her back.. And it all happened: while you could draw a long breath. “You can’t tell me it wasn’t the super- natural that prompted Johnson to turn back.” Lindstrom grinned reminiscently, then continued. “Johnson ordered me to say nothing about his hunch to any newspaper men. I said nothing in Eureka, but when we arrived back in San Francisco—well, it made a fine story. Johnson fired me for letting it out. And yet I like him all the more for it.”’ In the mean time the E/k River steamed up the bay and was docked at the Hammond Lumber Mills. Johnson hired a gang of longshoremen, who began to pour lumber into the vessel’s hold. His business finished for the day, Johnson spruced up for a dinner engagement at the home of the mill superintendent. When he stepped ashore, clad in blue serge, well- fitted black shoes, dark overcoat and dark fedora, no stranger would have suspected this quiet, handsome, smiling-eyed chap of being one of the most daring navigators on the coast. His face, reddened severely by exposure, was the only hint that he followed ihe sea. Two days later when the Elk River com- pleted her cargo and started seaward the gale still raged up the coast. The City of Arcata and other craft, now seven in num- ber, still lay riding out the storm on the open sea, their masters not yet daring to hazard the bar. Within the harbor several lumber-laden steamers lay swinging to their mudhooks, awaiting an opportunity to get out of the bay without putting their owners in line to collect insurance money. The Elk River Adventure was low in the water with a twelve-foot deckload. As she passed each steamer anchored in the channel, Midnight Johnson religiously went through a time-worn ritual of yanking derisive blasts from the whistle. It was his pleasant way of saying as a boy would say: . “Yah! Watch me do it!” Each captain at receiving these mocking hails momentarily and fervently cursed Johnson’s cockiness. Invariably, however, each affronted skipper found himself say- ing— “Well I hope the —— fool makes it Such is the fellowship of the sea; they wished him well even while resenting what they thought his blatant conceit. This time Johnson’s luck slipped a minor cog. In crossing the raging middle ground the Elk River bumped her keel on the bar— Just once, but hard enough to make John- son grit his teeth. Forty-five hours later she reached San Francisco. The distance by sea to the Golden Gate is two hundred and sixteen miles. Thus it can readily be seen that this passage was no record-breaker—unless for slowness. But the Elk River was making money for her owners, something many vessels failed to do in the Jumber trade on the Winter run to Humboldt. Naturally other shipping firms looked with covetous eyes on a captain who dared contend with Humboldt Bar in stormy weather. Many were the tempting offers for Johnson’s services. But he rejected them all, preferring the bridge of his beloved tub. This, however, proved to be the Elk River’s last voyage. The last thump on the bar had strained open too many more of her ancient seams. Failing to pass inspection, she was hauled on to what is the last resting- place of hundreds of good ships—the mud- flats of Oakland Creek. Johnson found him- self out of a berth. SOLICITATIONS for his services were many; and now that the Elk River had passed into the boneyard he decided to cut loose from his old com- pany, which owned nothing but small lumber steamers. Higher wages and greater chance for advancement in _passenger- carriers was the lure. Influenced partly by friendship, he accepted the offer made by the Madison Navigation Company. COnniclboooks C©