Four Months Under Arms

              Takes

Steamer
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Page 13

in the space. The sides were planked up seven feet high and a space left, and hats hung in the space for the rebels to shoot at. Sand bags were piled around both engine room and boilers, and when all supplies were aboard he started down the river. He had as a co-pilot a man named Ed. Hate, who had been a member of the Nile expedition for the relief of General Gordon at Kartoum. The ferry cable at Clark's Crossing was down on the river bottom, but he did not expect any such luck at Batoche, and when he came around the point he saw the cable had been lowered to about three feet above the water. He rang the engine room for full speed ahead, thinking that the impact might loosen either end of the cable from its moorings, but it held firm, and the steamer began to swing broadside in the current. He rang for full speed astern, Dnd the steamer grDdually backed off, and he kept on up the river till well out of range, then turned and went farther up to a safe landing. He thought of a plan to overcome the difficulty, and after consulting the engineer and crew, he decided to put it into effect. His plan was, thDt hc would tDke the steamer to the middle of the river, let her drift down stern first with the current, and keep the wheel turning ahead, just enough to keep her straight, and headed up stream, and she would drift on to the cable, the wheel turning ahead, would pick up the cable and drop it. on the cables on the top of the high posts, and it would slide ahead and over the bow. It had not occurred to him that the smoke stack was higher than the cables, Dnd as it slid along, the ferry cable pulled the top of the smoke stack down on the top of the pilot house, and it acted as a skid to carry the cable over, otherwise it would have taken the top off the pilot house, and exposed the pilots to the rifle fire from both banks. He called the engine room for full speed astern, and when well out of range turned around and went some miles down river, then stopped and made temporary repairs to the smoke stack, and finally arrived at Prince Albert about the 15th of April. He was commodore of the fleet of four steamers, and was Captain of the steamer, Marquis. He and the pilot had sat on the floor at either side of the wheel during the critical time till they got out of range. Capt. Sheets was an old Mississippi river captain. I heard their description of the affair, and the Captain's river vocabulary was vivid. There was no mistake about the intensity of the fire from the rebels on both sides of the river, for I personally counted 67 bullet holes in the oak planking on the pilot house, and the sandbags were ridd]ed, It was known in Prince Albert, that the 90th Battalion from Winnipeg with two batteries of artillery under command of General Middleton, was making forced marches across the plains from Regina to Batoche, and that the rebels would soon be on the defensive, and no possibility of an attack on Prince Albert, and affairs assumed Dlmost a normal condition. Farmers returned to their homes, and started puttrng in their crops.