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9. Ship of the Month - cont'd. amidships. He let go and landed... on the steel plates. Back swung the boom and, next second, Whe e l s m a n Mc L ennan was riding the boatsw a i n ' s chair. He, too, had been standing watch for 24 hours. By the time he got his chance, the boom was almost over the barge's stern. He leapt to what seemed a twenty-foot plunge and fell amid a raffle of the barge's gear, skinning his shoulder and back and hurting himself so badly that it was two weeks before he could put his coat on without help. "But for the moment, there was no q u e stion of putting on or taking off coats. Both men waded along the w a v e - w a s h e d deck to pass the big steel towline coiled on the drum in the H U D SON'S bow, and to get her steering gear into c o mmission so that she would follow the BRULIN instead of rolling sideways out to starboard and to port. "It was only by miracles of m anagement on the part of their skipper and by the greatest good luck and good judgment that they had reached the HUDSON wi thout either of them being killed, crushed or drowned. They found that she had been left in appa r e n t l y pentecostal haste. There was b e e fsteak h a lf -e at en on the plates in the cookhouse and cake and other food unt o u c h e d on the table. Her logbooks and papers had been left behind. Her crew had not taken their little belongings. Not a light was burning. "Towlines were passed from the bow of the barge to the BRULIN, and the steamer's own anchor and anchor chain released from their iron clutch on the barge's t a i l f e a t h e r s . Then she squared away for Port Weller. As they swung around, the first steel wire towline parted. This, and its successor, were the HU DS ON 'S own towing outfit, which was in more fitting p o s ition to work for harbou r entrance. The BRULIN circled back and caught a he aving line and ha ule d aboard the H U D SON'S second towline. This parted too. Then the BR ULI N hove aboard her own w r e c k i n g cable, a stout piece of wire, but it, too, let go. "Back circled the BRULIN, stopping her engines each time she had to pass over the trailing ends of these wire serpents, for to get her prop eller foul of them now w ould have been fatal. While the lines were being cleared, the steamer was more or less out of control. But collision was averted, and by great skill a heaving line and m e s s e n g e r were passed, and the gallant mate and w h e e l s m a n released the barge's anchor chain and got the end of it aboard the BRULIN. "Then at last, with waves roaring and snowflakes flying, steamer and barge came rol ling into Port Weller. The BRULIN, having her own cargo to deliver before the canal froze up, hu rried on for Chicago, leaving BRUCE HU D S O N safely 'libelled', or in the law's hands, for salvage... "The owners of BRUCE HUDSON cont ended (in the defence plea dings - e d . ) that she 'was in no danger of stranding, as she had abundance of searoom, and the wind was steady in a dir e c t i o n which could not have carried her into any po sition of peril before she would have been rejoined by her tug; that she had not in fact been abandoned, relying on the u n d i s p u t e d facts r e garding the di s c o v e r y of her papers and personal effects of the crew as set forth in the p la in ti ff's claim'. "However, 'op portunity having been granted counsel by the court to confer on the subject of settlement, this was finally a c c o m p l i s h e d with the con cu rr en ce of the trial judge' and judgment was given for $10 , 000 - with costs - for the owners and crew of the B R U L I N . . . " We shall omit the rest of Mr. Snider's o f t e n - l a b o u r e d prose (much of w hich was edited out of the excerpts we used) except to add a small section with comme nts whose source was not identified, but would appear to have been Capt. Stitt of the ETHEL, as quoted from part of the HUDSON'S owner's defenc e statem ent in the litigation: "The ma ste r of the ELMBAY later re ported that he did not stand by the