"If I have run off with some one else's raft, I declare I shall just
want to disappear!" he exclaimed to himself. "I do believe I shall be
too ashamed ever to go home again. Oh dear! There is another
steamboat."
The notes of a deep-voiced whistle, evidently near at hand, caused the
boy to hasten outside. He could see a huge confused mass dimly looming
out of the fog ahead, and a little to one side of him. At the same
moment he heard the wild jangling of bells, the terrified shoutings,
and then the awful crash that denoted a collision. A big up-bound
steamboat had run down and sunk a smaller boat of some kind. That much
he could see, and he was filled with horror at the nearness and
magnitude of the disaster.
He had heard agonized screams, and knew that lives had been sacrificed.
One shrill cry that came to his ears with startling distinctness
sounded as though uttered by a woman or a girl, and Winn shuddered at
the thought of her fate.
The raft was drifting rapidly away from the scene of the catastrophe,
and the dimly discerned steamboat was just disappearing from his view,
when the boy thought he heard a gurgling cry from the water. Could
some bold swimmer have escaped? He bent his head to the water's edge
and listened. Again he heard the cry. And this time it seemed nearer.
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