To the passengers on the grounded ship the calm weather was only a goad to rage. The rest of the Nome fleet—_they_ were profiting by open water and absence of head winds! But as for us of the _Los Angeles_, we’ve left our families, sold our farms, risked all we have on earth for the pleasure of sitting on a sand-bank a hundred and fifty miles from the gold-fields! From hour to hour the disaffection spread. Every one on board had a remedy for the disaster. Where it had been thought were miners, attorneys, doctors, politicians, it turned out they were navigators to a man. No glimpse of Cheviot till an hour after breakfast. Even then only a nod and “Good-morning,” as he went by deep in talk with the chief engineer. Toward ten o’clock a little wind sprang out of the northeast and brought down a thin veil of fog. The air took on a keener edge, yet no one left the deck or even seemed to feel the cold, for a rumor had run about the ship like fire over dry stubble: “The captain says we’ll never get off this —— bar till we unload.” “Unload! Unload what?” Pat the answer: “First, the coal.” “Throw away _coal_!” Such a counsel of despair struck grave enough on the ears of men who knew the fabulous sums paid in Nome for fuel. But not the coal, it was the little word “first” that presented the keenest barb to each man’s consciousness. Just as though the immense sacrifice of the coal were not fit and sufficient climax to the misadventure! “First!” What possible second? Why, after the coal, overboard with McKeown and Dingley and the rest of the heavy stuff! “Just let the Cap’n lay a finger on my Dingley,” warned a bystander, black as thunder. “That’s what he’s figurin’ on,” Gedge assured the irate one. “And after the machinery”—people crowded aghast to hear—“if we ain’t light enough by then, why, overboard with every darn thing we got!” “If he tries throwin’ out our stuff he’ll have a riot on his hands—that’s all!” Things began to look black for the captain. But if he were aware of the fact, it had no effect on his policy. Hardly ten minutes later Gedge was obliged to interrupt the indignation meeting by calling out to a couple of blue China boys, struggling to get some of the lighter baggage out of the hold: “Hi, you! Stop that, you pig-tailed heathen. That’s mine. Drop it, I say, or I’ll knock the stuffin’ out o’ you!” The agitated Celestials would have abandoned their task, but for O’Gorman’s: “Say! They’re only getting your stuff up into a safe place so they can reach the coal-bunkers. Here, put the gentleman’s box over by mine.”