There was, on the whole, very little excitement now among the saloon and second-class passengers, and, curiously enough, I observed that those who had been seasick nigh unto death seemed to forget their ailment in the face of danger and had their sea-legs on well enough to look after their own safety. It proves, I think, that seasickness is largely a matter of an exaggerated imagination plus a lack of will power. Before the hatches were opened to let the steerage passengers out of their hole and on to the lower deck the Captain and one of his officers took their places on the main deck forward where they could watch every move the poor frightened mob made. They came helter-skelter up the hatchways falling all over themselves and everybody else, but when they saw the Captain and the officer towering above them each with a brace of horse-pistols leveled at them like young cannon they eased off a bit their desire to be saved at the expense of others and the stewards had no further trouble with them. Just then Perce got awake and hearing the gruff orders of the officers, the throbbing of the big pumps and the loud and excited talk of the passengers, he wanted to know the cause of it. “The ship is sinking! so get up right away,” I exclaimed as evenly as my voice would let me and working the key for dear life. “Oh, she is, is she,” he yawned as if it was an every-day occurrence. There was no excitability in Perce’s makeup. Well, sir, we kept her afloat until daylight when the Captain ordered every one to the life-boats, women and children first. Perce and I stuck to our instruments, keeping the ether busy and every now and then sending out cheery bulletins to the passengers, the gist of them all being that help was almost at hand. I could feel the ship begin to settle and the life-boats loaded to the gunwales with their cargo of human freight, were quickly lowered into the running sea. It required great seamanship to do this and even then one or two of them were capsized. The Captain suddenly appeared before our window. “Boys, you have done your duty. Now save yourselves,” and with that he was gone. I could feel her nose pointing up in the air and I knew she was going down stern-end on. It was only a question of minutes. “Go on, Perce. I’ll stick here.” “Go on yourself,” he replied; “if any one stays I will.” I don’t know exactly what happened but something flying through the air must have hit me, for the next thing I knew I had struck the icy water and had gone down several fathoms. The sudden ducking revived me and when I came up I swam for an overcrowded life-boat. The bos’n pulled me in and a woman’s voice whispered, “Thank God, he’s saved!” There on the edge of the horizon I could see the dim outline of a ship with a great black stream of smoke in her wake and I knew her for the _Arapahoe_ at last. “Where’s the little operator?” a man asked me.