CHAPTER XVI
A GHOST SHIP
"COLDER some to-night, Conrad."
"Yes, sir."
"Strait's freezing over, they say."
"Pretty stiff ice outside here already, sir."
The skipper glanced out and smiled confidently but without further comment; yet he took occasion to go down and pass along the car deck and observe the men who under direction of the mate were locking the lugs under the car wheels, as the trains came on board. The wind, which had risen with nightfall to a gale off the water, whipped snow with it which swirled and back-eddied with the switching cars into the great, gaping stern of the ferry.
Officially, and to chief extent in actuality, navigation now had "closed" for the winter. Further up the harbor, beyond Number 25, glowed the white lanterns marking two vessels moored and "laid up" till spring; another was still in the active process of "laying up." Marine insurance, as regards all ordinary craft, had ceased; and the Government at sunrise, five days before, had taken the warning lights from the Straits of Mackinaw, from Ile-aux-Galets, from north Manitou, and the Fox Islands; and the light at Beaver Island had but five nights more to burn.
Alan followed as the captain went below, and he went
