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Chapter 13,297 wordsPublic domain

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CAREERS OF DANGER AND DARING

CLEVELAND MOFFETT

WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY JAY HAMBIDGE AND GEORGE VARIAN AND OTHERS

NEW YORK THE CENTURY CO. 1903

* * * * *

_Published October, 1901_

THE DEVINNE PRESS.

Dedication

I DEDICATE THIS BOOK TO MY TWO LITTLE CHILDREN ANNE EUNICE AND CLEVELAND LUSK IN LOVE AND THE HOPE THAT IT MAY HELP THEM, AS THEY GROW UP, TO FORM HABITS OF COURAGE AND USEFULNESS. AUGUST, 1901. C. M.

CONTENTS

THE STEEPLE-CLIMBER PAGE I In Which We Make the Acquaintance of "Steeple Bob" 3 II How They Blew Off the Top of a Steeple with Dynamite 14 III The Greatest Danger to a Steeple-Climber Lies in Being Startled 21 IV Experience of an Amateur Climbing to a Steeple-top 29

THE DEEP-SEA DIVER I Some First Impressions of Men Who Go Down Under the Sea 40 II A Visit to the Burying-ground of Wrecks 54 III An Afternoon of Story-telling on the Steam-pump _Dunderberg_ 63 IV Wherein We Meet Sharks, Alligators, and a Very Tough Problem in Wrecking 71 V In Which the Author Puts on a Diving-suit and Goes Down to a Wreck 78

THE BALLOONIST I Here We Visit a Balloon Farm and Talk with the Man Who Runs It 87 II Which Treats of Experiments in Steering Balloons 99 III Something About Explosive Balloons and the Wonders of Hydrogen 110 IV The Story of a Boy Who Ran Away in a Big Balloon 117

THE PILOT I Some Stirring Tales of the Sea Heard at the Pilot's Club 130 II Which Shows How Pilots on the St. Lawrence Fight the Ice-floes 141 III Now We Watch the Men Who Shoot the Furious Rapids at Lachine 148 IV What Canadian Pilots Did in the Cataracts of the Nile 160

THE BRIDGE-BUILDER I In Which We Visit a Place of Unusual Fears and Perils 173 II The Experience of Two Novices in Balancing Along Narrow Girders and Watching the "Traveler" Gang 182 III Which Tells of Men Who Have Fallen from Great Heights 197

THE FIREMAN I Wherein We See a Sleeping Village Swept by a River of Fire and the Burning of a Famous Hotel 209 II What Bill Brown Did in the Great Tarrant Fire 222 III Here We Visit an Engine-house at Night and Chat with the Driver 233 IV Famous Rescues by New York Fire-boats from Red-hot Ocean Liners 241

THE AERIAL ACROBAT I Showing That it Takes More Than Muscle and Skill to Work on the High Bars 255 II About Double and Triple Somersaults and the Danger of Losing Heart 264 III In Which the Author Tries His Hand with Professional Trapeze Performers 272 IV Some Remarkable Falls and Narrow Escapes of Famous Athletes 284

THE WILD-BEAST TAMER I We Visit a Queer Resort for Circus People and Talk with a Trainer of Elephants 293 II Methods of Lion-tamers and the Story of Brutus's Attack on Mr. Bostock 304 III Bonavita Describes His Fight with Seven Lions and George Arstingstall Tells How He Conquered a Mad Elephant 317 IV We See Mr. Bostock Matched Against a Wild Lion and Hear About the Tiger Rajah 328 V We Spend a Night Among Wild Beasts and See the Dangerous Lion Black Prince 339

THE DYNAMITE WORKER I The Story of Some Millionaire Heroes and the World's Greatest Powder Explosion 348 II We Visit a Dynamite-factory and Meet a Man Who Thinks Courage is an Accident 358 III How Joshua Plumstead Stuck to His Nitro-Glycerin-Vat in an Explosion and Saved the Works 367

THE LOCOMOTIVE ENGINEER I How it Feels to Ride at Night on a Locomotive Going Ninety Miles an Hour 377 II We Pick Up Some Engine Lore and Hear About the Death of Giddings 388 III Some Memories of the Great Record-breaking Run from Chicago to Buffalo 395 IV We Hear Some Thrilling Stories at a Round-house and Reach the End of the Book 406

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

About one half the chapters in this book appeared serially in "St. Nicholas Magazine," the other half in the "New York Herald," and two chapters on the Locomotive Engineer, and one on the Wild-Beast Tamer appeared in "McClure's Magazine." Thanks are extended to all these for permission to republish.

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

PAGE

DIVERS AT WORK NEAR A WRECK _Frontispiece_

"I HAD TO CRAWL AROUND AND OVER IT" 5

AT THE TOP OF ST. PAUL'S, NEW YORK 10

"THEN MY PARTNER STOOD ON MY SHOULDERS" 12

"SOMETIMES IN HARD PLACES YOU HAVE TO THROW YOUR NOOSES AROUND THE SHAFT" 16

PICTURE OF THE FALLING STEEPLE, PHOTOGRAPHED JUST AFTER THE DYNAMITE EXPLODED. THE FALLING SECTION WAS 35 FEET IN LENGTH AND WEIGHED 35 TONS 20

LOOKING FROM THE GROUND UPWARD AT ST. PAUL'S SPIRE, BROADWAY, NEW YORK CITY 25

GILDING A CHURCH CROSS, ABOVE NEW YORK CITY 30

HOW THE STEEPLE-CLIMBER GOES UP A FLAGPOLE 37

PORTRAIT OF A DIVER. DRAWN FROM LIFE 43

"THE DIVER'S HELMET SHOWED LIKE THE BACK OF A BIG TURTLE" 46

DIVER STANDING ON SUNKEN COAL BARGE 51

THE MEN AT WORK WITH THE AIR-PUMP 57

"I STAYED DOWN UNTIL THAT CHAIN WAS UNDER THE SHAFT" 60

THE MAN WHO ATTENDS TO THE DIVER'S SIGNALS 65

A DIVER AT WORK ON A STEAMBOAT'S PROPELLER 75

THE AUTHOR GOING DOWN IN A DIVER'S SUIT 80

THE AUTHOR AFTER HIS FIRST DIVE. THE FACE-PLATE HAS BEEN UNSCREWED FROM THE HELMET 83

"BALLOON-CLOTH BY HUNDREDS OF YARDS" 88

"FIELDS THAT LOOK LIKE AN ESKIMO VILLAGE" 89

"A PAIR OF GREAT WINGS MADE OF FEATHERS AND SILK--WHICH, ALAS! WOULD NEVER FLY" 91

PROFESSOR MYERS IN HIS "SKYCYCLE" 93

HOW THE EARTH LOOKS WHEN VIEWED FROM A HEIGHT OF ONE MILE. (Photographed from a Balloon.) 96

MME. CARLOTTA STEERING A BALLOON BY TIPPING THE FOOT-BOARD 100

"IN SPITE OF ALL THEIR SKILL THESE INDIANS FOUND THEMSELVES PRESENTLY LIFTED INTO THE AIR, CANOES AND ALL" 103

MME. CARLOTTA CALLS FOR ASSISTANCE FROM ANOTHER BALLOONIST THREE MILES AWAY 107

A BALLOON-PICNIC AT THE AERONAUTS' HOME 112

"STEVENS CAME DOWN ONCE WITH A PARACHUTE TWO MILES OUT IN THE ATLANTIC OCEAN--AND WAS PROMPTLY RESCUED" 119

THE RESCUE OF THE "OREGON'S" PASSENGERS 132

A PILOT-BOAT RIDING OUT A STORM 138

RIVER-BUOYS ON THE BANK FOR THE WINTER 145

"BIG JOHN" STEERING A BOAT THROUGH THE LACHINE RAPIDS 150 By permission of William Notman & Son

FRED OUILLETTE, THE YOUNG PILOT 153

THE INDIAN PILOTS RESCUE PASSENGERS FROM THE STEAMER ON THE ROCKS 156

"MAN OVERBOARD!" AN INDIAN CANOE TO THE RESCUE 158

THE PILOT, "BIG JOHN" 162

HAULING A STEAMER UP THE NILE RAPIDS 165

CUTTING THE LINE--A MOMENT OF PERIL 167

"OVER THEY WENT, THE WHOLE BLACK LINE OF THEM" 169

HOW THE ENGINEERS WERE CARRIED OVER TO THE NILE ISLANDS 170

THE WORK OF THE BRIDGE-BUILDERS. A TOWER OF THE NEW EAST RIVER BRIDGE. THIS PHOTOGRAPH ALSO ILLUSTRATES THE NARROW ESCAPE OF JACK MCGREGGOR ON THE SWINGING COLUMN 175

"THERE WAS PAT, FAST ASLEEP, LEGS DANGLING, HEAD NODDING, AS COMFORTABLE AS YOU PLEASE" 179

"THE IRON STREET LOOKED DELICATE, NOT MASSIVE" 184

WARMING THEIR LUNCHES AT THE BOILER-FIRE 186

A STRANGE WAY TO GO TO MEALS 186

"ITS MASCOT KITTEN, CURLED UP THERE BY THE ASH-BOX" 189

RIDING UP ON AN EIGHTEEN-TON COLUMN 191

ON THE "TRAVELER." HOISTING A STRUT 195

WALKING A GIRDER TWO HUNDRED FEET IN AIR 203

BURNING OIL-TANKS 210

"SNYDER, WHITE AS A GHOST, RACED AHEAD OF THE FIRE" 213

"THE VERY STREETS ARE BURNING" 215

USE OF THE SCALING LADDERS 218

A HOT PLACE 224

A FALLING WALL 231

A RESCUE FROM A FIFTH STORY 234

AT FULL SPEED 239

"INTO THE STREET OF FIRE, BETWEEN THE TWO PIERS, STEAMED THE BIG FIRE-BOAT, STRAIGHT IN, WITH FOUR STREAMS PLAYING TO PORT AND FOUR TO STARBOARD, ALL DOING THEIR PRETTIEST" 243

GALLAGHER'S RESCUE OF A SWEDE FROM THE BURNING BARGE 245

SAVING THE MEN OF THE "BREMEN" 250

FIRE-BOATS WORKING ON THE "BREMEN" AND THE "SAALE" 253

"AS THEY SHOOT TOWARD THE MAN HANGING FOR THE CATCH FROM THE LAST BAR" 259

"FOUR ELEPHANTS WAS ENOUGH FOR ANY MAN TO LEAP OVER" 267

CIRCUS PROFESSIONALS PRACTISING A FEAT OF BALANCING 279

THROUGH A PAPER BALLOON AT THE END OF A GREAT FEAT 289

HOW THE LIONESS WAS CAPTURED ON THE OPEN PRAIRIE 295

MAN IN CAGE WITH LIONS 301

BEGINNING THE TRAINING 305

COMING TO CLOSE QUARTERS 307

THE LION DESTROYS THE CHAIR 308

THE TAMER'S TRIUMPH. READING HIS NEWSPAPER IN THE LION'S CAGE 310

BIANCA RESCUES BOSTOCK FROM "BRUTUS" 315

BONAVITA'S FIGHT WITH SEVEN LIONS IN THE RUNWAY 320

"RAJAH'S" ATTACK UPON BONAVITA IN THE RUNWAY 331

THE TIGER "RAJAH" KICKED BY THE QUAGGA 334

PUTTING THE TIGER "RAJAH" AGAIN UPON THE ELEPHANT'S BACK 337

A ROYAL BENGAL TIGER 345

YOUNG DUPONT WORKING TO SAVE THE POWDER-MILL 351

EFFECTS OF DYNAMITE EXPLODED UNDER WATER 354

THE EXPLOSION IN THE NEW YORK CITY TUNNEL 356

"EVERYTHING WAS BLOWN TO PIECES" 361

"HE WENT TO WORK THROWING WATER ON THE BURNING BOXES" 365

"A SWIFT, HEAVY CAR WAS PLUNGING TOWARD THE OPEN DOOR" 372

"HE KNEW THAT A SECOND EXPLOSION MIGHT COME AT ANY MOMENT" 375

"A PLACE WHERE YELLOW EYES GLARE OUT OF DEEP SHADOWS" 379

AT THE THROTTLE 385

"THEY STRUCK THE MISSISSIPPI BRIDGE AT FULL SPEED" 390

"AS THE DRIVERS BEGAN TO TURN I JUMPED ON THE COW-CATCHER" 397

A RECORD-BREAKING RUN 401

"DRAWN BY THE IDEA OF ITS GOING SO BLAMED FAST AND BEING SO STRONG" 409

"CONVICTS HAD REVOLVERS ALL RIGHT THAT TRIP AND DENNY THREW UP HIS HANDS" 413

CAREERS OF DANGER AND DARING

THE STEEPLE-CLIMBER

IN WHICH WE MAKE THE ACQUAINTANCE OF "STEEPLE BOB"

DURING the summer months of 1900--what blazing hot months, to be sure!--people on lower Broadway were constantly coming upon other people with chins in the air, staring up and exclaiming: "Dear me, isn't it wonderful!" or "There's that fellow again; I'm sure he'll break his neck!" Then they would pass on and give place to other wonderers.

The occasion of this general surprise and apprehension was a tall man dressed entirely in white, who appeared day after day swinging on a little seat far up the side of this or that church steeple, or right at the top, hugging the gold cross or weather-vane, or, higher still, working his way, with a queer, kicking, hitching movement, up various hundred-foot flagpoles that rise from the heaven-challenging office buildings down near Wall Street. At these perilous altitudes he would hang for hours, shifting his ropes occasionally, raising his swing or lowering it, but not doing anything that his sidewalk audience could see very well or clearly understand. Yet thousands watched him with fascination, and a kodak army descended upon neighboring housetops, and newspapers followed the movements of "Steeple Bob" in thrilling chronicle.

That is what he was called in large black letters at the head of columns--"Steeple Bob"; but I came to know him at his modest quarters on Lexington Avenue, where he was plain Mr. Merrill, a serious-mannered and an unpretentious young man, very fond of his wife and his dog, very fond of spending evenings over books of adventure, and quite indifferent to his day-time notoriety. I call him a young man, yet in years of service, not in age, he is the oldest steeple-climber in the business, ever since his teacher, "Steeple Charlie," fell from his swing some years ago in New Bedford, Massachusetts, and died the steeple-climber's death.

I often saw books of the sea on Merrill's table, and accounts of whaling voyages; and he told me, one evening (while through an open door came the snores of his weary partner), about his own adventurous boyhood, with three years' cruising in Uncle Sam's navy on the school-ships _Minnesota_ and _Yantic_ (he shipped at the age of twelve) and two years at whale-fishing in the North Sea. Quite ideal training, this, for a steeple-climber; he learned to handle ropes and make them fast so they would stay fast; he learned to climb and keep his head at the top of a swaying masthead; he learned to bear exposure as lads must who are washed on deck every morning with a hose, and stand for inspection, winter and summer, bare to the waist. And he gained strength of arm and back swinging at the oar while whale-lines strained on the sunk harpoon; and patience in long stern-chases; and nerve when some stricken monster lashed the waters in agony and the boat danced on a reddened sea.

Merrill laughed about the climb up old Trinity's spire, the first climb when he carried up the hauling-rope and worked his way clear to the cross, with nothing to help him but the hands and feet he was born with, and did it coolly, while men on the street below turned away sickened with fear for him.

"I'm telling you the truth," said Steeple Bob, "when I say it was an easy climb; any fairly active man could do it if he'd forget the height. I'm not talking about all steeples--some are hard and dangerous; but the one on Trinity, in spite of its three hundred-odd feet, has knobs of stone for ornament all the way up (they call them corbels), and all you have to do is to step from one to another."

"How much of a step?"

"Oh, when I stood on one the next one came to my breast, and then I could just touch the one above that."

He called this easy climbing!

"The only ticklish bit was just at the top, where two great stones, weighing about a ton apiece, swell out like an apple on a stick, and I had to crawl around and over that apple, which was four feet or so across. If it hadn't been for grooves and scrollwork in the stone I couldn't have done it, and even as it was I had two or three minutes of hard wriggling after I kicked off with my feet and began pulling myself up."

"You mean you hung by your hands from this big ball of stone?"

"I hung mostly by my fingers; the scrolls weren't deep enough for my hands to go in."

"And you drew yourself slowly up and around and over that ball?"

"Certainly; that was the only way."

"And it was at the very top?"

"Yes, just under the cross. It wasn't much, though; you could do it yourself."

I really think Merrill believed this. He honestly saw no particular danger in that climb, nor could I discover that he ever saw any particular danger in anything he had done. He always made the point that if he had really thought the thing dangerous he wouldn't have done it. And I conclude from this that being a steeple-climber depends quite as much upon how a man thinks as upon what he can do.

"A funny thing happened!" he added. "After I got over this hard place, I slid into a V-shaped space between the bulging stone and the steeple-shaft, and I lay there on my back for a minute or so, resting. But when I started to raise myself I found my weight had worked me down in the crotch and jammed me fast, and it was quite a bit of time before I could get free."

"How much time? A minute?"

"Yes, five minutes; and it seemed a good deal longer."

Five minutes struggling in a sort of stone trap, stretched out helpless at the very top of a steeple where one false move would mean destruction--that is what Merrill spoke of as a funny thing! Thanks, I thought, I will take my fun some other way, and lower down.

"You would be surprised," he went on, "to feel the movement of a steeple. It trembles all the time, and answers every jar on the street below. I guess old Trinity's steeple sways eighteen inches every time an elevated train passes. And St. Paul's is even worse. Why, she rocks like a beautifully balanced cradle; it would make some people seasick. Perhaps you don't know it, but the better a steeple is built the more she sways. You want to look out for the ones that stand rigid; there's something wrong with them--most likely they're out of plumb."

"Isn't there danger," I asked, "that a steeple may get swaying too much, say in a gale, and go clear over?"

"Gale or not," said Merrill, "a well-made steeple must rock in the wind, the same as a tree rocks. That is the way it takes the storm, by yielding to it. If it didn't yield it would probably break. Why, the great shaft of the Washington Monument sways four or five feet when the wind blows hard."

Then he explained that modern steeples are built with a steel backbone (if I may so call it) running down from the top for many feet inside the stonework. At Trinity, for instance, this backbone (known as a dowel) is four inches thick and forty-five feet long, a great steel mast stretching down through the cross, down inside the heavy stones and ornaments, and ending in massive beams and braces where the steeple's greater width gives full security.

"What sort of work did you do on these steeples?" I asked.

"All kinds; stone-mason's work, painter's work, blacksmith's work, carpenter's work--why, a good steeple-climber has to know something about 'most every trade. It's painting flagpoles, and scraping off shale from a steeple's sides, and repairing loose stones and ornaments, and putting up lightning-rods, and gilding crosses, and cleaning smoke-stacks so high that it makes you dizzy to look up, let alone looking down, and a dozen other things. Sometimes we have to take a whole steeple down, beginning at the top, stone by stone--unless it's a wooden steeple, and then we burn her down five or six feet at a time, with creosote painted around where you want the fire to stop; the creosote puts it out. Once I blew off the whole top of a steeple with dynamite; and, by the way, I'll tell you about that some time."

Conversing with a steeple-climber (when he feels like telling things) is like breathing oxygen; you find it over-stimulating. In ten minutes' matter-of-fact talking he opens so many vistas of thrilling interest that you stand before them bewildered. He starts to answer one question, and you burn to interrupt him with ten others, each of which will lead you hopelessly away from the remaining nine.

"Did you ever have any experiences with lightning?" I asked Merrill, one day.

"Oh, a few," he said. "A thunderbolt struck the Trinity steeple the very day we finished our work. We had just taken down our tackle and staging after gilding the cross when--by the way, they say there's a hundred dollars in gold under that cross."

"Really?" I exclaimed. "How did it get there?"

"Somebody ordered it put there when the steeple was built. People often do queer things like that. I painted a flagpole on a barn up in Massachusetts where there was four hundred dollars in gold hidden under the weather-vane. Everybody knew it was there, because the farmer who put it there told everybody, and my partner was crazy to saw off the end of that pole some night and fool 'em, but of course I wouldn't have it."

Here was I quite off my thunderbolt trail, and although curious about that farmer, I came back to it resolutely.