Testing Out a Man

Whistle-blasts piped or roared singly and in pairs, a duet of steam
voices, or blended at times into a puzzling chorus.

A steamer's whistle in the fog conveys little information except to
announce that a steam-propelled craft is somewhere yonder in the white
blank, unseen, under way. No craft is allowed to sound passing signals
unless the vessel she is signaling is in plain sight.

Captain Mayo could see nothing--even the surface of the water was almost
indistinguishable.

Ahead, behind, to right and left, everything that could toot was busy
and vociferous. Here and there a duet of three staccato blasts indicated
that neighbors were threatening to collide and were crawfishing to the
best of their ability.

Twice the big steamer stopped her engines and drifted until the squabble
ahead of her seemed to have been settled.

A halt mixes the notations of the log, but the mates of the steamer made
the Battery signals, and after a time the spidery outlines of the first
great bridge gave assurance that their allowances were correct.

Providentially there was a shredding of the fog at Hell Gate, a
shore-breeze flicking the mists off the surface of the water.

Then was revealed the situation which lay behind the particularly
emphatic and uproarious "one long and two short" blasts of a violent
whistle. A Lehigh Valley tug was coming down the five-knot current with
three light barges, which the drift had skeowowed until they were taking
up the entire channel. With their cables, the tug and tow stretched for
at least four thousand feet, almost a mile of dangerous drag.