It was blowin' up for weather as we couldn't help but see.
Her crew was gone the Lord knows where--and Fritz had left her too;
He must have took a scare and quit afore his job was through;
We tried to pass a hawser, but it warn't no kind o' good,
So we put a salvage crew aboard to save her if we could....

"Bringin' home the _Rio Grande_ and her freight as well,
Half-a-score of steamboatmen cursin' her like hell,
Flounderin' in the flooded waist, scramblin' for a hold,
Hangin' on by teeth and toes, dippin' when she rolled;
Ginger Dan the donkeyman, Joe the 'doctor's' mate,
Lumpers off the water-front, greasers from the Plate,
That's the sort o' crowd we had to reef and steer and haul,
Bringin' home the _Rio Grande_--ship and freight and all.

"Our mate had served his time in sail, he was a bully boy,
It'd wake a corpse to hear him hail 'Foretopsail yard ahoy!'
He knew the ways o' squaresail and he knew the way to swear,
He'd got the habit of it here and there and everywhere;
He'd some samples from the Baltic and some more from Mozambique;
Chinook and Chink and double-Dutch and Mexican and Greek;
He'd a word or two in Russian, but he learned the best he'd got
Off a pious preachin' skipper--and he had to use the lot....

"Bringin' home the _Rio Grande_ in a seven-days' gale,
Seven days and seven nights, the same as JONAH'S whale,
Standard compass gone to bits, steering all adrift,
Courses split and mainmast sprung, cargo on the shift ...
Not a chart in all the ship left to steer her by,
Not a glimpse of star or sun in the bloomin' sky ...