There were men leaning out over the rail of the Mariposa Belle with
lanterns that threw the light as they let her down, and the glare
fell on the water and the reeds. But when they got the boat lowered,
it looked such a frail, clumsy thing as one saw it from the rail
above, that the cry was raised: "Women and children first!" For what
was the sense, if it should turn out that the boat wouldn't even hold
women and children, of trying to jam a lot of heavy men into it?

So they put in mostly women and children and the boat pushed out into
the darkness so freighted down it would hardly float.

In the bow of it was the Presbyterian student who was relieving the
minister, and he called out that they were in the hands of
Providence. But he was crouched and ready to spring out of them at
the first moment.

So the boat went and was lost in the darkness except for the lantern
in the bow that you could see bobbing on the water. Then presently it
came back and they sent another load, till pretty soon the decks
began to thin out and everybody got impatient to be gone.

It was about the time that the third boat-load put off that Mr. Smith
took a bet with Mullins for twenty-five dollars, that he'd be home in
Mariposa before the people in the boats had walked round the shore.

No one knew just what he meant, but pretty soon they saw Mr. Smith
disappear down below into the lowest part of the steamer with a
mallet in one hand and a big bundle of marline in the other.

They might have wondered more about it, but it was just at this time