While they were thus engaged, the watchman suddenly made his appearance, bringing with him a pale, scared face, and said something to the captain, who stood in his usual place near the bell. The latter at once hurried below, while the watchman came into the pilot-house to report that one of the cabin boys had been "pinched" between a fender and a stanchion and very severely injured. The way it happened was this: When the Telegraph came abreast of the wharf-boat, the wind caught her and swung her toward it with great violence. One of the mates, seeing the danger, called out, "Stand by, everybody, to fend off! Drop those fenders overboard! _Everybody_, I said," he added, shaking his fist at a negro, who was passing along the deck from the engine-room with a pail of hot water in his hand.
Now, although the negro knew all about the duties of a boy who was employed in the cabin, he knew nothing about a deck hand's business. Setting down his pail, he rushed to the side in readiness to assist in pushing the Telegraph away from the wharf-boat; but it so happened that he placed himself close to a stanchion, at the top of which was fastened a fender--a heavy piece of timber long enough to reach from the boiler-deck to the water. No sooner had he taken up his position, than two of the deck-hands seized the fender attached to that stanchion and dropped it overboard. It swung down to its place, and striking the darkey with fearful force, pinned him fast. He was released as soon as the Telegraph swung away from the wharf-boat, carried off in a fainting condition, and laid upon one of the bunks in the deck hands' room, while the watchman was dispatched to acquaint the captain with the accident, and to inquire if there was a surgeon among the passengers. This was the substance of the story to which George and his companions listened. None of them had much to say about it, for accidents of all kinds were of too frequent occurrence to attract any especial notice from men of their calling. They could not foresee the results that were to grow out of this one.
The storm abated about the time the Telegraph was ready to continue on her way up the river, and George took Mr. Kelsey's place at the wheel. As soon as the boat was fairly under way the captain turned toward the pilot-house, when the doctor, who had been summoned to attend to the injured man, came up the stairs. "I was looking for you, captain," said he. "That man of yours is badly hurt and ought to go to the hospital."