West Wind Drift

West Wind Drift, by George Barr
McCutcheon

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McCutcheon (#12 in our series by George Barr McCutcheon)
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Title: West Wind Drift
Author: George Barr McCutcheon

Release Date: July, 2004 [EBook #6014] [Yes, we are more than one
year ahead of schedule] [This file was first posted on October 16, 2002]
Edition: 10
Language: English
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, WEST
WIND DRIFT ***

Carrie Fellman

WEST WIND DRIFT
By George Barr McCutcheon

WEST WIND DRIFT

On a bright, still morning in October, the Doraine sailed from a South
American port and turned her glistening nose to the northeast. All told,
there were some seven hundred and fifty souls on board; and there were
stores that filled her holds from end to end,--grain, foodstuffs, metals,
chemicals, rubber and certain sinister things of war. Her passenger list
contained the names of men who had achieved distinction in world
affairs,--in finance, in business, in diplomacy, in war, besides that less
subtle pursuit, adventure: men from both hemispheres, from all
continents. It was a cosmopolitan company that sailed out to sea that
placid day, bound for a port six thousand miles away.
Her departure, heavy-laden, from this South American port was
properly recorded in the then secret annals of a great nation; the world

at large, however, was none the wiser. For those were the days when
sly undersea monsters of German descent were prowling about the
oceans, taking toll of humanity and breeding the curse that was to abide
with their progenitors forever.
Down through the estuary and into the spreading bay slid the big
steamer; abreast the curving coast-line she drove her way for leagues
and leagues, and then swept boldly into the vast Atlantic desert.
Four hundred years ago and more, Amerigo Vespucci had sailed this
unknown southern sea in his doughty caravel; he had wallowed and
rocked for months over a course that the Doraine was asked to cover in
the wink of an eye by comparison. Up from the south he had come in
an age when the seas he sailed were no less strange than the land he
touched from time to time; the blue waste of sky and sea as boundless
then as now; the west wind drift as sure and unfailing; the waves as
savage or as mild; the star by which he laid his course as far away and
immutable,--but he came in 1501 and his ship was alone in the
trackless ocean.
The mighty Doraine was not alone; she sailed a sea whose every foot
was charted, whose every depth was sounded. She sailed in an age of
Titans, while the caravel was a frolicksome pygmy, dancing to the
music of a thousand winds, buffeted today, becalmed tomorrow, but
always a snail on the face of the waters. Four hundred years ago
Vespucci and his men were lost in the wilderness of waves. Out of
touch with the world were they for months,--aye, even years,--and no
man knew whither they sailed nor whence they came, for those were
the days when the seven seas kept their secrets better than they keep
them now.
Into the path traversed by the lowly caravel steamed the towering
Doraine, pointing her gleaming nose to the north and east.
She was never seen again.
Out from the lairs of the great American navy sped the swiftest hounds
of the ocean. They swept the face of the waters with a thousand

sleepless eyes; they called with the strange, mysterious voice that
carries a thousand miles; they raked the sea as with a fine-tooth comb;
they searched the coast of a continent; they penetrated its rivers, circled
its islands, scanned its rocks and reefs,--and asked a single question
that had but one reply from every ship that sailed the southern sea.
For months ships of all nations searched for the