Page:New Brunswick Magazine Issue 1.djvu/180

get some bolts which were being heated to enlarge the holes in the dead-eyes. Doherty and others brought these bolts as they were needed, carrying them through the yard at a glowing heat.

The work at the forward chain plates was completed and attention was given to the main chains. Whether, in the interval, a red hot bolt was dropped, or whether some of the glowing scales from a bolt fell among the tarry shavings and chips on the ground is not certainly known. It has always been supposed that one of the workmen let a bolt fall. There are others who assert that Mr. Owens himself picked up a partially cooled bolt which lay on the rail, but finding it so much hotter than he expected, laid it down so hastily that it rolled from the rail and fell among the tar and shavings in the yard below. Whatever was the case, while the work was being done at the main chains Mr. Doherty saw a blaze starting among the chips under the bow, where the men had been a few moments before. He at once shouted "fire." Mr. Owens turned, saw the flame and instantly pulled off his coat, ordering Doherty to throw it on the flames to smother them. Doherty did so, but the blaze burst out more fiercely from under the coat, and he ran to the shipyard well to get a bucket of water. In the few moments required to accomplish this, the fire had spread with amazing rapidity, and when Doherty came back the smoke was so thick that he could not get anywhere near the ship. The flames spread to the bed of chips all over the yard and seized greedily on the newly tarred and painted hull, wrapping the ship in a blaze from end to end, and sending up dense clouds of black smoke which could be seen for many miles outside the city. The wind was south-west, and the fire quickly spread to the houses in the vicinity, reaching to and across Portland street, up the west side of