LOST IN THE ICE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXV, Issue 9064, 26 May 1888, Page 2 (Supplement)

LOST IN THE ICE.

PAUL BOYTON'S THRILLING EX* PERIENCE. Chicago, March 29.—Captain Paul Boy ton, the noted swimmer, bad an experience in Lake Michigan on Sunday he thinks he will not forget for some time. The captain has grown heavy during the winter, and to reduce flesh recently began taking pulls out Into the lake in his rubber suit. Tuesday morning, at seven o'clock, he left Fullerton Avenue for a swim to South Chicago and return, and met with the most thrilling adventure of his life, in which he battled for hours with a great i,ce floe and was carried many miles out into the lake, stripped of navigation instruments and lost for hours in the cold, bleak waste of drifting ice, hanging clouds, and straggling ducka and gulls. From seven a.m. until midnight the captain was without food or drink. The chill of the ice water had driven him to the desperate resort ot hard work all that time to keep up a vigorous circulation so ho would not chill and perish in the lake. At midnight when he was rescued at the Crib two miles out on the lake his vitality was almost gone. Stimulants were applied and the daring navigator put to bed. A telephone message was sent to the police that the captain was saved by them and taken to his little family, a wife and son, **-ho were distracted by his long absence, mid supposed he had perished. Captain Boyton was in bed when a reporter called nt his house last night. He was exhausted, the reaction from his desperate excitement of the day before having made him weak und sick. "When I entered tho water at 7 a.m., the captain said, "there was a fresh west wind. I swam about two miles, intending to clear the Crib for a trip to South Chicago. Just about the limit of my run I began to meet ice. I pushed through it for a time, and then ran on to some floes, on to Which I climbed. Meanwhile a heavy sky bad shut out all view of and tho wind had got the ice together. I struggled for awhile in what I thought was the western border of the field, and then ran into what I thought was a pocket. I pulled through It and came again to tho straggling floes. I must have fought them until ten o clock before I missed my compass. When I looked to get my bearings, having noticed that the city had gone from view, I found that the band which bound my compass to tny body had either been severed by a piece of ice or had become unbuckled, as it was gone. The sun was hidden, and there was nothing by which I could get my bearings. The water was cold, and I nad been it in so long I began to get drowsy. "Chills ran through my veins in quick Succession, and I saw I must either pull out for somewhere or perish. I looked about Tvnd saw the field of ice was at my feet. I Ewam feet foremost, and then concluded I had only to pull from the ice to reach Chicago. So I started, and vigorously, too. ITor five hours I worked as I never did before. The water was heavy and lifeless. I had to fight for every inch I made. Chicago was still nowhere to be seen, and I had no notion of the time of day. Then I changed my course about half-way round find pulled hard for awhile. The ice gathered about me again, and when night carne I was righting again for my life. " Sometimes I could dodge a drift, and at others I climbed upon cakes and crossed them. When the moon rose I got a flash of a view of it, and then saw my mistake. I tad crossed the field in the forenoon, when I entered what I thought was a pocket, and all the long pull of the day with the ice at tny feet had driven me toward Michigan. The turn I had taken ser.it me south. 1 set about and pushed for the moon. At ten o'clock I saw a faint light in the sky, and an hour later saw it was from the furnaces at South Chicago. • " Then I got my bearings and sighted the lights at the Cribs. I pulled up there at midnight and blew my bugle. I must have called a half a dozen times before an anewer came. Then Captain McCabe answered my Signal, and I shouted, ' Crib, ahoy !' '"Aye, aye; who'e there?' the captain answered. ' Pull around to port. , " When I got there they dropped a bit of tope, into which I fixed my foot, and they drew me up. They gave me refreshments, put me to bed, and telephoned my wife that I was safe. Captain McCabe says that when I left the ice at night it was fully fifteen miles from the shore, and I think he is about right, because the swim in would take the time I used. I have swam greater distances, but that was the first time I was ever lost, and the battle with the ice and cold was a more thrilling episode than I want to experience again."