She was flying Dutch colours and her sails bellied with a w4nd that certainly was not apparent to those who gazed at her, wide-eyed and whispering, from the fort. In spite of the trade regulations that forbade the passing of any vessel up the river without a permit, regardless of signals or challenge, the stranger sailed on. Then a gun was fired from the battery, but her hull did not stop the ball, nor did the ball check her course.

She passed on, weathered the point of Jeffrey's Hook, crossed the long stretch of the Grievous Hook, and sailed out of sight under some of the headlands of the Tappan Zee. From that day to this no one has seen this unsubstantial stranger sail down the river, past Manhattan, and out to sea. But many a time the rivermen have encountered her and with a muttered invocation to St. Nicholas have shortened sail, knowing that a storm was soon to come.

2i6 The Hudson River

For some reason the Tappan Zee seems to have been the favourite cruising-ground for this barometric craft since her first adoption of the Hudson; and even today, when least expected, her strange, tall poop and swelling sides sometimes are seen as she rounds the tedious shoulder of Point-no-Point, or steals along shore under the shadow of Kingsland's Point. Some

Hi>OK MOUNTAIN FROM NYACK

believe that she runs for anchorage into the mouth of the Pocantico, and others that she hides near the pineshaded banks of the Hafenje, but no one has ever seen her at rest. She is always flying swiftly before a wind that mortals cannot feel. There is the memory of another craft, more substantial than the phantom shi]), and more successful in attaining a port than Rambout's boat, that made the passage of the river between Wolfert's Roost and