THE FREEDOM OF THE SEAS
plates. Ashore the Gyandotte's crew swaggered a little, less from vanity than from a sense of pleasure in having contributed their bit, and no longer had to sit mum while "Limie" men told of desperate deeds in the North Sea. A message of praise from their own Admiral and one from the British Admiral were posted, and they learned that they had "worthily upheld the traditions of the United States Navy." The public, however, received a very meager account of that engagement.
The Gyandotte hurried back to Queenstown as soon as repairs were completed and reported for duty. It may have been imagination, but it really seemed to Nelson that the little battle-tried cruiser held herself more cockily than usual when she steamed between the forts that afternoon. Two days later she was pounding the seas off Cape Clear, bound west to meet another covey of nervous transports, and the monotony of the old life threatened again.
Two trips to the border of the danger zone she made before an incident worth recording occurred, and then the incident was of more interest to Nelson than to others aboard. They were steaming westward, some eighty miles from the Cape at the time. Ahead and astern were three
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