Smith climbed over the stern railings, kicked in three cabin windows, and using the sills as footholds, lowered himself on top of the rudder.

After half an hour, . a young boy climbed down beside him. Smith looked into the face white with fear. He pointed to a cotton bale floating nearby.

"If you want to save your skin, son, you'd better get yourself on that bale."

"I... I can't swim," the boy stammered.

"Hang on. I'll bring it closer."

Smith slipped into the freezing water, swam over to the bale, and got on top of it. Using his hands, he tried to paddle the bale close enough to the stern for the boy to jump aboard, but he could not make enough headway to reach the boat. At last, he regained the burning steamboat, and unthinkingly climbed back on board. This time, he found himself amidships, near the starboard paddle wheel. There he found a dozen people still hanging onto different sections of the smoldering remains.

The flames had decreased to where the assengers were able to cling to p the side by standing on the chines, an extended rib of the hull made of solid timber running fore and aft to keep the boat from rolling.

Smith found himself clinging next to Engineer Hemstead; Job Sand, the headwaiter; Harry Reed, a deckhand; and another stoker, George Baum. All around the burned hulk they could see the sea filled with a blanket of debris, ashes, and dead bodies of all ages. Smith clenched his jaws as he stared at the appalling reality of the tragedy. He choked off the bile rising in his throat and looked down at the water below his feet that waited patiently to engulf them.

At three o'clock, seven hours after the fire was discovered, the smoldering remains of the steamboat slipped beneath the cold waters of the Sound, accompanied by a great hissing sound as the cold water surged through the cremated interior of the hull. Steam mingled with smoke to create a pall that was slowly carried away by wind, and soon the flotsam drifted away, leaving the grave of the Lexington shrouded and unmarked by a merciless sea.

As the hull sank from under them, Smith, along with four othersHarry Reed; George Baum; the actor and comedian Henry Finn; and the boy who had taken Smith's place on the rudder-struggled onto a large piece of the paddle-wheel guard that had ripped away and bobbed to the surface after the ship sank. Like Manchester and Hillard before him, Smith also did his best to keep the others alive on the paddlewheel guard. He shook and massaged them, and tried to force them to exercise, but overcome by the cold, the living had reached the limit of their endurance. They died one by one and rolled into the water.

Smith, a tough drinker and brawler when ashore, stared at the devil and shook his fist.