Lottie was startled out of her self-possession by Mr. Highton's speech
to his wife. She turned quickly, and stretching out an imploring hand
toward her, begged her not to go.
But Mrs. Highton, with a coarse laugh, exclaimed, "Oh, you needn't be
afraid. He ain't a-goin' to hurt you!" and walked out of the room.
There were a few whispered words between man and wife before the woman
left the house, and while these were being said, Lottie's courage was
coming back, and when Mr. Highton came in he found her seated composedly
upon the lounge, with Eva nestled close to her side.
He threw himself into the arm-chair which his wife had vacated, and sat
for some minutes eying Lottie from under his shaggy eye-brows, without
speaking. Then he shifted in his seat, crossed one leg over the other
and said, in an insinuating tone.
"You seem to hev a very poor opinion of me, miss."
Lottie made no reply to this, and he continued, more roughly:
"You think I had a hand in your brother's runnin' off. How did you come
by sech an idea as that?"
"I have already told you that I know _some one_ persuaded him to go. No
one but you could have had any object in doing that," replied Lottie,
steadily.
"Wal, I declare! What did _I_ want the boy to run off fer?" asked Mr.
Highton, in pretended surprise, while an angry flush rose to his cheek.
"I can't answer that question."
"Wal, it's best not to throw out insinerations that you can't prove. An'
it will be all the better fer you, if you make up your mind to be
friendly with me. Because, if you ain't, you'll find yourself in a
middlin' bad box before very long. My wife an' me, we wants to be
friendly, an' is willin' to do the best we kin fer you; that's what we
come over this morning to talk about."
"I am getting along very well--I don't need any kind of help from any
one, at present," said Lottie coldly.
"You're mighty inderpendent fer a bit of a girl; but when you come to
find out jest how you air fixed, you may change your tune," and Mart
Highton grinned maliciously.
Lottie made no answer, and he continued:
"We come to you, my wife an' I did, to let you know that this place
_belongs to us_; but, not wishin' to be too hard on you, we offered you
the privilege of stayin' on here with us till you could make some other
'rangements. I told my wife to be easy on you, an' not break the news
too suddint, but she didn't seem to work it jest right. So the next best
plan is to come out plain an' let you know exactly how you're situated."
"I'd like to know, if there's anything I don't understand," said Lottie,
so quietly that Mr. Highton looked rather astonished at the way she was
taking the matter.
"Wal, then, this is the way the business stands. When your father
settled down here, an' entered his quarter-section, he jest made a
mistake an' put his improvements on the wrong quarter. Nobody didn't
happen to discover the mistake, fer folks wasn't comin' in here to no
great extent; but, now a railroad is bein' talked of, people is lookin'
after things middlin' sharp. I found out how it was 'tother day, when I
was over to the land office, an' I jest clipped in an' filed on it
quicker'n a wink. So now I'm goin' to come right along an' take
possession. You kin stay, as I said afore, 'till you kin make other
'rangements--_purvided_ you're a mind to make yourself agreeable! 'Taint
everybody as would be so easy on you, you must remember!"
"No, _it is not_ every one who would try to rob helpless children,"
answered Lottie, scornfully. "I do not believe a single word of your
story. You have prepared a scheme to rob us of our home--to drive us
away from the only shelter we have; but you will not succeed in your
wicked plans. I intend to keep possession here, until father comes back,
and will defend his home against claim jumpers as long as there is life
in my body."
Lottie had risen as she made this declaration, and stood cool and
resolute before the man whom she knew had determined to drive her out of
her father's house. Her cheeks glowed, her eyes gleamed, her form seemed
taller by an inch, and she looked quite unlike the bright-faced, merry
girl that she usually was.
Eva clung to her hand and looked up at her in wonder. What had this
hateful visitor said that had made Lottie so angry? She was not able to
understand the meaning of his words, but Eva knew he had offended her
dear sister, and she bent her brows and sent indignant glances in his
direction.
But Mart Highton paid little heed to the child; he was wondering how
this young girl, whom he had expected so easily to impose upon, had
penetrated his scheme, and how long she would hold out against him.
He knew nothing of the solitary night watch when those words of his
which had put her on her guard had reached her ears.
That a young girl like this should "show fight," as he phrased it to
himself, was a complete surprise, and for a moment he stared at her
silently. Then he burst into a loud laugh, and, when he had laughed long
enough, he said, jocosely:
"An' so you're a-goin' to hold on to my quarter-section, be you? You're
a mighty peart sort of a girl! I declar' I admire your spunk! But if I
was you, I wouldn't look _too_ strong fer that father o' yourn. You'll
never set eyes on _him_ till Gabriel blows his horn: an' that'll be a
middlin' long spell to hold out agin me an' the land office."
And Mart Highton laughed again at his own wit.
Lottie was too indignant at his brutality to make any answer. She felt
her limbs trembling beneath her, and sat down again quickly that it
might not be noticed, for she really feared the man.
But the gentleman in the arm-chair made no offensive movement, as she
had thought he might do; for in her eyes he was a wretch capable of any
crime, and, knowing that she and Eva were utterly alone and friendless
in this isolated spot, might he not have it in his heart to kill them
and so get them out of his way?
She knew instinctively that he was a man who would hesitate at nothing
that would serve to gain his ends. If he could not get possession of the
property he coveted in any other way, what was there to hinder him if he
chose to take their lives? There was not a friend, not even an
acquaintance, within miles of them who would be interested to inquire
into their fate. And then a dreadful fear flashed upon her. Perhaps he
_had_ murdered Jimmy--had lured him away from home with fair promises,
and had then killed him.
Her face blanched at the thought as she turned and looked searchingly at
the hateful countenance confronting her, and, almost without knowing
that she spoke, Lottie uttered the words, very nearly like those with
which she had first greeted him:
"What have you done with my brother Jimmy?"
Mart Highton sprang to his feet, pale with anger, and, with one great
stride, came to where Lottie was sitting.
[TO BE CONTINUED.]
[_This Story began in No. 45._]
EPHRAIM CLARK'S
FIRST AND ONLY VOYAGE.
By E. Shippen, M.D.
CHAPTER XVII.
EPH SEES GREAT PEOPLE.
At midday the big "dug-out," called La Belle Acadienne, paddled up to
the landing, under the charge of an old creole, who was to take Eph
Clark to New Orleans and then to lodgings at a French house, when Eph
was to seek an interview with the governor and carry out the
instructions he had received.
The Belle Acadienne had an awning over her after part, where the
passengers would be protected from the night-damp; and there were lots
of things to eat, with a cooking place forward, presided over by a
grizzled old negro, who produced some very nice dishes from his few pots
and pans.
The "padron," or head of the boat, and six paddlers, made up, with Eph
and Eric and the old Creole, ten in all.
As soon as the passengers were on board, the canoe went away, almost
north, up the bay.
By nightfall they had entered a deep but narrow bayou, and then there
was a fresh surprise for Eph and Eric.
In the bow of the canoe, hanging well over the water, was an iron crane,
which supported a grating, on which was kept burning, after dark, chunks
of fat pine, which lit up everything around with a rich, yellow light.
As they got farther into the bayou, the banks seemed to disappear, and
they were, as it appeared to Eph--who had never been in such a
country--navigating between rows of huge trees, gray with moss, which
hung from the branches in long festoons, like giant cobwebs.
The fire-light, glowing on the surroundings, showed the most surprising
things to the boys, although the crew seemed to think nothing of them.
Out of the darkness, among the trees and bushes, would peer two bright
marks, which the men said was a deer.
Then would come a great plash in the still water of the bayou, and the
pine knots showed a huge alligator, sulkily sinking, and apparently
uncertain whether to make fight or not, at this invasion of his
territory.
Great gar-fish shot away from the canoe as she went on, and big owls
hooted at being disturbed, sometimes flapping almost into the burning
knots. Herons, and other large birds flopped up from points where they
had been fishing, and sailed away up the bayou with great croaks and
hoarse calls, which were answered from the darkness of the dense bush
and high trees by paroquets and many other birds and animals, disturbed
in their slumbers by the unusual invasion.
The canoe paddled steadily on, until some time late in the night they
reached a curious formation in the middle of the swampy forest.
It was an island, not more than an acre in extent, and quite high, where
the padron said they were accustomed to stop to cook and sleep, for the
men had had a long pull.
As soon as they had eaten the hot supper, which the cook served shortly
after landing, the boys lay down in the canoe on soft mats and slept
until the daylight began to show through the tops of the trees.
The old padron soon had the cook up, and he made a pot of coffee such as
the boys, in their experience of ship's cooking, had never tasted, and
off they went again, threading the tortuous channels, which would be
entirely impassable to any one not accustomed to them.
Once or twice they came into a great lake, full of cypress stumps and
knees, and of alligators also, and several times, on the edges of the
cane-brakes which they sometimes passed, were bears and deer and
quantities of smaller animals, as well as birds.
Eph was so interested at all this that he almost forgot his new position
as a messenger carrying important letters, and it was only, at last,
when they pulled into a small canal, that he began to think about it.
This canal led up to a place where the water communication seemed to
stop. The padron left them for a few moments, and then returned with a
dozen negroes, who came from some huts in a grove of trees, and they
quickly ran her up an incline, and were ready to launch her down again.
Then Eph and Eric were really astonished. They were on a great
embankment, or levee, which seemed to hold in the water of a mighty
river, running with resistless force.
The Mississippi, the padron told them; and then pointed to the other
side, below, where there appeared the buildings of a large town, with
towers and the masts of vessels.
It seemed strange to Eph to emerge from a wilderness and to see such
evidences of civilization, but, young as he was, he had already passed
through many strange scenes, and braced himself up for the business with
which he was charged.
The men launched the canoe down into the brimming river on the other
side of the levee--they were kept there for that purpose by Lafitte, Eph
found out--and then they paddled away for the city.
It was a very different business from the navigation in the slack waters
of the bayous. The current of muddy water ran with great swiftness, and
great swirls, as of a whirlpool, sometimes almost turned the canoe
round.
But she had Lafitte's best crew, and they shot her across the wide,
yellow expanse of water in a way which surprised Eph, as much as he had
seen of boats and canoes.
As it was, they only brought up at the lower part of the town, where
they landed.
There were some people there who seemed to know the canoe very well, and
one long-bearded old Frenchman led Eph and Eric up to his house, where
he gave them some dinner, and then told them they had better go to bed
and rest.
He was Lafitte's principal agent, and when he had read the letter his
chief had sent him he at once began to prepare for an interview with the
governor.
Everybody in New Orleans knew that an invasion by the British forces was
now near at hand.
Governor Claiborne called his council together on the very day after Eph
Clark got there.
Governor Claiborne was the first American governor of Louisiana, and he
had a pretty hard time to reconcile American notions and laws with the
long-settled customs of the district.
But he had a powerful advocate in Judge Edward Livingston, who spoke the
language perfectly, and was a thorough lawyer.
Then there was General Villere, of the Louisiana militia, a brave and
honest man.
When the governor heard that there was a messenger from Lafitte, he was
at first much put out; but he called his council together, and summoned
Eph Clark to appear.
Eph was under a sort of arrest--as two men followed him about--but he
kept up a good face, and at ten o'clock appeared before the governor and
his council with the letter Lafitte had charged him to deliver.
With it he delivered the letter of the English Captain Lockyer, with its
proposals. They were opened and read aloud by a clerk, while Eph stood
at the foot of the table, gazed at by all the council. Then a member of
the council spoke and said:
"I do not believe in making terms with pirates. This story about the
English captain is no doubt merely a scheme to get his brother, who is a
prisoner here, released. He is here on a charge of smuggling, as you all
know."
Eph Clark's temper rose at hearing this speech, and, losing all shyness,
he replied:
"If it pleases your excellency and the rest of the gentlemen, I may say
that I know there are some bad men at Barataria, who are there from
choice; but _I_ was taken there against my will. I could not help
myself. I am no particular champion of Lafitte, but he means right in
this matter, I know, and I myself went with him to meet the Englishmen
and bring them in. Captain Lockyer's letter is genuine, and they mean
all they say. Gambio and Johannot are bad men, but I believe Lafitte is
not, and, if the enemy come here, will be willing to do all he can for
our side."
When Eph had got this far, and all the gentlemen had turned to listen,
he stopped and stammered and blushed, astonished at his own temerity.
A thin, grave gentleman, whom he afterward knew to be Governor
Claiborne, answered at once:
"Well spoken, lad! very well spoken!"
And then two other gentlemen, whom he afterward knew to be Judge Edward
Livingston and General Villere, of the Louisiana militia, chimed in.
Judge Livingston said that he believed that Lafitte was well disposed,
and that, as for his irregular trade, that was what was going on under
the old state of things, and must be put a stop to gradually.
While he was speaking, a messenger hastily entered and gave the governor
a written dispatch which announced the arrival of the enemy's fleet,
with troop ships, at the passes of the Mississippi.
In a few moments the feeling of the gentlemen who had opposed having
anything to do with Lafitte, suffered a change, and it was agreed that
Eph should hurry back by the way he came and bear a message accepting
Lafitte's offers of assistance in the defense of the city, as well as
thanks for having declined the British advances.
When the letter was delivered to Eph, the governor and Judge Livingston
and General Villere asked him about himself, and when Eph modestly and
shortly told them his story, they were more astonished than ever.
"All right, lad!" said the governor. "Do you come back with any force
which may be sent, and, after this trouble is over, these gentlemen and
myself will promise to look out for you. Tell Lafitte that we know
General Jackson is close at hand, with a force of Tennessee and Kentucky
riflemen; but we need artillery for our works and men used to serving
large guns. Let him send us those, and we shall be glad. Go now, and
when you come back, let me see you."
Eph was off at once to the agent's, where he found Eric and the canoe's
crew, and was across the river and winding through the bayous before the
sun went down. So full was he of his important message that he hardly
allowed a halt of a few hours to cook and rest, and arrived at Barataria
on the second morning after leaving New Orleans.
CHAPTER XVIII.
CONCLUSION.
When the Belle Acadienne was announced as coming down the bay, Lafitte
himself went to the landing, so anxious was he to hear the news of which
Eph Clark was the bearer.
As they walked back together to the chief's house, Eph told him all that
had occurred in the council. And Lafitte told him that Johannot had
reported the arrival of the British fleet, for he had been sent out to
reconnoiter, and that he had also sent a message to the English captain
which would prevent him from being certain whether they would be guided
through the bayous or not.
While Eph got some needed refreshment, orders were sent to assemble all
the guns' crews of the pirate vessels in the fort.
There were about two hundred selected, the best and most capable
gunners, and they were at once put under vigorous drill--Eph being made
a lieutenant of the battery.
In the meantime canoes and boats were prepared to take the cannon and
their carriages, with ammunition and stores and utensils of all kinds,
through the secret route, and up to the plain of the east side of the
river, where great works had been thrown up to resist the invaders,
which works stretched between the river and the swamp on the left.
When the artillery and men arrived they were immediately sent to this
work, where they found the battery of an American gun-boat, the
Carolina, also stationed. There was another gun-boat, the Louisiana,
afloat on the river, with a powerful battery of guns, which did good
service in the approaching fight.
The long row of earth-works which the Americans occupied had not been
quite finished, so the top of a great deal of the line was made of
cotton bales, which protected the riflemen from the enemy's bullets to a
great extent, but were easily disarranged and set on fire by artillery.
Some people thought that they would have been better without the cotton
bales, but they were then, and they were always afterwards, associated
with the battle.
When the firing actually began it was discovered that the British had
found a quantity of sugar hogsheads in the plantations, and had used
them in building their batteries, but they were not as good as the
cotton bales at resisting fire, as it turned out.
Eph Clark had Eric as a sergeant in the battery of which he was
lieutenant, on the night of the 7th of January, 1814, by which time all
was ready.
They lay in a rough hut, back of the battery, and the men were talking
and smoking, all around them, as they speculated on the chances of next
day's battle, for everybody knew it would occur then, probably at
daylight.
At last they dropped off into an uneasy doze, and were roused from that
by the order passed to turn out and man the battery.
They were hardly at their guns when General Jackson came along with a
large staff, carefully inspecting the preparations by the light of the
camp fires in the rear of the intrenchments.
General Villere, of the New Orleans militia, who had seen Eph Clark
before, and who was accompanying General Jackson, said:
"Here are Lafitte's men, general. And here is the youth I spoke to you
about, an American boy."
General Jackson had too many weighty matters on his mind that morning to
do more than glance at Eph, in answer to the officer's remark. But he
did say:
"All right! Glad to see such pluck and determination."
Then he passed on to the left of the lines--and all stood firm--peering
into a dense mist, which had arisen as the day was near and obscured the
field in front.
It was known that the flower of the British army was in front, and eager
eyes and ears kept open to detect the first movement. The invaders had
boasted that they would walk straight over the half-drilled riflemen
from Kentucky and Tennessee and the militia of Louisiana. They had not
quite heard of the artillery of Commodore Patterson and of Lafitte's
batteries, and were not prepared for them, while they had little idea of
what the riflemen could do, although they wore no such gorgeous uniform.
Suddenly, before the sun had risen and while the haze still hung upon
the ground like a curtain, a gun was heard from the left of the
batteries--the one in which Eph Clark had charge of the guns.
His sharp sailor-eyes and ears had detected the advance of the enemy
before any others, and, according to orders given beforehand, he fired a
round of grape-shot slap into the advancing foe.
Just then the mist lifted a little, and, by the early light, could be
seen the serried lines of the British force, advancing to the attack in
magnificent order.
There were two columns of troops, one on the right and one on the left.
At the head of each column was a regiment, bearing fascines for filling
up the ditch and scaling-ladders for reaching the crest of the defense.
Between the two columns were marching a thousand Highlanders, in their
picturesque garb, ready to support either column on their flanks, as
might be needed.
At once the riflemen, with their unerring aim, began a rolling fire,
while the artillery, served with great steadiness and coolness, joined
in the battle.
There was great slaughter and confusion among the attacking troops, but,
like veterans as they were, they rallied and came on again.
At first, Eph Clark was shocked by the effect of the fire; but he soon
became excited, and, going from gun to gun of his battery, saw that each
was well loaded and well pointed.
Up to the very ditch surged the brave men in front of them, and one
officer, a lieutenant, came over the breastwork uninjured. Seeing Eph
and a captain of infantry standing by their guns, close to him, he
called out:
"Surrender! surrender! The place is ours!"
Rather surprised at this speech from a single man, Eph replied:
"Look behind you, sir!"
The young English officer, whose name was Lavack, did as he was told,
and saw his troops either dead or wounded or in full retreat, and
already some distance away.
"I'll have to trouble you for your sword, sir!" said Eph, after showing
him this sight.
"And to whom do I surrender?" said the young officer, gazing at Eph's
rig of silk shirt and sash and loose white trowsers.
"To Lieutenant Clark, of Lafitte's Battery." And the young officer was
led away, to be well treated.
In the meantime, while the surviving British troops were retreating from
the front, Eph Clark and those about him heard the "advance" blown from
a bugle in front of them, and, seeing no one standing so near as the
notes seemed to come from, at last discovered, perched up in a small
tree--which must have been exposed to all the storm of balls and
bullets, for many of its branches were cut away--a small music-boy of
one of the British regiments, who had sat up there, sounding the
"advance," all the time the fight was going on, and continued to do so
when his regiment was half a mile away.
Amused at the curious courage and persistency of the little fellow, Eph
and a lieutenant of Kentucky riflemen dropped down into the ditch, and
went out and captured the courageous lad, who was not more than
fourteen.
When they brought him in, the stolid little Englishman, who was entirely
unhurt, was much astonished at the praises he received from those he
considered deadly enemies.
The English did not renew their attack, but at once began preparations
for retreat to their ships. And there was good reason, for the actual
fighting had only lasted twenty-five minutes, and they had twenty-six
hundred men killed, wounded or prisoners, while the American loss was
just seventeen.
General Packenham, the English commander, General Gibbs, Colonel Keene
and Colonel Dale, among the leaders, all lost their lives in that fatal
assault.
And the worst of it all was that the battle was fought after a treaty of
peace had been made between England and the United States. But there was
no means of knowing that, as there would be in these days of steam and
electricity.
That night Eph had the guard in his battery, for vigilance was not
relaxed, as the enemy, though beaten, had not yet retired entirely, and
he was pacing up and down the parapet, and wishing he could go to sleep,
after all the long excitement and labor, when he heard a challenge of a
sentinel at the rear, and soon a written order was brought by an
orderly, directing him to report at headquarters on the following day at
ten o'clock.
This official notice made him uneasy, but he did not know anything wrong
which he had done, and he knew he had served his guns well. So, when the
time came for him to be relieved, he quietly lay down and slept the
sleep of a tired boy, until roused for the rough camp breakfast.
At the appointed time he went to the headquarters in a plantation-house
in the rear of the lines, and reported himself.
An aid-de-camp came out and said:
"General Jackson wants to see you."
Without a word, but with much inward perturbation, Eph followed the
officer into the room, where a large, rawboned man, with hair standing
straight up from his scalp, and clad in general's uniform and high
boots, was sitting at a table filled with papers.
Several officers were standing about the room, and Eph recognized
General Villere and one or two others he had seen before.
The general looked up sharply from his writing--he had a piercing
gray-blue eye--and said:
"My lad, you have been much commended for your conduct. You are an
American?"
"Yes, sir. I did not go to Lafitte's place of my own accord; but when I
saw that I could do some good for my country, I worked as hard as I
could."
The general waved his hand and nodded approvingly.
"Yes," he continued; "I have heard how you acted from Governor Claiborne
and Judge Livingston and General Villere. You are a sailor, I believe?"
"Yes, sir. I have been a sailor for four years."
"Do you like the life?"
"I have not had such success that I should like it. I think I would
rather be a soldier."
"Well said, lad," and the grim general chuckled. "You _shall_ be a
soldier. They will listen to me after this work, and I promise you a
lieutenantcy in one of the regular regiments. In the meantime I take you
on my staff as a volunteer, and you may go to any tailor in New Orleans
and be fitted out."
"There is one thing I would like to say, general."
"What is it? Speak quickly, for I have much to do."
"There is a Danish youth, older than I am, who served in the battery,
and was taken out of the brig with me. I should like to see what becomes
of him."
"Very good! I will give an order for his enlistment, and meantime he can
remain with you."
Two months after this Ephraim Clark received his commission as second
lieutenant in the Second Regiment of United States Infantry, and Eric
Ericcsson was transferred as a private to the same regiment, the
headquarters of which were at the frontier town of St. Louis, in the
Territory of Missouri.
[THE END.]
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COLUMBUS AND THE SCHOOL CHILDREN
By Sidney.
October, 1892, will long be remembered as the quadricentennial
anniversary of America. It has been a festival month, and hardly a town
or hamlet in this country but has celebrated, in some way, the landing
of Columbus. New York devoted almost an entire week to land and water
pageants, and Chicago, in formally dedicating the Columbian Exposition,
had three days of impressive ceremonies.
Two remarkable features are to be noted in connection with the October
celebrations. One is, that the United States, by common consent, have
monopolized the honors in connection with the discovery of this Western
Continent.
Of course, Columbus did not discover the United States any more than
Canada. Every one knows now that he never put foot on North America at
all, his nearest approach being the West India Islands, and that he did
discover South America.
Nevertheless it has always been recognized that here, if anywhere,
rested his claims as a discoverer, and here, therefore, it was fitting
that the quadricentennial should be celebrated.
The second feature was the zeal with which the school children entered
into the celebration. Schools, we may be assured, were little known in
the days of Columbus, when monarchs thought it no shame to be unable to
write their own names. Nor had Columbus any special desire to educate or
civilize the people whom he found in the new lands he annexed to the
Spanish crown.
Yet it may be said, without exaggeration, that of all the benefits
accruing to civilization that grew out of the discovery of America, not
one bears any comparison with the public school system of the United
States. Our forefathers were men who imbibed the love of liberty with
every breath, and they early realized that liberty without intelligence
was not possible, and that learning was a deadly foe to tyranny of any
kind--not the learning which is confined to the few, but the learning
which is free to all, without cost.
There are nations, even at the present day, which designedly keep the
people in ignorance, for fear that they will know their rights and
demand justice. America has no such fear. Every avenue of knowledge has
been opened to the child of the humblest, and in the public schools all
meet on a plane of equality.
So it was eminently fitting that the school children should celebrate
the discovery of this new world where they are rightly considered the
keystone of our national greatness. And they have celebrated it in a way
such as the world has never seen.
In the great civic parade in New York city on October 10, twenty-five
thousand school children marched to the music of a hundred bands, before
the grand-stands, on which sat the dignitaries of the nation, and to the
admiring plaudits of half a million spectators who crowded the
sidewalks, balconies and windows along the route.
Shoulder to shoulder, the pampered darling of Murray Hill and the "kid"
of the Bowery marched in accord, with flashing eyes and conscious pride
in being what they are, and at their head marched the mayor of the
Empire City.
It was a sight long to be remembered, and one calculated to make the
dullest thrill with love of country.
Later in the month, on the twenty-first, the schools all over the land,
from the primary to the high schools, joined in celebrating, each in its
respective schoolhouse. Speeches were made, odes sung and flags raised.
Such a series of celebrations cannot fail to leave a deep impress on the
youthful mind, and one that will tend to instruct and elevate.
In future years, when men and women, they will recall with justifiable
pride that they were part of the quadricentennial festivities, and that
the part they bore was second to none.
It will be a legacy to be cherished, and it is certain that in no
portion of their lives will there be a brighter spot than when, as
school children, they emphasized the power and dignity of the Republic.
CONDENSED FOOD.
By W. S. Bates.
In journeying through foreign lands, especially in the East, the English
or American traveler is constantly amazed to observe upon what meagre
diet the natives exist. Accustomed to meat at every meal, he sees
thousands of people who eat meat perhaps not once a year; used to an
abundance of vegetables and fruits of infinite variety, he encounters
people who live on two or three vegetables and as many fruits.
In the mines of Hungary the workers dine on two slices of black bread
and an apple; the Italians are content with a little oil and a handful
of maccaroni; the Chinese exist almost entirely on rice, and the Arabs
will live for weeks on dried dates. The surprise is not so much that
these people exist, but that they are healthy and strong. Travelers
again and again have noted that the Turkish porters in Constantinople
will carry a burden that two strong Americans can hardly lift, and that
coolies can tire a horse in running with the jinrikisha in China or
Japan.
Doubtless most of this abstemiousness is due to poverty, since all
nationalities soon fall into our ways of eating when they come to these
shores, but their sparingness is none the less a proof that much of what
we eat is an unnecessary burden to our stomachs. The primary purpose of
eating is to sustain life, not to please the palate. We need material to
replenish the waste of tissue, material to make blood and bone and
flesh, and that is all.
Out of a pound of meat, not more than one tenth is of any value, and the
same proportion holds good with many other articles of food. Now, it is
evident that if some method existed by which the nutritious elements
could be extracted and concentrated, the process of eating would be
greatly simplified, and much to our advantage.
The first effort in this line was made thirty years ago in the shape of
condensed milk, and the inventor was heartily laughed at. He lived,
however, long enough to laugh at other people, and died worth seven
millions of dollars. Now the condensing of milk has grown to be a very
large industry.
The processes employed are very simple, the fresh milk being put into a
great copper tank with a steam jacket. While it is being heated sugar is
added, and the mixture is then drawn off into a vacuum tank, where
evaporation is produced by heat.
The vacuum tank will hold, perhaps, nine thousand quarts. It has a glass
window at the top, through which the operator in charge looks from time
to time. He can tell by the appearance of the milk when the time has
arrived to shut off the steam, and this must be done at just the right
moment, else the batch will be spoiled.
Next the condensed milk is drawn into forty-quart cans, which are set in
very cold spring water, where they are made to revolve rapidly by a
mechanical contrivance in order that their contents may cool evenly.
When the water does not happen to be cold enough, ice is put in to bring
it down to the proper temperature. Finally the tin cans of market size
are filled with the milk by a machine, which pours into each one exactly
sixteen ounces automatically, one girl shoving the cans beneath the
spout, while another removes them as fast as they are filled.
People in cities nowadays use condensed milk largely in preference to
the uncondensed, regarding it as more desirable because of the careful
supervision maintained by the companies over the dairies from which they
get their supplies.
For their consumption the product is delivered unsweetened, but even in
this condition it will last fresh two or three times as long as the
ordinary milk by reason of the boiling to which it has been subjected.
Milk fresh from the cow contains eighty-eight per cent. of water,
condensed milk twenty-eight per cent.
After condensed milks come condensed jellies. They are made in the shape
of little bricks, each weighing eight ounces, and with an inside wrapper
of oiled paper. According to the directions, the brick is to be put in
one pint of boiling water, and stirred until it is dissolved.
The mixture is then poured into a mold or other vessel and put into a
cool place. In a few hours the jelly is "set" and ready to use, a pint
and a half of it. It never fails to "jell," which point is the cause of
so much anxiety to amateur jelly-makers.
We have often heard that "one egg contains as much nourishment as one
pound of meat," which shows that nature has condensed the food
essentials in this instance. But man has condensed them still more,
mainly, however, because eggs have a bad habit of getting stale.
Great quantities of eggs are bought up in summer when the price of them
goes down to almost nothing. They are broken into pans, the whites and
yolks separated and evaporated to perfect dryness. Finally, they are
scraped from the pans and granulated by grinding, when they are ready
for shipment in bulk.
Bakers, confectioners and hotels use eggs in this form, which is an
important saving at seasons when they are dear in the shell.
Extract of beef, although a liquid, is condensed beef; the vanilla bean
is now concentrated into an essence and cocoanuts are condensed by
desiccation; cider and lime juice are also condensed, so that a spoonful
mixed with water makes a pint of the original liquid.
Finally, some genius has condensed coffee into lozenges weighing only
fifteen grains, one of which makes a generous cup of coffee. It is
merely necessary to put the lozenge or tablet in the cup, pour boiling
water on it and the coffee is made.
What a boon for the housewife as well as the camper-out, the more so
since one hundred lozenges, weighing a little more than four ounces,
will make one hundred cups.
The processes by which coffee is thus concentrated are very interesting.
To begin with, the beans are roasted in an enormous oven and ground in a
huge mill. Then they are put into a great iron vessel, which is nothing
more nor less than a gigantic coffee-pot, holding two hundred and forty
pounds at a time. Hundreds of gallons of filtered water are pumped into
the coffee-pot, which acts on the drip principle, and the infusion is
drawn off to an evaporating tank. A steam pump keeps the air exhausted
from this tank, so that the coffee is in vacuo, being heated meanwhile
to a high temperature by steam pipes. The water it contains rapidly
passes off, and the coffee is of about the consistency of molasses when
it is taken out. It is poured into trays of enameled ware, and these
trays are placed on shelves in another evaporator.
When the trays are removed, a short time later, the coffee is a dry
solid, which is scraped off the trays, ground to powder, and moulded
into lozenges.
AN UNFORTUNATE EXPERIMENT.
Some weeks ago we chronicled in GOLDEN DAYS the particulars of a
competition race in Europe, which was unique in its rules and intended
to be scientific in its character. The Emperors of Austria and Germany
arranged for a contest between the officers of their respective armies
in the way of a long-distance ride between Berlin and Vienna, Austrian
officers to ride from Vienna to Berlin, and German officers from Berlin
to Vienna.
This entire distance of four hundred miles was to be covered in the
shortest possible time, each rider using but one horse and choosing any
route which suited his fancy.
Prizes were offered for the first man who covered the distance, and
another prize was to be given to the contestant who brought his horse to
the finish in the best condition.
It was a purely military race, and the outcome was expected to prove a
great many things of value to Austria and Germany as to the endurance of
man and horse, and naturally excited great interest, not only in Europe,
but also in this country.
The result, however, has been far from gratifying. The start was made on
time, and an Austrian officer was the first to cover the distance, in
three days, one hour and forty-five minutes. A notable victory, no
doubt, but at what a cost!
Hardly had the applause died away, when the noble horse which had
accomplished the feat, died in his tracks; and this was only the
beginning. Since then fifteen or twenty horses have died, and every one
of the remainder are dying or rendered forever useless.
Stories of pitiless cruelty on the part of the riders have been
reported--of whippings, spurrings, and even absolute torture, to urge on
the poor animals.
Under the circumstances, it is not to be wondered that the press and
people are now unanimous in condemning the race as brutal and barbarous,
and claiming that no good purpose was served by the exhibition.
It is true that a prize was offered to the rider who brought in his
horse in the best condition, but this chance seems to have been lost
sight of completely, and not a single horse arrived in a state less than
pitiable.
Public sentiment in this age is quick to put the stamp of disapproval on
unnecessary cruelty of any kind, and however much the Emperors of
Austria and Germany may regard the result with satisfaction, or crown
the visitors with laurels, humane people everywhere will condemn the
exhibition and protest against any repetition.
OUR NEW PACIFIC STATION.
By Anon.
In the days when the voyages and adventures of Captain Cook were read by
every schoolboy, there was a great deal heard of the Navigators'
Islands, in the Pacific. Lying between seven and eight hundred miles
south of the equator, this group of nine islands and some small islets
has been a favorite port for many years, and all seamen and explorers
unite in calling it an earthly paradise. The climate is perfection, the
soil is rich, and the natives always have been friendly.
Similar conditions doubtless prevail in other islands of the Pacific,
but our interests at present centre on the islands just described, since
they are now known as the Samoan Islands, and in them lies the harbor of
Pago-Pago, which our government has at last acquired, after years of
negotiation.
The chiefs of the Samoan Islands have more than once petitioned to be
taken under the protectorate of Great Britain or the United States, and
in 1878 a commercial treaty was concluded with this country, and in 1879
Great Britain and Germany made almost similar treaties.
Had the United States so desired, the Samoan group would have been ceded
to us years ago, but there is always vigorous opposition to this country
acquiring territory outside of its present coast lines. No such scruples
prevail in England or Germany, and, in consequence, both those powers
are industriously engaged in annexing stray islands, whether the
inhabitants desire protection or not.
But they did not take Samoa, mainly because of a well defined idea that
the United States, although opposed to annexing these islands herself,
was as strongly opposed to any other nation taking them, and European
nations have, of late years, a wholesome respect for this nation.
It is true that our trade in the Pacific is not large, but it is rapidly
increasing, and the need of a harbor has been apparent for some time. Of
course all the harbors in the Pacific are open to our ships in times of
peace, but there may come a time of war, when the ports will be closed
to our shipping, and we will sorely need some ports of our own.
Then we need coal and supply stations for our men of war, such as
England has in all parts of the world, and such as we ought to have and
would have were it not for the perverse public sentiment which is
opposed to any acquisition of territory, however needful or just.
Now at least we have Pago-Pago, and it is believed that Pearl Harbor in
Oahu, one of the Hawaiian Islands, will be acquired in somewhat the same
way.
The Germans have a harbor in Samoa and the English are negotiating for
one, but Pago-Pago is believed to be the largest and best of all.
Here a coaling, supply and repair station will be built, the title to
the land being vested absolutely in the United States.
Other nations may use the harbor as they please, but the United States
will control it, and in case of any trouble in the Pacific it will be a
point of vantage of the greatest value to this country.
--On Mount Washington, in New Hampshire, lives a little colony of
butterflies that never descend below 2000 feet from the summit. They are
completely isolated from others of their kind, no butterflies being
found in any other spot in their immediate vicinity. It is supposed that
the remote ancestors of this curious race were stranded on the mountain
at the close of the glacial period.
[_This Story began in No. 48._]
THE MUTINY
On Board of the Sea Eagle
or, the
Adventures of a Homeless Boy.
BY RALPH HAMILTON,
Author Of "Chespa," "Off To The Southwest,"
etc., etc., etc.
CHAPTER XII.
A SAIL--LAND.
Since the night of the mutiny they had been flying a signal of distress,
and when Frank saw it fluttering at the mast-head, through his bitter,
blinding tears, he wondered if it would bring assistance to him, or must
he float on and on over this wide, silent sea till he, too, died? The
thought was an appalling one, and he threw himself on the deck in an
agony of despair.
So intense was his strange fear and grief and loneliness that he did not
realize the fact that the schooner was driving through the water at the
rate of five miles an hour, though he heard the wash of the waves
against her sides, and felt the momentarily freshening wind blow cool on
his face and pipe lonesomely through the cordage.
Weary, sick at heart, and worn out with watching, he finally fell
asleep, and when he awoke the wind was gone, the sails flapped idly
against the mast, and the sun, in unclouded splendor, was just beginning
to peep above the eastern horizon.
He got up, feeling refreshed, but very hungry, went to the galley,
searched around till he found some bread and a bit of cheese, and then
came back to the shade of the awning to eat it.
The long day passed, the night came and went, and another day dawned,
only to find Frank still drifting aimlessly on before any breeze that
chanced to blow.
A little past noon he saw a sail a long way to windward, and so great
was his joy at the discovery that he shouted at the top of his voice,
and ran hither and thither about the deck in a mad transport of sudden
hope and delight.
The vessel proved to be the British bark Swallow. Frank could hardly
restrain his gladness within rational bounds when he saw her change her
course and stand directly toward the Sea Eagle, with all the speed the
light wind that was blowing would permit her to make.
When within speaking-distance, the stranger hove to and hailed:
"What schooner is that, and where bound?"
"The Sea Eagle, from Ruatan to Philadelphia!" piped the boy's voice from
the schooner's deck.
"Where is your captain?"
"Dead!"
"His name and yours?"
"Captain Calvin Thorne. My name is Frank Arden, and I am all alone.
First we had a mutiny on board, and then yellow fever, and now I am the
only one left."
"Yellow fever!" The captain of the bark repeated the words with a kind
of terrified jerk. "Forward there, men! Bend on all sail and stand off!"
he shouted to his crew, as he turned from the rail, where he had stood
while speaking to Frank. "We can't help you, boy. Sorry, but we can't,
if it's yellow fever you have on board."
And, to Frank's unspeakable amazement, the bark was instantly put about,
and was soon rapidly widening the distance between him and safety.
He had not thought of the dread pestilence the Sea Eagle carried in her
every rope and spar and sail.
For a moment he felt as if he should die, so great was the reaction from
eager hope and joy to bitterest disappointment and despair; but he
rallied his sinking heart, after a little, and watched the bark
disappear in the sun lit distance, with strangely-bright and tearless
eyes.
[Illustration:
"FRANK WORKED UNCEASINGLY UNTIL NEAR SUNSET."]
No one could, no one dared, to help him, when they knew it was yellow
fever that menaced them, and tainted the very air through which the Sea
Eagle sailed. He no longer need look for relief by means of a passing
vessel. That hope was gone utterly; for it would be wicked and cruel not
to tell of what it was the captain had died. And who would aid him, when
they knew it was to risk their life to do so?
Yellow fever, and with good reason, is only another name for death to a
sailor, and Frank could not blame them for giving the schooner a wide
berth.
When the Swallow was quite out of sight, he returned to his seat under
the awning. It was now almost sunset, and the haze and mist of early
twilight began to creep over the tossing waves.
For the first time since he was left alone on the vessel, he sat himself
down to calmly think over the terrifying position in which he was placed
and gravely consider what it was best for him to do.
He had passed through all there was, he thought, of sorrow, dismay,
disappointment and horror; and whatever there might be of suffering and
danger in store for him, he felt that, at most, they could give him no
greater pain than he had already endured.
The reflection somehow was as comforting as it was sudden and startling
to his weary energies and overtaxed strength. He would not give up
again, and, from that moment, resolved to save both the vessel and
himself, if he could.
Captain Thorne, when predicting his own speedy death, had spoken as if
he thought Frank would live to reach land; and in this belief he had
died, after giving into the lad's keeping his little all of wealth and
telling him what to do in case he survived the perils of this most
perilous voyage.
And, oh, how faithfully would Frank carry out his dead benefactor's
wishes, if he but lived to set foot on the soil of Pennsylvania again!
Buoyed up by this new hope and determined henceforth to make the best of
all and everything that might befall him, Frank went to the galley, made
himself a cup of strong coffee, and, with some hard biscuit, cheese and
dried beef that he found there, made a hearty supper.
Everything remained in the galley just as poor Nat had left it, and
during the whole time he was on the schooner it constituted the limit of
Frank's foraging-ground, for he had not the courage to enter the cabin
yet, or search for other stores than the cook's room afforded.
On the evening of the fifth day a brisk breeze sprang up, which set the
whitecaps to tumbling far and near and sent clouds of spray flying from
the schooner's bows.
The sun set in the luminous west, leaving behind a long track of orange
and purple light; the growing moon flung its yellow rays across the
troubled waters, melting into the million phosphorescent gleams that
sparkled and quivered along the surface like living jets of fire. Frank
had never before seen so lovely a sunset, or one so utterly lonely and
sad. He stretched himself on the deck, with his two hands clasped under
his head, in lieu of a pillow, and watched the masts make eccentric
circles through the stars, and the few fleecy clouds, that for a time
had followed in the wake of the moon, vanish, as it seemed to him, into
the sea.
"The vessel must be making six knots an hour, and doing it, too,
easily."
Frank fell asleep with some such vague calculation drifting
disconnectedly through his mind. He was awakened about daylight by the
loud screaming of a number of gulls that were flying near the vessel in
anxious search of a morsel of food.
He jumped up in great excitement, not on account of the noise made by
the gulls, but another sound he heard--a deep, continuous roar, not
unlike the moan of the wind through a pine forest.
He looked around him, first confusedly and then with surprised wonder.
His eyes brightened, and a cry of joy broke from his lips, for there,
not a mile away, was land. A long, white line of surf marked the
boundary of the beach, and beyond it he saw the feathery tops of palm
and cocoanut trees, nodding in the fresh morning breeze.
Land at last!
Again Frank's jubilant shout echoed oddly clear and solitary above the
incessant booming of the breakers and the monotonous wash of the waves.
Land, and no mistake, and the Sea Eagle was driving straight toward it
with a speed that would strand her in twenty minutes, if she kept on.
And grandly determined upon her own destruction looked the staunch old
schooner, in the fast brightening rays of the rising sun, as, with all
sail set and never a hand at her helm, she plowed her way toward the
low, sandy shore stretching away like the shadow of doom before her.
Frank meant to beach her, and take his chance on the island, for an
island he felt pretty certain it was.
He flew to the cabin, and brought up the captain's glass. He could do it
now without superstitious fear. To the southward he saw a black, barren
ledge of rocks, rising abruptly out of the sea, but to the north and
east the shore was low, and there did not appear to be much surf.
He ran to the wheel, and gave it a turn a point or two more to the north
and east. The vessel obeyed her helm splendidly. The tide was at the
flood, the wind fresh but steady, and blowing directly on land.
With firm, shut lips, watchful eyes and pale, resolute face, Frank kept
his small hand on the spokes, the rapid pulsations of his heart telling
away the seconds so audibly that he could count them.
In less than ten minutes' time she struck, grounding lightly and getting
off again; then she plunged forward, driven high on the beach by an
incoming wave, and was as motionless as if she had never pitched and
tossed through mountainous billows or careened to the angry rush of the
storm-lashed sea.
Frank relinquished his grasp of the wheel, and drew a long breath of
mingled regret and satisfaction.
"Fast aground till a squall comes along and breaks you up," he said, as
if speaking to the vessel. "It's all there was left for either of us to
do, for we are death, it seems, to every one that comes near us."
Hardly a dozen yards were between him and solid earth. Frank soon had
the ladder over the side, and in two minutes more was on shore.
He ran up and down the beach a little way, shouting at intervals as loud
as he could, but there was no answer.
Scores of beautiful little paroquets were chattering in the palm trees,
and numbers of long-legged sea-fowl stalking about on the reef, but no
human being, or any sign of one, did he see.
It was necessary that he should know something about the size of the
island before deciding what next it was best to do, so he set out to
explore its wooded portion and ascertain what the prospects were for
living on it for an indefinite length of time.
An hour's tramp showed him that it was perhaps two miles long by less
than half that distance wide, and to all appearance no human being other
than himself had ever set foot upon it.
The northern part was simply a barren rock, fissured and seamed by the
action of the water, its base marked by a tossing line of foam of
ominous import, for it told of the sunken reefs hidden beneath its
restless ebb and flow, and extending far out to sea. The southern and
eastern end were covered with a dense growth of tropical vegetation, but
fresh water he did not find, or any animal, great or small. Many
varieties of brilliantly-plumaged birds flew screaming away at his
approach, but they were the only living things he saw.
He came back to the schooner, clambered on board, went to the galley,
got himself a good breakfast, and, while he was eating it in the shade
of the awning, made up his mind what he would do.
The rainy season was near at hand--a period which Captain Thorne had
told him was usually ushered in by frequent afternoon squalls,
accompanied by terrific thunder and lightning, which was more than
likely to be speedily followed by a hurricane of such violence as to
destroy in a second a vessel beached and helpless as was the Sea Eagle.
The tide was going out by this time, and the schooner's bow was buried
high and dry in the sand.
Frank's first act after finishing his breakfast was to take in the sail.
Such of it as he could not handle he cut away, and then began to carry
it on shore. The captain's small boat still hung in the davits, but he
did not need it as yet.
With the sails and spars he made a nice roomy tent, under the largest of
the palm trees nearest the shore, so he could always have the schooner
in sight, and also an unobstructed view of the open sea.
His object now was to make himself as comfortable as he could on the
island, and then wait patiently for a sail to come and take him off, or
something to turn up in his favor of a nature calculated to restore him
again to the world and enable him to carry out to the letter Captain
Thorne's dying request.
By noon he had his tent up; then he went to the vessel and quickly
removed to his new quarters one of the smallest of the casks of water on
deck, a case of ship biscuits and the tin box the captain had charged
him to guard with untiring care.
He worked unceasingly until near sunset, and the surf was again
beginning to play around the stranded schooner's bow.
He was so tired he could hardly stand, and made his last trip to the
vessel for that day just as the moon began to glimmer over the water.
It looked so very friendly, hanging directly above the mainmast, like a
great golden world, that he thought it would be pleasant to eat his
supper on land, by the light of its mellow rays, though the fire he had
kindled an hour before flamed up brightly on the sand close by and the
fragrance of boiling coffee mingled appetizingly with the briny breath
of the sea.
After partaking of his supper, he swung his hammock in the tent, for he
had no desire to pass another night on the schooner, and in five minutes
was fast asleep.
He had a lively remembrance of the red ants, soldier-snails, gnats,
lizards, mosquitoes and sand-flies of Ruatan; but none of these winged
and creeping pests disturbed his slumber, and he slept on until the sun
was fully an hour high and the palm trees vocal with the chattering of
the paroquets.
He awoke refreshed, sprang from his hammock and ran to see if the
schooner was all right.
Yes, there she was! Her tapering masts shining like polished marble in
the brilliant sunshine, and the tide fretting and frothing against her
sides.
After an exhilarating plunge in the surf, Frank set about getting his
breakfast. The day previous he had carried on shore all the galley
furniture, completely dismantling poor Nat's late quarters of stove,
cooking utensils, cups and plates, and everything portable, even to the
zinc covering of the floor.
He had not ventured so far as the hold, but had taken everything of
value from the captain's cabin--his books and charts, the ship's
instruments, a fine eight-day chronometer clock, still going, and which
he wound up with no little pleasure.
He carefully housed on shore the contents of the lockers, which included
a case of port wine, a little bag of Spanish reals, another of
doubloons, a case of canned meats, two of preserved fruits and jellies
and a small medicine chest.
All the cargo, save the cocoanuts, was a rotten mass in the hold, the
larger part of which he eventually pitched overboard.
There were coffee, chocolate, sugar, rice, beans, dried beef, barley,
vermicelli, a small quantity of tea, salt pork, hard biscuit, flour,
salt beef, lemons, honey, a cask of vinegar, a dozen sacks of salt and a
few other supplies, such as a sailing craft of the kind usually carries.
In four days' time Frank had every movable article out of her, yet the
dreaded squall had not come nor a drop of rain fallen.
There lay the Sea Eagle, blistering under the sun by day and gauntly
outlined under the stars by night, changed in no way since she stranded,
except that she had settled quite two feet in the sand and was aground
so firmly that it looked as if it would take a pretty strong gale to
blow her to pieces.
So far, Frank had been too busy and too much engrossed by the novelty of
his situation to devote much time to thinking; but now, when the
excitement and hurry was over and he had leisure to turn his attention
to other matters, second only in importance to securing all there was of
value in the schooner, he concluded to make a thorough exploration of
the island and the grim, conical-shaped ledge of rocks that formed its
upper, or southern part.
So, the fifth day of his landing on the island, he got ready the small
boat, placed in it a bottle of water and a good supply of food, and set
out to row around the reefs.
He made a complete circuit of the island, and found it to be one of the
many results of volcanic eruption common throughout the Pacific Ocean
and the Caribbean Sea.
At low tide, a long, black reef showed its frowning edge above the
restless surf, connecting with the higher point of rocks overlooking the
narrow strip of fertile land lying between it and the sandy beach, where
the Sea Eagle had stranded, and still maintained the strange and lonely
anchorage she had made for herself.
Frank, curious and venturesome as he might be, was yet keenly alive to
hidden dangers, and, as he rowed around among the rocks, kept a sharp
lookout for treacherous currents and submerged ledges.
The meridian sun was pouring down its fiercest rays, and he was thinking
of returning to his tent and the grateful shade of the palm-trees, when,
just as he had rounded the jagged spur of a particularly ugly-looking
coral reef, he suddenly saw before him a deep, dark line of perfectly
smooth water, over-arched by a natural bridge of grayish-white
limestone, and flowing, as it seemed to him, directly under the island.
The entrance to this odd underground water-way was not more than four
feet in height by six wide, but he unhesitatingly entered the narrow
channel, bent upon seeing what there was of it and where it led to.
Drawing a long breath of surprise and satisfaction, he ceased rowing,
and, as the boat came to a stand-still on the glassy surface of this
subterranean sea, he uttered an exclamation of wonder, and looked around
him in a maze of doubt and admiration.
The cool, grotto-like atmosphere and dim, half-twilight contrasted
pleasantly with the heat and glare outside, though the silence was
something oppressive, and different from any he had ever before known.
No sound of wave or sigh of wind or howl of tempest seemed ever to have
been heard here. The water along the edges of the rocks was absolutely
without motion, and the light from either extremity of the cave--as one
might call it--nearly lost itself before it reached the vaulted centre.
Frank shouted loudly, and in answer the rocks sent back only the
faintest and most weirdly far-away echoes.
When Frank had somewhat recovered from his astonishment, and his eyes
had become accustomed to the dim light, he found the cay, or channel, to
be some fifty yards in extent, cut through the soft, porous rock by the
action of the water, that for ages and ages of time had beaten against
its gradually-yielding base, until it had made for itself a passage such
as man, with all his marvelous ingenuity, could never have fashioned.
Frank rowed the entire length of the cay--as the Bay Islanders call
these little wave-made inlets--coming out on the opposite side to that
which he had entered; and then, as it was getting late, he returned
home, as the brave-hearted boy termed the spot where he had pitched his
tent and stored his provisions.
Apart from finding the channel, he had made no discovery worth
mentioning. With the exception of a few sea-birds, he saw no living
creature, great or small; but this he did not much mind, for he hoped a
sail would come his way soon, and solitude was no new thing to him. So
he ate his supper with hearty relish, and, when it was dark, clambered
into his hammock and fell peacefully asleep.
CHAPTER XIII.
A CHANGE OF PLANS.
The morning of the tenth day of his residence upon the island Frank
rowed around to the grotto--as he called his new-found giant's
causeway--taking with him his fishing-tackle and a substantial luncheon
of bread and cheese and dried beef.
Fish of various kinds abounded in the quiet waters of the inlet, and in
an hour he had caught as many as he wished to carry "home."
He had seen no sharks anywhere near the reef, and so, when he saw a
beautiful pearly-white shell lying at the bottom of the water, which was
not more than five feet deep under any part of the natural arch of soft
porous stone, he threw off his clothes and unhesitatingly made a dive
for it.
He got the shell, and made a very important discovery at one and the
same time. Happening to glance upward as he came to the surface, his
quick eye saw a low, narrow opening leading directly into what seemed to
be the solid rock.
The mouth of the cavern was slightly shelving, and situated a little
less than mid-way of the centre of the arch.
Frank lost no time in climbing into it, and was surprised to find
himself in a semi-dark, sea-scented cavern, in shape something like an
old-fashioned Dutch oven and fully seven feet in height.
There was sufficient light to enable him to see that the floor of the
cave was thickly strewn with fragments of shells and gray-white coral,
the stone itself being so soft that he could easily penetrate it with
his jack-knife.
These submarine caves or grottos are numerous in the Bermudas, and the
limestone rock of which they are mainly formed so extremely
impressionable as to be readily cut into blocks for building purposes
with a common saw.
Frank remembered having heard Captain Thorne speak of them, but he
little thought at the time that he would ever be the discoverer of one
on an island in the midst of the Caribbean Sea.
Solitude, and having to look out for himself, as the saying goes, if it
had done nothing else, had sharpened his wits, and he was not long in
coming to the conclusion that, by enlarging the cave inland, he could
make an opening quite near his tent, and thus have both a dry and
wet-weather habitation.
He returned to the beach, where the Sea Eagle was daily sinking deeper
and deeper in the sand, full of his new plans. He could hardly prepare
his supper, so eager was he to begin work on his latest project and have
his stores securely housed before the rainy season set in.
He went to bed early, but was up with the dawn, ate his breakfast while
yet the rays of the rising sun were but faintly illumining the east, and
then, with hatchet and hammer and saw, some coils of stout rope and a
plentiful supply of food, set out for the cave.
He was not long in reaching it, and by noon had cut through five feet of
the calcareous stone, piling up the portion cut away in a kind of wall
on the lower side, where the rocky floor sloped somewhat precipitously,
forming a channel, through which a considerable rivulet stole silently
along, to join and lose itself in the great ocean that for miles and
miles surrounded it on every hand.
For four whole days he worked like a Trojan, cutting away and piling up
the soft, limy stone, and on the fifth was rewarded by a glimmer of
sunlight shining through the aperture he had made in the landward part
of the rock.
From the small opening he could see the tent, the tall palm trees that
sheltered it from the fierce rays of the meridian sun and the tapering
masts of the old schooner as she lay fast aground on the blistering
strand, and the landwash lazily undulating against her stern.
A little way beyond, some gulls and a blue heron were watching for
flying-fish, great numbers of which would every once in awhile skim like
so many silver leaves over the surface of the water, coming up and going
down at short intervals, more in fear than play, for no doubt their
relentless enemies, the dolphins, were after them, with a view to making
a meal off as many as were so unfortunate as to come within their reach.
Frank could not repress a shout of delight, in which there was mingled a
good deal of pardonable triumph, when he nimbly scrambled through the
narrow aperture he had made with so much patient toil, and stood on the
firm, warm earth without the gray, damp cavern.
All about his feet grew luxuriant ferns, soft mosses and trailing vines,
the vegetation gradually lessening as it met the base of the dark rock
forming the roof of the cave, and disappearing altogether before it
reached the summit, or what Frank judged would be the summit if one were
to approach it from the direction of the tent.
The next three days Frank spent in removing the most perishable part of
his goods to the cave, and this he did none too soon, for the afternoon
of the third day a dense black cloud suddenly arose in the northwest,
accompanied with ominous rumblings of thunder and quivering flashes of
lightning.
There was no fresh water on the island, so far as he had been able to
discover, and the patter of the big rain-drops on the broad leaves of
the palms was not only a pleasant sound, but one that assured Frank that
for a time, at least, he was not likely to die of thirst.
This warning foretaste of what he might expect for the next three
months, if he stayed so long on the island, admonished Frank to make
himself as comfortable as possible in the cave, and from its snug
shelter defy wind and wave.
He had heard Dunham say that these sudden storms were diurnal in their
nature, and frequently of great fury and destructiveness, so the
following morning he moved all his belongings into the grotto, as he
liked best to call the cave, and set up housekeeping in a manner that no
hurricane, however severe, could interfere with.
"Nobody can say I am in the way here," he said--for he had gotten into
the habit of talking to himself--surveying, as he spoke, his rocky home,
and smiling sadly. "I am neither a bother nor a burden to any one now.
I'm alone on an uninhabited island, and may die here, for all I can tell
to the contrary; but I don't know but what that is better than being
nagged by Aunt Susan, or driven about on the ocean, with nothing but an
old schooner between one and the bottom of the Caribbean Sea. It's just
eighteen days since I landed on this island, and I was five days on the
schooner--that makes twenty-three--and I'm alive yet. If I have to stay
here a year, that will not be very long. I've provision enough to last
that length of time, and it will give me an opportunity to grow and to
think. I'll read all Captain Thorne's books, and there's a good many of
them, including works on navigation, history and science. I'll fish and
row when the weather is fine, and when it isn't I'll amuse myself in
enlarging the grotto. I'll make a collection of all the plants and
flowers I find on the land and all the shells and seaweeds I find in the
sea, or that may drift on the shore. I've a whole island that I may
honestly call my own, a box of candles, plenty of matches, four cans of
oil, a lamp and a lantern, a good boat, and lots of other things
besides; so I am pretty well off, after all, and ought not to grumble at
the hard luck which has befallen me."
And Frank _did_ try hard not to grumble; but, with the sea beating
eternally around his rocky home, and no change anywhere, day after day,
save in the scudding clouds and the waning of the old and the rising of
the new moon, he grew very weary of his utter loneliness, and there came
a time when he would have given his life to hear again a human voice and
see again a human face.
CHAPTER XIV.
DANGEROUS VISITORS.
Every hour in the day Frank scanned the horizon in hopes of seeing a
sail. He felt that he could not be more than a hundred miles from the
Bay Islands, and not altogether out of the track of sailing vessels.
Once he saw what appeared to be a long, low cloud hovering midway
between the sky and water, and which he knew to be the smoke from a
steamer; but it was so far off that, even with the glass, he could only
make out the slow-moving line of smoke that marked her course.
His boat he kept in the channel forming the water entrance to the
grotto, and during the roughest weather he had yet experienced on the
island the tide never once rose higher than from four to six inches, and
its ebb and flow was so silent that it was never heard, no matter how
loud and tempestuously the surf was roaring without.
The rainfalls, though light, were more frequent, denoting the near
approach of the dreaded wet season, when for days together he might be
kept a prisoner in the cave, so he wisely took advantage of what
remained to him of fair weather, and was out on the reef every morning
as soon as it was light, looking, with longing eyes, for the hoped-for
sail.
What wonder, then, after all this patient watching and waiting, that his
heart leaped with indescribable joy when he saw a sail, not three miles
away, and heading directly for the island!
At first he thought it was a turtle-sloop, by its size and rig, but, as
it came nearer, it looked more like a pilot-boat, and somehow the sight
of it strongly reminded him of his old enemy, Juan Montes, the wrecker.
They were beating up toward the point where the schooner lay, and their
object evidently was to land and take a look at the stranded vessel.
A sudden fear seized Frank. It might be wreckers in search of spoils,
and, in that case, from the recent experience he had had among them, it
were better perhaps for him to retire to his cave until he knew
something more of their intentions.
This he quickly did, taking care, however, not to break or bend a
feathery fern or crush a tuft of moss, as he hastened within his
retreat.
Then he hurriedly pushed to its place the block of stone that served for
a door--or, rather, a window, for the aperture was only just large
enough to admit of Frank's crawling through--and, when this was done, he
took up his position at one of the two small loop-holes he had made, as
a precautionary means when stormy weather might make it necessary to
close the window.
Both lookouts commanded an unobstructed view of the sea and that part of
the beach where the Sea Eagle lay.
Frank watched the slow approach of the sailboat, with bated breath and
loudly-beating heart.
It _was_ Juan Montes! and with him Dick Turpie, the mulatto, Sagasta and
Chris Lamberton.
A chill of mortal fear crept over Frank, from head to foot. He could not
speak nor stir--scarcely to breathe--so great was his surprise and
terror.
He saw them haul down the sail, drop the anchor, all four jump into the
small boat towing astern, cast off the line and pull for the shore.
If discovered, he would surely be murdered, for as well might Frank hope
to escape the blood-thirsty jaws of a wild beast, if in its power, as to
expect mercy from these cruel, half-civilized, lawless men.
With a yell of exultant joy and malignant triumph, Sagasta cried, as he
leaped on shore:
"It's the Sea Eagle, by all that's lucky! Come on, mates. She's ours
now; and no mean prize, either!"
The three quickly followed Sagasta's lead, and were soon clambering up
the side of the Sea Eagle, like so many overgrown, ill-favored monkeys.
But their joy speedily changed to anger and disappointment, when they
discovered that the schooner had been already pillaged of everything of
value about her. Even the cabin door and windows were gone, and every
rope and spar and sail; the cook's galley, hold and forecastle plundered
of every article worth carrying off, and an air of general desolation
and ruthless ransacking pervaded her from stem to stern.
"Somebody's been here afore us!" said the wrecker, with a quick look
shorewards. "I don't understand it. Where's her boat? What's become of
her captain? If he, or any of his crew, are a-hiding anywhere on the
island, I'll soon know it. Let's have a look around, lads, afore we
begins work. This way!"
He drew his knife from its sheath as he spoke, the others following his
example, Sagasta alone of the formidable quartette producing a revolver
in addition to his knife; and thus armed, and ready to meet and
exterminate any foe who might happen to be near, they separated, Sagasta
going around to the southward, Turpie to the north, while Lamberton made
for the centre of the island and Montes bestowed all his attention on
the reef and its immediate neighborhood.
Frank was pale with suspense and fear. If they should find the seaward
entrance to the cave, he was lost. Yet they might easily discover the
causeway, and even sail through it, and still fail to find the cavern
itself. He had found it only by the merest chance.
The thought gave him new courage, and he dared to again fix his eyes on
the beach and the bit of sea where the wreckers' boat was gracefully
rocking on the short land-swells.
All four returned in little more than an hour, and sat down under a wild
plantain tree, not three feet from Frank's place of concealment.
"There's no one on the island, I'm certain of that," said Montes, whose
squat, ugly form was so near the loop-hole that it actually darkened
Frank's range of vision. "I can't just make it out, but I know this
much--that's the Sea Eagle, and she's ours dead sure! We'll get her off
to-morrow at flood-tide. There's a bit of a blow in that cloud a-comin'
up in the east, but it won't amount to much, so we'll light a fire, get
something to eat, and take it easy."
"It's pretty nigh a month since she stranded, by the depth of the sand
around her," remarked Turpie, looking first at the schooner and then at
the fire he was kindling a little way from the others. "I'd like to know
what's become of the captain and the mate and Jack?"
"I reckon Dunham's in Davy Jones' locker, for that air slash Dardano
gave him wasn't no scratch, I can tell you. They was short of hands, and
didn't have no time to attend to him; but that don't satisfactorily
account for the schooner bein' here, and dismantled as she is," rejoined
Montes, with a puzzled air. "Captain Thorne wasn't the man to abandon
his ship while a plank held together, and there's the Sea Eagle with as
sound a hull as ever floated, and a--"
"And the better luck for us," roughly interrupted Sagasta. "I'd like to
have got a whack at the boy; but, since he's food for sharks, I'll call
it square. Wreckers have been here before us--there's no doubt of
that--and they've cleaned her out pretty thoroughly, too; but we'll take
the schooner, and she's a good enough prize to suit me," he laughed,
with a cunning glance at Montes. "Yes, good enough, and as lawful a one
as was ever picked up on the high seas," he continued, in a rather more
positive tone of voice. "All we have to do is to get her off, bend on a
sail or two, and head her for Bonacca or Barbette. Once there, we'll
just paint out her old name and paint in a new one, and then, with that
dark water-line transformed into a light blue, and I am Captain Sagasta,
if you please, with fair pay for your services, of course, mates."
This last remark of Sagasta's did not seem to meet with much favor from
Chris and the mulatto, but they were prudently silent, for the Spaniard
was obviously the master-spirit of the unprepossessing gang. Even
Montes, cruel and greedy as he was, yielded him the palm of superiority
in matters of this sort.
Having finished their hastily-prepared meal, Turpie acting both as cook
and steward, they cut down several of the largest of the palm trees that
grew in the vicinity, and began shaping them into rollers ready for
getting the schooner afloat.
Frank was a frightened but very attentive watcher of all they did. Not
till he saw them repair to their boat for the night did he venture to
snatch a mouthful to eat.
Every word of their conversation, while seated under the plantain tree,
he had heard, and the recollection of it, and the near proximity of such
dangerous neighbors, prevented him from closing his eyes the live-long
night.
By the first peep of day the wreckers were astir, and so was Frank--that
is, he had taken up his station at the loophole, determined to let
nothing escape him in relation to their plans and purposes.
As soon as the tide was out, they began shoveling away the sand that had
collected around the schooner's bow, the four of them working like
beavers till there was space made sufficient to allow of placing the
rollers under her, and, by this means, gradually extricating her from
the imprisoning sands. They were still working when the tide was up to
their knees and lapping high on the beach.
"Hurrah! There she goes!"
The shout startled Frank, and, with a sick heart and quivering lips, he
saw the Sea Eagle slowly turn broadside toward the sea, and then fall
off into deep water. The staunch old schooner was afloat once more, as
sound as the day she was launched.
The pilot-boat was brought alongside and made fast, then they bent on
all the sail they could muster, and, as the hastily-rigged canvas caught
the wind, Sagasta waved his sailor-cap and exultantly exclaimed:
"Here's to Captain Thorne, a hundred fathoms below soundings; and here's
to the Sea Eagle and her new commander!"
All repeated Sagasta's shout with a hearty good will, for they were now
fairly under way--the Spaniard, Chris and the mulatto remaining on the
schooner, and Montes alone managing the pilot-boat.
Frank never took his eyes off the vessels, which kept close company,
till both were nearly out of sight. Then he removed the stone, crept
through the opening, and ran to the spot where only the ashes of the
wreckers' fire were to be seen.
He felt unutterably lonely. To look at the beach and not see the
schooner there was like missing for the first time the face of a dear
and only friend. He sat down on the sand and listened sadly to the moan
of the surf fretting along the beach and the hollow boom of the breakers
dashing against the reef.
The Sea Eagle now was but the merest speck on the ocean. It disappeared
utterly, and the sun set in a bank of wrathy, black clouds.
Frank returned to the cave, too miserable to care for any supper, lay
down on his bed, drew the blanket over his head and sobbed himself to
sleep.
[TO BE CONTINUED.]
HOW MY CAMERA CAUGHT A BANK ROBBER.
By Elton J. Buckley.
Lester Drake's detective camera first created the idea of photography in
my mind. Before that, I hadn't the slightest inclination toward the art
whatever, but when Lester purchased his neat little leather-covered box,
and went around merely pressing a button, and getting dozens of pictures
by no other means, I immediately decided that I, too, must have a
camera.
Lester's was not an expensive one. His father had found it in one of the
photographic establishments in Philadelphia, and being of a slightly
scientific turn of mind himself, had purchased it and brought it home to
Lester. The latter fitted up a corner of the cellar as a dark-room, and
straightway launched himself as an amateur photographer.
Lester's first attempts, revealed by the chemical development, were
surprisingly good, and inspired a strong feeling of envy in the breasts
of those of his comrades whose fathers were blind to the oft-repeated
advantages and delights of amateur picture-taking. Even more
exasperating, he straightway became the idol of all the girls at school,
whose zeal in posing for him was only equaled by the grotesqueness of
some of their postures.
I brooded long and deep over this unpleasant condition of affairs, and
finally arrived at the conclusion that I would have a camera like Lester
at any cost.
Lester was kind enough to initiate me into the mysteries of his
dark-room, and to allow me to examine the interior of his camera by ruby
light. With the knowledge thus gained, I resolved to manufacture one
myself. It wouldn't be as handsome as Lester's, perhaps, I thought, but
it might do just as good work. So I made the attempt, using the lenses
from an old microscope which I owned, but in vain. The instrument never
reached the second stage of its construction.
The contrast between Lester's clean, smoothly-covered box, and what I
knew mine would appear, even if I could finally complete it, was too
great, and I abandoned it in despair.
Then I tried another tack. My father was exceedingly skeptical
concerning the desirability of amateur photography, and flatly refused
to furnish the necessary funds. It was October then, so I conceived a
plan by which I would earn money during the fall by corn-husking among
the near-by farmers, so that when spring opened I would have the price
of the coveted camera.
No one could have worked harder during the weeks through which the
season lasted than did I. Huskers were in demand that fall, and I
secured work wherever I applied.
It is just possible that if Lester had grown tired of his camera in the
meanwhile, and had ceased to use it, my desire for one might likewise
have gone by the board, but the snap of his shutter was heard everywhere
and at all times, and even at night--by flash-light--in the barns, where
the frequent huskings were progressing.
When, after a few weeks, the farmers ceased to require buskers, I struck
up a bargain with our grocer, whereby I was to spend Saturdays running
errands for him. The money from this helped out wonderfully, and,
according to my expectations, when April opened, a snug little sum
reposed as the fruit of my labors in one corner of my top bureau drawer.
As soon as the weather moderated slightly, Lester, who now posed as a
photographic oracle, and myself, went to the city one fine morning to
buy the camera.
The neat little leather-covered box was duly inspected and purchased,
together with the pamphlet of instructions that seemed so enticingly
mysterious to my uninformed mind.
The camera was just like Lester's, with the exception of some minor
improvements, which had been effected since the time when he had
purchased his.
On the way home, Lester and I drew up a compact whereby I was to have
the use of his dark-room and chemicals until I felt that I was fairly on
my photographic legs. Then I was to fix up one of my own.
The camera had been sold loaded with plates, ready for use, and I lost
no time in snapping several views here and there as the fancy seized me.
Lester taught me to develop them, and when the most of them came up
under the chemicals clear and sharp, my delight was great.
And when I made prints from them, and the familiar home scenes and my
playmates' faces were there plainly before me, it seemed to me that the
universe could hold nothing more entrancing than amateur photography. Of
course I had failures, but they were few compared with the successes.
One morning in May, after I had become thoroughly versed in the art of
using the camera and had fitted up a dark-room of my own in the attic,
Lester and I sallied out with our cameras, for no other purpose than to
secure a half-dozen snap-shots whenever desirable ones might present
themselves.
It was an ideal day for picture-taking. Rain had fallen the night before
and had left the atmosphere clear and brilliant, with none of that dim
haze which is the camerist's Nemesis so often.
We had strolled along the road, perhaps two miles out of the village,
and had caught three or four very pretty views.
None had presented themselves, however, for some time, when, by a turn
of the road, we came upon a man drinking from a spring at the side of
the road. He was but a few feet away, and was stooping down with his
back toward us.
"Let's get him," said I, in a low tone.
"All right," replied Lester; "you do it, though. I've only got one plate
left."
I had several unexposed plates remaining in my camera, so I pointed the
box toward the man and pressed the button. Just at the instant when the
shutter must have operated, the man heard us and turned his head, facing
us squarely.
He evidently understood what we were about, for he scowled deeply and
walked rapidly away through the woods, without, however, offering to
molest us. He carried a small black grip with him.
As the man's retreating figure disappeared through the trees, Lester and
I drew a long breath of relief, for we felt like criminals detected in a
crime, and we were a trifle afraid of the fellow beside.
We wandered on a little further, snapping a few more wayside pictures,
and then turned toward home and retraced our steps.
That afternoon, Lester came over to my father's house to witness the
development of the morning's pictures.
As, one by one, we put the plates through the developer, a majority came
out well. One or two were a trifle under-exposed, and there were minor
defects in others; but, on the whole, they were very good.
The star negative of the lot, however, was that of the stranger whom I
had photographed drinking, and who had turned his head and caught me in
the act. That was perfect. Everything was brilliantly sharp, and the
shutter had caught the man's full face. In the negative, even so small
an object as his eyes stood out beautifully.
We made a blue-print of this negative, and both Lester and myself
recognized the faithfulness of the likeness, notwithstanding the fact
that we had seen the man but a moment.
About the middle of the afternoon, my father returned from the
neighboring town, ten miles away, in one of the banks of which he was
clerk. He seemed to be much excited and perturbed about something. My
mother noticed it also, and immediately inquired as to the cause of his
uneasiness.
"The bank was robbed last night," he answered, "and over fifty thousand
dollars stolen. Every cent I had in the world is gone with the rest."
My mother made an exclamation of dismay.
"And the worst of it is," went on my father, "that we are almost certain
who the thief is, but we haven't a thing in the world to trace him
by--not a vestige of a photograph or anything like it, which we could
give to detectives to guide them in the hunt. The man's gone, and the
money with him."
And my father sank despondently into a chair.
Meanwhile Lester and I stood by, listening silently, the still wet
blue-print in my hand. After a minute I went and pressed the print out
flat upon the table, on which my father's arm was leaning. At any other
time I would have proudly exhibited it to him, and would have been sure
of his interest and appreciation, but I did not feel like intruding upon
his present worriment.
As I laid the picture face upward upon the table, my father turned his
head and looked at it indifferently. Suddenly he pushed me aside, and
bent over the print so closely that his face almost touched it.
I recovered my balance with difficulty, and stared at him in frightened
bewilderment. My father had never acted in this manner before, and I was
almost afraid he had gone mad.
"Great Scott!" he exclaimed. "The very thing!"
Then, wheeling around, he grasped me by the shoulders, and wanted to
know where I got that picture.
I was far too dazed by his strange actions to answer a word; so Lester
interposed and told my father, in as few words as possible, of our
morning expedition, and of the man whom we had photographed in the act
of drinking.
"Bless the camera!" ejaculated my father, excitedly, "that's Eli Parker,
the thief! And the best likeness of him I ever saw, too!"
Then he questioned us closely as to the direction the man had taken when
discovered, and ended by confiscating the print and the negative, and
rushing out of the house to take the next train back to town. Lester and
I talked about it all the afternoon, and felt ourselves quite heroes for
having the temerity to stand before a real bank robber.
Fifty prints were immediately struck off from the negative, and these
were given to detectives, who scoured the country in every direction.
After a two days' search, those nearest home were successful, and found
Parker in the same woods where Lester and I had first surprised him. He
had sought to evade capture by avoiding railroads, and hiding himself
until the first excitement of the robbery had passed. As the whole
amount of stolen funds was discovered in the little black grip which he
carried, he was convicted of the crime without difficulty, and sentenced
for a term of fifteen years in State prison.
The sequel of the incident was the most agreeable and the most
astonishing of all. One day, a month subsequent, when Parker had been
safely housed in the penitentiary, my father came home, and, with a
mysterious smile upon his face, handed me an envelope. Upon being
opened, the discovery was made that "Howard Benton and Lester Drake were
authorized to draw upon the First National Bank of C----, for $100
apiece, in slight recognition of their part in apprehending Eli Parker,
the perpetrator of the recent robbery upon that institution."
I am still an ardent disciple of amateur photography. Who wouldn't be
under such circumstances?
--The umbrella is undoubtedly of high antiquity, appearing in various
forms upon the sculptured monuments of Egypt, Assyria, Greece and Rome;
and in hot countries it has been used since the dawn of history as a
sunshade--a use signified by its name, derived from the Latin _umbra_, a
shade.
GOOD RULES.
By Rev. P. B. Strong.
If a mean thing you would do,
Always put it off a day;
If a noble act and true,
Do not e'en a moment stay.
Ne'er by proxy do a deed.
Would you have it surely done;
It you'd never come to need,
Wait not wealth from any one.
Deem no coin too small to save,
Quit not certainty for hope;
Good denied, you cease to crave,
Neither o'er the future mope.
What you can't by bushels take,
Get by spoonfuls, if you can;
Never mounts from mole hills make;
Ere you leap, the distance scan.
Shiver not for last year's snow,
Nor bemoan the milk that's spilt;
When you hasten, slowly go;
Keep your conscience clear of guilt.
These old rules, which here in verse
You behold thus newly set,
Well it would be to rehearse,
Till not one you could forget.
A PERILOUS RIDE.
By W. Bert Foster.
"So you boys think you came down here pretty fast, eh?" asked Randy
Bronson, crossing one wooden leg over the other and stretching them both
out toward the great fire of hickory logs that were roaring in the
chimney.
Seven of us academy boys had piled into the only double cutter the
village livery stable possessed, and had covered the nine miles between
the school and Randy's place down on the river road in forty-five
minutes, and for a pair of farm horses we thought that pretty good time.
Randy's suppers, or rather his wife Maria's suppers, were famous, and
the doctor was always willing to let a party of us off for an evening at
their little establishment providing we were back in good season. Randy
and his wife were to be trusted to look out for the most harum-scarum
boy who ever attended the Edgewood Academy.
While supper was being prepared we gathered about Randy and the wide
open fireplace to wait for the repast, with all the patience at our
command.
If Maria Bronson's suppers had gained a reputation among us, so had
Randy's stories. He had been a sailor in his youth, and, indeed, in
middle life, until during a naval engagement on the lower Mississippi,
in the civil war, he had both legs shot away, and was doomed to "peg
about," as he jocularly called it, on wooden substitutes.
"So you thought you came down here pretty fast?" asked Randy, repeating
the remark which opened this narrative. "And well you might, with the
roads in the condition they are now. But I've been sleighing faster than
any of you boys have traveled, unless it was on a railroad train, and
over the roughest sort of a track, too."
We all foresaw a story at once and were eager enough to hear the tale.
So with little urging Randy began:
"When I was a boy you know I went to sea," he said, and we all nodded
acquiescence, for about every story Randy told commenced with just that
remark. "My parents died when I was young and I was bound out to an old
uncle; but farming wasn't to my taste, and I was always longing so for
salt water that finally he told me I wasn't worth my board and clothes,
and to clear out and go to sea if I wanted to.
"I didn't need any second bidding. I went off that very night, and I
never saw my Uncle Eb again.
"After going two or three trips to 'the banks,' I shipped aboard the New
Bedford whaler Henry Clay, knowing well enough that whaling couldn't be
a great sight worse than fishing off Newfoundland in the dead of winter.
"As luck would have it, though, the Henry Clay joined the North Atlantic
fleet and started for the Greenland fishing grounds. We lost the rest of
the fleet in a big blow off Cape Farewell and worked northward alone,
having the good fortune to fall in with several school of right whales,
out of which we captured three or four 'balleeners,'[*] the oil and bone
together being worth something like eighteen thousand dollars.
[Footnote *:
All the large whales of the region referred to are called
"balleeners" as their mouths are furnished with the balleen
or whalebone of commerce.]
"The captain had begun to crow over the fine season we were having,
when, early in October, we were caught in a nip in Cumberland Inlet, and
the ice piled in so solidly around us that we knew we were good for all
winter. There wasn't any particular danger, for the Henry Clay was a
well-built craft, strengthened to withstand just such a squeeze as the
ice-pack was giving us.
"Captain Simon Lewis, as kind-hearted a man as ever I sailed under, made
all needed preparations for winter at once, and we boys before the mast
looked forward to a pretty jolly season.
"We were warmly clad, the fo'castle grub was better than is common with
whalers, and there was every prospect for plenty of fresh meat and good
hunting, as soon as the ice about us should become firm.
"After everything had been made ship-shape, we were given all the
freedom we needed, and the library brought aboard by the officers was
open to common use. Several days after this order of things had been
established, the mate took half a dozen of us younger fellows out for a
long tramp over the ice. There were three guns in the party, and we went
along like a parcel of schoolboys out on a frolic.
"We made only about eight miles before noon, for the ice was so uneven
that the traveling was rougher than any I had ever experienced, when
suddenly, upon rounding an enormous ice hummock, we came in sight of a
group of Esquimaux, sledges and dogs, and were discovered before we
could retreat behind the hummock again.
"The crowd raised a cry of '_Kabulenet! Oomeak! Kabulenet! Oomeak!_'
which means, 'White men and ships!' and a general rush was made in our
direction.
"The mate told us there was nothing to fear, as they were quite
friendly, and he walked forward to meet them. He had been among them
before and knew some of their words, so we were quickly on excellent
terms with them.
"They surrounded us, laughing and chattering like so many children,
shaking hands, examining our clothes and repeating, like parrots, the
words and expressions the white men whom they had met before had taught
them.
"One old chap, Kalutunah by name, seemed especially kindly disposed
towards us, and, following his example, the entire party, finding the
white men's ship was so near, decided to make their winter quarters near
us, knowing that they would probably get what would be, to them,
valuable presents.
"Captain Lewis was glad to have them for neighbors, too, for, if we
should happen to run short of fresh meat or should get smashed in the
ice--and there is always a possibility of that--the Esquimaux would be
of great assistance.
"They built their _igloos_ not far from the ship, and we interchanged
frequent visits. Kalutunah and I became very intimate, and I tried to
teach him English words and their meaning in his language; but he never
got any farther than _ees_ and _noe_--his pronunciation of 'yes' and
'no.'
"Two months of such an easy life as we led tired me more than cutting up
the biggest 'balleener' that was ever 'ironed.' Parties of the Esquimaux
went off hunting every day, and, finding that Kalutunah was making
preparations for a two days' hunt up the inlet, I begged the captain to
allow me to go with him, and permission was readily given.
"The trip was to be made on Kalutunah's sledge, and if you have never
read about or seen a picture of an Esquimau sledge, you want to look it
up at once. It is one of the most ingeniously-built things I ever saw,
considering the means at the command of the Esquimaux.
[Illustration:
"MY BULLET HAD TAKEN EFFECT ON ONE OF THE DOGS,
WHICH HAD IMMEDIATELY TANGLED UP THE REST OF
THE TEAM AND BROUGHT THE SLEDGE TO A STANDSTILL."]
"The runners, which are of bone, are square behind and curved upward in
front, usually five feet or more in length, three-fourths of an inch
thick, and seven in height. They are not of solid bone, but composed of
many pieces of various shapes and sizes, yet all fitting together so
perfectly that they are as smooth as glass.
"The shoe is of ivory from the walrus, and is fastened to the runner
with seal strings looped through counter-sunk holes, and in the same
manner the various bones making up the runner are fastened in place.
"When you take into consideration the fact that all this fitting and
smoothing is done with stone implements, you will believe me when I say
the Esquimau sledge is a wonderful thing.
"The runners are placed fourteen inches apart and are fastened together
by cross-pieces tightly lashed by sealskin strings. Two walrus ribs are
lashed to the after end of each runner in an upright position, and these
are braced by other bones, forming the back, and, with plenty of skins
and robes for cushions, the Esquimau sledge isn't the most uncomfortable
thing in the world to ride upon.
"Kalutunah was going after walrus, and I borrowed a rifle of the mate,
thinking that I might do a little shooting on my own account on the way.
"Seven of the hungriest-looking and ugliest dogs among the large number
belonging to the natives drew the sledge. The Esquimau usually hitches
seven dogs to his sledge, and never drives them tandem, each dog being
attached to the sledge by a single trace fastened to a breast-strap.
"It doesn't matter how rapidly they are running or what the obstructions
are, they will keep their traces clear of one another. The dogs on
either side have the most work to do, and, after holding that position
for some time, a dog will jump over several of his fellows into the
centre of the pack and let some other have his place on the outside.
"Kalutunah got on the sledge, and I sat between his knees, and, amid a
great deal of shouting and chaffing from the rest of the crew, the dogs
started off at Kalutunah's cry of 'Ka! Ka!' and a touch of the whip.
"By-the-way, boys, that whip was a wonder. The lash was six yards long
and the handle but sixteen inches. Learning to throw the lasso isn't a
circumstance to learning the ins and out of that whip.
"Of course, boy like, I wanted to try it before we had gone a mile.
While traveling, the lash trails along in the rear, and by a quick
motion of the hand and wrist is thrown forward like a great snake,
snapping like a gun-shot over the heads of the team.
"The first time I tried it the end of the lash caught me on the arm,
and, although the member was thickly covered, I felt the blow
unpleasantly.
"Kalutunah laughed immoderately at my failure, but dodged the next
instant as I tried it again, the lash this time coming within an ace of
taking him across the face.
"The third time I essayed the feat, the end of the whip caught on a
jutting piece of ice, and I was 'snatched' off the sledge in grand
style, nearly wrecking it in my exit.
"That was going a little too far, so Kalutunah thought, and he wouldn't
let me try it again, so I contented myself with nursing the various
bruises I had received in my tumble.
"But how those dogs could travel! The frozen inlet was strewn with
hummocks and broken ice cakes, and I had to cling to the sledge with
both hands sometimes to keep from being thrown off.
"I was profoundly grateful when we reached our stopping place about the
middle of the afternoon. A week before Kalutunah had seen a walrus near
this place, under some new ice that had formed over a breathing hole.
"The dogs were left fastened to the sledge, so that their presence would
not disturb the walrus should one be near. The Esquimau got out his
harpoon and line and approached the thin ice, telling me to keep back.
"I wasn't very eager to stay near the walrus should the old fellow be
lucky enough to iron one, for there had been one caught near the Henry
Clay, and a more ferocious-looking beast I never saw.
"I stayed back near the sledge with my rifle, on the lookout for
something to try a shot at, and in the meantime keeping my eye on old
Kalutunah. He went forward carefully, dodging from hummock to hummock,
but gradually getting nearer the thin ice. All at once I caught sight of
another object on the ice a little to the right of the Esquimau. At
first I thought it was a seal, for it lay flat on the ice, and was about
to hurry after Kalutunah to tell him about it, when the figure rose up
and I saw that it was a man--another Esquimau.
"The stranger walked rapidly toward Kalutunah, and had almost reached
his side before the old fellow noticed him. Then he sprang up, and
although they were too far away for me to hear them, even if my ears had
not been covered with my hood, I saw that they were talking together.
"The stranger continued to advance, holding out his hand as though to
shake Kalutunah's.
"Having arrived quite near, he took a quick stride forward, and instead
of offering his hand, as Kalutunah had evidently expected, suddenly
raised a short club and struck Kalutunah on the head.
"It was a most brutal act, and so unexpected was it that for an instant
I was stupefied.