THE AGE HIGH

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXXVII, Issue 22, 1 December 1906, Page 19

THE AGE HIGH

By

F. WALWORTH BROWN

IT was a thick, foggy morning, and the little schooner-yacht was all our world as we beat our way .up the Sound. The naval attache and 1 stood aft, trying to talk. At regular periods the electric fog-horn broke in with a beltowing reverberation whie'i would have rendered ample protection to the ten thousand blundering tons of an ocean liner. The yaciit was r-gister-ed at forty net. • At the wheel stood Danny Seidmore, in his oilskins. Danny is the particular glistening ornament, of the yacht. He is still under forty, but his years have not been lean ones, and when Danny Seidmore opens his mouth., the- initiated keep silence before him. Danny and I are friends. “Do you know what this reminds me of?" said tiie naval attache in his excellent English. “It takes me back to the Okhotsk Sea and a summer I spent tip there chasing seal-poacher-." ' Now. I chanced to bx far:ug - Danny. Not a muscle moved, but his eye- turned quickly. fastened for an instant on the l>aek of the Ru-si in’s head, and returned to their work. ; "lt was an awful place to.send a man,’’ went on the attach". "Wet and fog and - cold, and cold and fog and wet. Nothing - else night and day for w;eks. >V<- Itad*o<just one experience that relieved . the monotony. We caught a poacher one evening in the very act—had him right under our guns, you know, when he ran up th • American flag and blew his vessel up rather than b? caught. I-never quite understood why. We picked up the only survivor, and he swore the captain was crazy, and in some ways, ju-t liefore the explo-ion, his actions were a bit strange." Then and there I saw a holy chastened smite amble over the countenance of Danny. What’s the joke. Danny?" I asked. “Joke?" says Danny solemnly. “I don't s'— no joke, sir.” > The fog-horn burst upon us like a hurricane. and when it ceased the attache broke in: "You seem on excellent terms with the —er —hands. Mr. Brown,” h - said rather nastily.

“Certainly,” I returned. “Why not?" “Well,” lie drawled, “it’s bad for discipline. for one thing. Can’t keep the men in their place, you know, if you mix with them on equal t -rms. Rudimentary maxim in all navies, I assure you.” ‘ “So?” I said, and let it go at that. I glanced at Danny, not without trepidation. for 1 valued his friendship. To liiy surprise, I noted a most peaceful, stuffed-animal, wooden-Indian look on' his face, and at the mom nt failed utterly to interpret it. Jater in the morning the fog broke, the sun came out. and what little breeze there was died down till we had bare steerageway on the vessel. Later still I' came upon Danny on the forward deck, hinoking one pipe and carving a skull and cross-bones with his jack-knife on the biowl of another. The Russian was standing some ten feet away in the bows, studying the Long Island shore >ith a glass. ri “Set down, sir," said Danny hospitably, as I approached. “Who is my lord the duke with the Sjtike mustache?”—• th is last under his breath.,. — _ : “Friend o’ yourn?” he asked when I bad told him. . j “Not particularly.” I answered. “Well.” said Danny. “I’m glad o’ that.

You just wait a shake or two now. and I’ll let you in on the joke you missed a piece back.” “Why not now?" I asked. “I ain’t quite ready yet,” returned Danny. • Five minutes passed, Danny whittling silently. The attache lowered the glass and turned down the deck behind us, and Danny burst into full narration. “Say,” he began, “if you've ever been up to Vladivostok, inebbe you’ve heard them Rooshians tell about a Yankee skipper of a seal-poacher that blowed his vessel to small firewood rather’n lie ketched by a Rooshian cruiser. Well, I don’t reckon there ever was a policeman that let his thief get away from him and didn’t have a mighty plausible excuse to account for it. so I suppose them Rooshians are entitled to their yarn.” I heard the attache stop short behind us, and my heart went out to Danny, fob I perceived ,-i joyful climax. “It’s a niee little yarn. too. the way they tell it.” went on Danny: “reflecKs a lot ax’ credit on the vigilance o’ the.gunboat's officers; depicks the horror o’ evil-doers in the face o’ the Rooshian law; and is all o’ half-way true, and that’s wonderful.” There was the sound of some one sitting down behind us. but Danny wont calmly on. as though speaking for me alone: “Among other things, they claim they picked up the sole survivor and brought, him home, which the same it’s kind o’ queer when you come to think about it. ’cause I was aboard that scunner that was blowed up. ami I’m domed if I came back in any Rooshian gunboat.” “Way it happened was like this: I was sittin’ on the water-front at Hakodate. smokin’ .a pipeful o’ dust, with thirty-eight cents Mexican in my breeches and my insides all clogged up with rice, which the same it ain’t white man's victuals. ~’’Frisco looked a long ways off acrost the sea. and I was ugurin’ sort o’ feverishlikc and frantic about stowing away in some steamer and rnnnin* the chances o starvation and eoal-dust. Out in the stream a ways laid a little white scunner, with a crew o’ Japs hustlin’ -over her decks, gettin’ ready to pull out. I watched her casuallike, not bein’ p’tic’lar interested. “ ’Out of a job?’ says somebody behind me: and I switched around quick, because English ain’t so awful frequent in ‘Hakodate, and American English is like diamonds in Greenland.

‘•He was a square little man. with a long upper lip and whitisn-grav eyes that sort o’ et right into you and yet was kindly. “‘l’m Cap'n Israel Bedrock, o’ the scunner Ace-High,’ says he. “That’s her out there abaft the steamer’; and he pointed at the craft I’d noticed. ‘l’m short one man.’ “I’m not shippin' with Japs.’ I says, kind o’ ’scornful, still havin’ thirty-cigut cents Mexican. “ ‘Y'ou don’t git the lay of it, son.’ ho says, sittin’ down alongside. ‘This ain't what you might go for to call an ordinary cruise. You see that there scunner? Well, there's more good Rooshian sealskins come out o’ that vessel the last two seasons' than out o’ airy other trail in them waters.’ “‘Lord!’ thinks I. ‘am I sunk this low?’ “‘What’ll it pay me!’ I asks him.

“ ‘Ten dollars gold for every prime skin you put aboard her. One o’ my hunters is took sic.,, or you wouldn't get the chance. Yon don’t look like a feller easy scairt.’ he says, jollyin* me. “I ain't a bit superstitious, but that sure looked like a call. Here was me. stranded, broke, and full o’ rice, offered a job that meant a pile o’ money if we won out with white min’s grub throwed in. I ain’t sayin’ as how I haggled very long with my conscience. If we got ketched, it meant usin’ a pic’, and shovel for the Rooshians over Siberia way; but. somehow, I didn’t, reckon Cap’ll Israel Bedrock was goin’ to get ketehed —not to any extent. Anyway, shovelin’ tor the Rooshians looked about as good as starvin’ to death on rice or hidin’ in a coal-bunker, so I went aboard the ..eeHigh peaceful. ” Come dark that evenin’ we screened our lights and slid out o’ Hakodate harbour without raisin’ what you might call a riot over our departure. By niornin' we were off Cape Erino, and stood north-east up the east coast o’ Yezo Island, niakin’ out we were a -lap fishin’-boat. I’s white men kept pretty much below-dveks or down behind the rail, where we were hid by the bulwarks. ■■There were two hunters besides me— Turk McGraw, a wiry little, red headed man, with a snub nose and chiny-bluc eyes that looked so meek, he said they were forever gettin’ him in trouble; and Charlie Bennett, a big man with a husky voice and a way o’ lookin’ sideways, like he suspicioned the sheriff was a-t rackin’ him. I liked Turk McGraw right, well, and neither of us had much use for Charlie. Turk said be was the meanest man in .Asia, but could shoot a seal through the head with a Winchester at two hundred yards.

"Well, the Aee-High turned out to bn a mighty decent lu..e craft—Yankeebuilt. speedy if she had all toe wind she could carry, and easily handled. Bedrock owned her, and was sort o’ crazy in his head over her. lin’d stand at the wheel if the weather was bad ami converse to that scunner like sne was human. Sail! she wa.Kcd away better -t she was humoured that way. “Everything went off beautiful. We ran pretty well to the east'ard before breakin' into the Rooshian sea. 'count o’ them havin' gunboats stationed to watch all the likely passes. But. it come thick with fog just after we raised the Black Brothers Island; and we slipped through into Okhotsk Sea when we couldn’t 'a' make out a gunboat a length away: and, onec through, we set her north a point east and drove'into the smother end over end. “Lord, but it was thick' It gives you sort of a creepy feeling to butt headlong into fog like tiiat, never knowin’ what you may smash your bowsprit on next. I’ve sailed in plenty boats, wiud and- steam both, and the. thing tp do when it comes on a bit thick is to get the horn goin'. and keep it up tremenjous, till the fog lifts. “Well, we weren’t blowm’ any horns. We was thankful for fog. and prayin’ for more. But ail the same, it gives you a queer feclin’. We were halfway up Sakhalin Island before we saw daylight again, and then only long enough to get our. bearing* and dive into it once more. We made out one-other objeck, though, before it closed down on ns. which the same it was the funnel and masts of a gunboat, hull down to Uie

east’ard. We got our beariu’s in burry, the fog closed in again, and away we. drove, hopeful the gunboat had mistook us for a friendly battle-ship or something. “I was standin' by the house that night.- smokin' a pipe before turnin' in, when Charlie Bennett wanders up. “‘That gunboat's goin’ to get us, Dan.* says he, sort o' mournful. ‘I wisht 1 hadn’t come this trip. .She’ll fuller us right up to the island ami get us, sure.’ " ‘Well, jumpin' Peter!’ 1 says. ‘You don’t expeck to ship for a cruise like tins ’tin and not run no chances. do ye? If it wasn’t for the gunboats, we wouldn’t Ik- gettin’ ten dollars a pelt.’ 1 says. “’AH right,’ he says. ‘You It see. She’s goin’ to get us, I tell you.’ “‘Shucks!’ 1 says. 'We ain’t ketehed yet’; and Charlie went for'ard shakin' his head. I knocked out niv pipe and went below and slept peaceful. “I hat was the last sigut. of another craft we had fill we’d made the island. It was June, ami as we ran up our northing the nights kept, gettin’ shorter, till t.me ivg.Avere north o' Sakhalin we wore gettin’ about two hours o’ twilight between sunset"aild. sunrise'. But it didn t make a bit o’ differente: we coujdn t see anything day or night mest o’ t.he time for the fog.

".Old Bedrock, though, was a navigator out of a book. He sort o’ smelt his way along, till one morning we heard the slappin’ p' seals al play around i:s, and directly ihe bark of an old male. The fog lifted a minute toward noon, and the skipper got a squint around. It al! looked alike to the rest of us. but. he said we'd be up with our island bv six bells, and come six bells there we were, which the same :t was alt fired good navigatin’. Me could hear the serf breakini’ on tl:e rocks, and the noise <:f the seals barkin’: and all around the vessel tne water was alive with ’em. Lord, that was a rookery! Why them Rooshians didn’t’ have a gunboat lavin’ to anchor oil that chunk o’ rock I’ll never know. It sure was puttin’ sinful temptation in a nan’s wav not to have.

“ Bedrock got us hunters overside quick as might be in the boats, each with a Jap to row us. We were fitted out with a Pen-Imre shotgun and a boat hook. A seal sinks like a stone onca it’s dead, anil you got to be mighty sudden with the hook after shootin’ ’em, or you miss your ten dollars. “ Well, we hung to that island for three full days, shootiu* till we had a boat-load, and then pullin’ to the scunner. unloadin' and off again. It was bloody work: and it didn't make it any la-ttcr to knou there was a pup on the rocks goin' to starve to death for every seal we killed. I didn’t enjoy it, not a bit. but it was ten dollars n skin, and 1 needed the money. ” The Japs were kept busy skinnin* and saltin' down what we brought 'em; and in three days we had our load and pulled out. We had three hundred prime skins below decks, and felt pretty good. Me being new to the work, McGraw and Bennett beat me the first day. but my share of the cargo none to the right side o' seven hundred dollars all the same. . “ Well, as I was sayin', we pulled out and |>ointed her south into a light head wiad, and right awuiy game trouble. U« four whita num were, standing aft talkin’ things over. A Jap had the wheel, and the rest of .’em weie .swabbin' dowa

the decks, for the old man wouldn't leave the Ace-High dirty, not for a minute. Charlie and the skipper were havin’ a little set-to, Charlie claimin’ he hadn’t been given credit for one moatload o’ skins he'd put aboard. “‘Who do you reckon did get credit for ’em, Charl’c?’ asks the skipper.

•"I dunno,’ says Charlie; ’but it wouldn’t surprise me none to find nary one of us got credit for ’em.’ “ That meant the skipper bad been cheatin’ us, and it made old Bedrock mad. He never said a word, but he took a long look at Charlie, and 1 was gla d my name was Daniel. “ We’d made a long leg, and just come about on the port tack whea the fog wort o’ rolled itself up like a curtain at a -how, and the whole sea laid open, gray lookin’ and mean. Off behind us I i ade out the breedin’ rock, with the mrf breakin’ on it trenieajous, and the seals gallopin’ up and down it their funny, floppy way. 1 was lookin’ back at it, sort o’ studyin’ on the trouble we were leavin’ behind us, when there tame a yell from Turk McGraw. "•JlyGcd! ’ he says; ‘look at that!’ “ The wind was light and flawy out o’ the sou’west, an* we were runnin’ pretty near westerly on the port tack at this time. I switched around and followed where Turk was pointin’; and I tell you my breath stopped right up, like I'd -swallowed a cork. “ Not more’n five miles away on our port quarter was a nice little shiny white gunboat, steamin’ slowly up to the island to see was there anything doin'. We could make out the nasty lookin’ quick-firers in her barbettes. " Lord, but that was a sight to shock you! We watched her swing about slow till she pointed our way; and she looked so close 1 was wondering if she’d try a shot at us. Maybe she reckoned we’d lay down and die peaceful, without her wastin’ any ammunition on us. Anyway, she didn’t shoot. There wasn’t a thing we could do, and we just stood there like gravestones in a churchyard and watched Siberia coinin’ for us.

" Then the fog rolled down between, solid as a wall, and old Bedrock let a yell out of him that sort o’ woke us

out of s sound sleep. He drove us forward like navvies, and ’fore we knew it we were pulling and hauling with Japs on both sides of us. He set the vessel about, fair before the wind, and we piled every inch of (auras on her, flyin’-jibs and stays’ls, swung the booms out wing and wing, and dove into the blessed smother, headed about nor’east. We reckoned that gunboat would expect us to wait right where we were till she came up and put the handcuffs on us, and we aimed to be some little distance off when she got there. “ Well, the. fog was good to us for a solid forty minutes: and the little AceHigh certainly did herself proud. She was rollin’ some, but not lad, and considerin’ the wind we had, she walked away surprisin’. When it lifted, sure enough, there laid the gunboat all o’ four mile behind us, and probably about where we’d been when she first sighted us. She’d stopped her engines and just laid there heavin’, all ready to shackle us up when the fog lifted. I wouldn’t wonder now but what her feelin's were sonic hurt when it did lift. “Turk McGraw came out o’ the cabin with his arms full of American flag. “ ’ What’s that for’’ snaps old Bedrock, glarin' at his out o’ them whitegray eyes o’ hisn. “•Goin' to show them fellers what they’re up against,” says Turk. “The old man sort o’ grinned; and McGraw and me we bent the flag to the halyards and sent her up. Meanwhile the gunboat had got her engines turnin’ over full speed ahead, and was cornin’ for us like a thirty-six knot destroyer and madder’n a burnt wildcat. Directly she let go one of her for’ard guns. We saw the flash and heard the “ boom,” and maybe some of us sort o’ grabbed holt o’ something while we waited for the shell. Then it plumped into the sea a good piece behind us and well out o’ line, and we felt better. “Down come the fog again, and we jammed the scunner round, triced things up sharp, and stood away southerly on the sta’board tack. “‘Say,’ says Charlie Bennett, white as chalk and all a-tremble, ‘ i don’t like this. I say, let’s heave to. I don't see

no sense in get tin’ blowed to pieces.* ‘“What’s that?’ snaps Bedrock, like he’d eat him. ’lf you don’t like it, you suckin’ lamb, you kin take one o’ the boats and go aboard o’ that Rooshian. The Aee-High’H give ’em a run for it first. I don’t know,’ he says, kind o’ thoughtful—' I don’t know now but what I’d blow her up ’fore I’d see her sold in Vladivostok.’ “ I didn't think he meant it, and mebbc he didn’t, but 1 ain’t quite sure. He thought a sight o’ that scunner. Anyway Charlie shut up, though he was seairt so his teeth chattered. “ We drove away southerly, now and then gettin’ a puff that heeled the AceHigh over to what her skipper called her racing lines; and I will say that when she got wind enough she was sinful fast. Bedrock liad the wheel, and he’d talk to her and humour her, takin’ advantage of every puff, and in between pokin’ his nose out to windward and snuflin’ the air. “ ‘ Git some wind directly,’ he says, checrfullike, after a bit. ‘ We’ll give them fellers a run for it yet, won’t we, old girl?’ ♦ Thirty-five minutes by Turk McGraw’s watch the fog held that time, while we scuttled off south, hopeful the enemy was steaming up nor’east, to where we’d been last time they saw us. You see, they didn’t dare to turn right or left to hear us, for we might ’a’gone any one o’ three ways —straight away north-east, or westerly, or southerly; and if she tried to head us off it was two chances to one she'd miss our direction, and be farther away than ever when the fog lifted. " So she did just what we reckoned she would, and plowed straight for the place she last saw us. Even so, she cut down our lead some every time, for the fog didn’t hold long enough for us to make any distance. It was about ten o’clock in the evenin’ now, and in another hour it would be night—or as near night as we’d get. “The wind was freshenin’, too, just as the skipper said, and if we could only hold our distance till it came dark we might give ’em the slip yet. Of course we couldn't keep that dodgin’

game up forever. We were just travellin’ round a triangle, and there'd eomfl a time when she’d get eiose enough to put a shell into us; and just one shell in that little scunner would ’a’ been • plenty. “When the fog drifted off to loo’ar<| this time we found we’d liggered right, for the gunboat was up where we’Ct been, but inebbe a half-mile nearer than before. She no more than saw us when •bang’ she let fly at us; and when the shell plumped down only two hundred yards behind us it showed things wers gettin’ warm. “Directly, she let go another, but either the range was beyond her or her gunners were rotten, for that fell shorty too. Meantime she was cornin’ for us in scandalous leaps, buttin’ into th< seas and throw in’ spray all over her. For all o’ five minutes the fog was up between us, but, glory be! the wind was risin’ fast, and the little Aee-ll igh was a slappin’ along, gatherin’ way, with every jump, so that, the gunboat, with all her steam, wasn’t gainin’ mueh.

“Then the wind backed a bit to the ■west and came down a howlin’. The fog dropped in between and shut out the gunboat, and I expected we’d eome about and go off on the other tack. It was gettin’ along toward sunset, and what with the pea-soup fog it was fairly dark a’ready. “But instead of goin’ about, the skipper held straight ahead, everything creakin’ with the strain; and the minute the fog shut us in he sings out for two of us to go below with a eouple o’ Japs and break out the powder-barrel and get it on deck. Turk and me went along down. “ What’s doin’?’ I says. “ 'Search me,’ says Turk. “‘Will he blow her up?’ I asked, feelin’ some interested, as you might say. “ ’He’d leave it below if he meant for to blow her up,’ says Turk; which the same it looked like sense, too, when you eome to think about it. “So we rolled out the barrel and h’isted it to the deck. It was ehock-a-hlock, for we'd had enough cartridges

for our work at the island, and hadn't even opened the barrel. When Charlie saw it he near had a fit. " ‘What’s that for, cap'n?’ he says, shakin* on his legs. “‘Never mind what it’s for, Charlie,’ cays the skipper, sort o’ mournful. ‘Mebbe we won’t have to use it. Mebbe we kin give ’em the slip yet.’ “ *Oli, but say,’ says Charlie, scairt out of all sense, ‘I didn't ship to be blowed up, I didn’t. I won’t stay aboard if you're goin’ to blow her up. I’d rather go aboard that Rooshian. 1 ain't a fool.’

“ ‘I won’t never lower my flag to no Rooshian, Charlie,’ says the skipper, mighty solemn. ‘lf you'd rather go aboard o’ that feller, 1 wouldn’t go for to say but what now’s the time. Sea’s raisin' every minute, aud you might not make it later on.’ “Charlie looked at the sea and then looked at the barrel. “ ‘Are you fellers goin’ to stay with that erazy- man?’ he says, turnin’ to Turk and me. “ ‘l'll take my ehanees, Charlie,* says Turk. “‘Same here,’ I says. ‘I don’t like Rooshians.’ “Charlie took another look at the barrel settin’ there kind o’ ominouslookin’. Then he starts for the skipper. “ ‘Say. eap’n,* he says, ‘you ain’t really goin’ to do it, are ye? You ain’t aimin’ to blow her up, are ye? Not honest ?’ “ ‘Charlie.’ says the skipper, ea’m as an ile. paintin’, ‘I ain’t aimin’ to blow her up. Rut I’ll suttenly set fire to that‘there barrel ’fore I’ll be ketehed by that Rooshian.’ “That settled Charlie. I ain’t sayin’ but what I felt sort o’ wobbly myself. “ 'Help me with a boat, boys,’ says Charlie. ‘l’m goin’ to surrender. You kin stay aboard with that feller if you want to. I’m goin’ to quit. He’s erazy, I tell you. He'll blow ye to the devil, sure.’ "We got a boat out and ready to lower away. Charlie elirabed in andgot his oars fixed, and we waited for the next lift of the fog, so he could get the lay of the gunboat and make sure o’ findin’ her. “We didn't have to wait long. We’d been runnin’ straight away, and the gunlioat had been followin’ right in our wake and niakin’ prob’ly three feet to our two; and when the smother lifted I‘don’t reckon she was a bit over a mile behind us. She let fly at us instantaneous, and, even considerin’ the sea that was runnin’, and the darkness, her gunnery was vile, for the shot went singin’ overhead and well off to loo’ard.

“ 'Good-bye, Charlie,’ says Turk McGraw". ‘Tell the folks we died game.’ ’■Then we dropped him, and he swirled off astern of us, workin’ at the oars like a wild man. The skipper began snappill’ orders at us, and we hadn't time to take notice o’ what hap pened after that. Fog must ’a’ fell again, though, for they didn't try another shot. “’McGraw take the wheel!’ sings out Bedrock, and Turk jumps aft, “‘Git that barrel into a boat now, lively, Dan,’ he yells at me; ‘and sling it to the falls, ready to let go.’ "He dived down into the cabin, and I went to work with the Japs, not knnwin’ what for any niore’n a newborn puppy. The old man was back in a minute with a length o’ cotton rope he’d dipped in grease in one hand, and an ax in the other. “ ‘Make a line fast to her bows,’ he Says, ‘and stand by to pay it off.’ “Then he swung the ax through the head o’ the barrel as it laid in the boat, and sticks one end of his cotton fuse well into the powder. “‘Are ye ready?’ he says to me. “ ‘Aye, aye, sir,’ I says. “ ‘Keep a strain on that line now ■when we let her go.’ “ ‘Aye, aye, sir,’ I says, feelin' queer inside. “He slid a match along his thigh, and sheltered it with his hands till it blazed good. Then he reached out and held it to the end o’ that fuse, steady as though there wa'n't a grain o’ powder nearer than a mile; and I stood there beside him, lookin’ for kingdom come and a golden harp the next minute. “ ‘Lower away now, easy,’ he says, jumpin’ back; and the Japs at the falls let her go. I followed along the rail as she drifted astern, payin’ out the line and keepin’ just enough strain on it to hold her head up to the sea, so she wouldn't founder. For a minute the red end of the fuse showed, bnmin.’ Steady, and then the fog swallowed it,

and all we could do was think about it and keep right on thinkin’ about it. “The old man came back and grabbed the wheel. “ ‘Turk,’ he says, ‘you get them Japs to work now, ehuekin* stuff overside. Rip out everything we don't need that’ll float and heave it over. Lively now;’ and Turk got an ax aud sailed in. "I stood at her quarter and paid out that line. Mebbe you think it was fun to stand there and wait for that barrel to bust loose. Seemed to me I’d paid out a hundred fathom, thankful, too, for every inch that ran over the rail; and I’d about made up my mind the fuse had failed or something, when the line went slack in my fingers, and then eonie a roar that shook the teeth in my jaws. “‘Good!’ says old Bedrock, behind me at the wheel. ‘That’U give ’em something to think about. Reckon they’ll heave to to pick up the pieces after that.’ “I got my line aboard and went for’ard, where Turk McGraw and the Japs were rippin’ the heart out of her and heavin’ it overboard in small sections. ‘“ls he erazy?’ says Turk, drivin’ his ax through our last boat. “‘Crazy!’ I says. ‘Jumpin’ Peter! Here’s where that gunboat lays-to for awhile lookin’ for the survivors of this terrible disaster.’

"Turk looked at me, dumb for a minute. then it broke through to him. “ ‘And we get two hours o’ darkness to lay low for Hakodate!’ he says, sort o’ gaspin’. ‘Oh, my Carolina! Let me get some’ers where I can yell.’ “‘Avast, there!’ sings out the skipper. "There's enough over now. Come mornin’, she’ll look like we’d had a Sunday-sehool pienie aboard of us. Dan. you lay below and get some sleep. We’ll hold her steady as she is for awhile, and it'll lie your trick at the wheel directly.’ “I didn’t take any sleep, though. The wind kept a-backin’ round and strengthenin’, and we had to shorten sail about midnight, or have 'em blowed out of her. Come sunrise, we were runnin’ off slap-bang into the smother before a full gale out o' the nor'west. When the fog cleared for a minute an hour later, there wa’n't a sign of a gunboat—north, east, south, or west—and the little old AceHigh, with three hundred skins iu the tubs below, and her decks and cabin tore up like an iceberg bed fell on her, sort o’ heaved a sigh o’ relief and jammed away south for Hakodate.

“We ran through Etorofu pass in the night, and, once out o’ the Rooshian sea, felt easier in our minds. I fell asleep walkin’ the deck soon after that, and woke up in the scuppers to find us swingin’ to anchor in Hakodate harbour. "We transferred the skins on the quiet to a ’Frisco liner, and us three white men divided Charlie’s share. I tucked away something better’n a thousand. and quit seal-poaehiu’ while I was still ahead o’ the game. It's a grand business if you're broke and stranded and full o’ rice, but you have to run a little too close to Siberia.” Danny paused and bent over the bowl of his pipe for an instant. “Of course,” he said, “I know it's bad for discipline, sir, me settin’ here talkin’ to you, but I want to ask you one question: Honest, now, what do you think o’ that Rooshian yarn they tell up to Vladivostok? I turned for answer to the naval attache, hut he had risen hastily and was already half-way up the deck, in full retreat towards the cabin.