"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.



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.