"'There,' says I, 'if it rains durin' the night she'll keep pretty dry. Now I'll take the dory and row back to the shanty after some spare anchors there is there.'

"'But what's it fur, pard?' asks Billings for the nine hundred and ninety-ninth time. 'Why don't we go where it's dry? The flood's risin' all the time.'

"'Let it rise,' I says. 'I cal'late when it gets high enough them floats'll rise with it and lift the automobile up too. If she's anchored bow and stern she'll hold, unless it comes on to blow a gale, and to-morrow mornin' at low tide maybe you can tinker her up so she'll go.'

"'Go?' says he, like he was astonished. 'Do you mean to say you're reckonin' to save the car?'

"'Good land!' I says, starin' at him. 'What else d'you s'pose? Think I'd let seventy-five hundred dollars' wuth of gilt-edged extravagance go to the bottom? What did you cal'late I was tryin' to save—the clam-flat? Give me that dory-rope; I'm goin' after them anchors. Sufferin' snakes! Where is the dory? What have you done with it?'

"He'd been holdin' the bight of the dory-rodin'. I handed it to him so's he'd have somethin' to take up his mind. And, by time, he'd forgot all about it and let it drop! And the dory had gone adrift and was out of sight.

"'Gosh!' says he, astonished-like. 'Pard, the son of a gun has slipped his halter!'

"I was pretty mad—dories don't grow on every beach-plum bush—but there wan't nothin' to say that fitted the case, so I didn't try.

"'Humph!' says I. 'Well, I'll have to swim ashore that's all, and go up to the station inlet after another boat. You stand by the ship. If she gets afloat afore I come back you honk and holler and I'll row after you. I'll fetch the anchors and we'll moor her wherever she happens to be. If she shouldn't float on an even keel, or goes to capsize, you jump overboard and swim ashore. I'll——'

"'Swim?' says he, with a shake in his voice. 'Why, pard, I can't swim!'

"I turned and looked at him. Shover of a two-mile-a-minute gold-plated butcher-cart like that, a cowboy murderer that et his friends for breakfast—and couldn't swim! I fetched a kind of combination groan and sigh, turned back the sail, climbed aboard the automobile, and lit up my pipe.

"'What are you settin' there for?' says he. 'What are you goin' to do?'

"'Do?' says I. 'Wait, that's all—wait and smoke. We won't have to wait long.'

"My prophesyin' was good. We didn't have to wait very long. It was pitch dark, foggy as ever, and the tide a risin' fast. The floats got to be awash. I shinned out on to 'em picked up the oar that had been left there, and took my seat again. Billings climbed in too, only—and it kind of shows the change sence the previous evenin'—he was in the passenger-cockpit astern and I was for'ard in the pilot house. For a reckless dare-devil he was actin' mighty fidgety.

"And at last one of the floats swung off the sand. The automobile tipped scandalous. It looked as if we was goin' on our beam-ends. Billings let out an awful yell. Then t'other float bobbed up and the whole shebang, car and all, drifted out and down the channel.

"My lashin's held—I cal'lated they would. Soon's I was sure of that I grabbed up the oar and shoved it over the stern between the floats. I hoped I could round her to after we passed the mouth of the Cut-through, and make port on the inside beach. But not in that tide. Inside of five minutes I see 'twas no use; we was bound across the bay.

"And now commenced a v'yage that beat any ever took sence Noah's time, I cal'late; and even Noah never went to sea in an automobile, though the one animal I had along was as much trouble as his whole menagerie. Billings was howlin' blue murder.

"'Stop that bellerin'!' I ordered. 'Quit it, d'you hear! You'll have the station crew out after us, and they'll guy me till I can't rest. Shut up! If you don't, I'll—I'll swim ashore and leave you.'

"I was takin' big chances, as I look at it now. He might have drawed a bowie-knife or a lasso on me; 'cordin' to his yarns he'd butchered folks for a good sight less'n that. But he kept quiet this time, only gurglin' some when the ark tilted. I had time to think of another idee. You remember the dory-sail, mast and all, was alongside that cart. I clewed up the canvas well as I could and managed to lash the mast up straight over the auto's bows. Then I shook out the sail.

"'Here!' says I, turnin' to Billings. 'You hang on to that sheet. No, you needn't nuther. Make it fast to that cleat alongside.'

"I couldn't see his face plain, but his voice had a funny tremble to it; reminded me of my own when I climbed out of that very cart after he'd jounced me down to Setuckit, the day before.

"'What?' he says. 'Wh-what? What sheet? I don't see any sheet. What do you want me to do?'

"'Tie this line to that cleat. That cleat there! Cleat, you lubber! Cleat! That knob! Make it fast! Oh, my gosh t'mighty! Get out of my way!'

"The critter had tied the sheet to the handle of the door instead of the one I meant, and the pull of the sail hauled the door open and pretty nigh ripped it off the hinges. I had to climb into the cockpit and straighten out the mess. I was losin' my temper; I do hate bunglin' seamanship aboard a craft of mine.

"'But what'll become of us?' begs Billings. 'Will we drown?'

"'What in tunket do we want to drown for? Ain't we got a good sailin' breeze and the whole bay to stay on top of—fifty foot of water and more?'

"'Fifty foot!' he yells. 'Is there fifty foot of water underneath us now? Pard, you don't mean it!'

"'Course I mean it. Good thing, too!'

"'But fifty foot! It's enough to drown in ten times over!'

"'Can't drown but once, can you? And I'd just as soon drown in fifty foot as four—ruther, 'cause 'twouldn't take so long.'

"He didn't answer out loud; but I heard him talkin' to himself pretty constant.

IV

"We was well out in the bay by now, and the seas was a little mite more rugged—nothin' to hurt, you understand, but the floats was all foam, and once in a while we'd ship a little spray. And every time that happened Billings would jump and grab for somethin' solid—sometimes 'twas the upholstery and sometimes 'twas me. He wan't on the thwart, but down in a heap on the cockpit floor.

"'Let go of my leg!' I sings out, after we'd hit a high wave and that shover had made a more'n ordinary savage claw at my underpinnin'. 'You make me nervous. Drat this everlastin' fog! Somethin' 'll bump into us if we don't look out. Here, you go for'ard and light them cruisin'-lights. They ain't colored 'cordin' to regulations, but they'll have to do. Go for'ard! What you waitin' for?'

"Well, it turned out that he didn't like to leave that cockpit. I was mad.

"'Go for'ard there and light them lights!' I yelled, hangin' to the steerin' oar and keepin' the ark runnin' afore the wind.

"'I won't!' he says, loud and emphatic. 'Think I'm a blame fool? I sure would be a jack-rabbit to climb over them seats the way they're buckin' and light them lamps. You're talkin' through your hat!'

"Well, I hadn't no business to do it, but, you see, I was on salt water, and skipper, as you might say, of the junk we was afloat in; and if there's one thing I never would stand it's mutiny. I hauled in the oar, jumped over the cockpit-rail, and went for him. He see me comin', stood up, tried to get out of the way, and fell overboard backwards. Part of him lit on one of the floats, but the biggest part trailed in the water between the two. He clawed with his hands, but the planks was slippery, and he slid astern fast. Just as he reached the last plank and slid off and under I jumped after him and got him by the scruff of the neck. I had hold of the lashin'-end with one hand and we tailed out behind the ark, which was sloppin' along, graceful as an elephant on skates.

"I was pretty well beat out when I yanked him into that cockpit again. Neither of us said anything for a spell, breath bein' scurce as di'monds. But when he'd collected some of his, he spoke.

"'Pard,' he says, puffin', 'I'm much obleeged to you. I reckon I sure ain't treated you right. If it hadn't been for you that time I'd——'

"But I was bilin' over. I whirled on him like a teetotum.

"'Drat your hide!' I says. 'When you speak to your officer you say sir! And now you go for'ard and light them lights. Don't you answer back! If you do I'll fix you so's you'll never ship aboard another vessel! For'ard there! Lively, you lubber, lively!'

"He went for'ard, takin' considerable time and hangin' on for dear life. But somehow or 'nuther he got the lights to goin'; and all the time I hazed him terrible. I was mate on an Australian packet afore I went fishin' to the Banks, and I can haze some. I blackguarded that shover awful.

"'Ripperty-rip your everlastin' blankerty-blanked dough-head!' I roared at him. 'You ain't wuth the weight to sink you. For'ard there and get that fog-horn to goin'! And keep it goin'! Lively, you sculpin! Don't you open your mouth to me!'

"Well, all night we sloshed along, straight acrost the bay. We must have been a curious sight to look at. The floats was awash, so that the automobile looked like she was ridin' the waves all by her lonesome; the lamps was blazin' at either side of the bow; Billings was a tootin' the rubber fog-horn as if he was wound up; and I was standin' on the cushions amidships, keepin' the whole calabash afore the wind.

"We never met another craft the whole night through. Yes, we did meet one. Old Ezra Cahoon, of Harnis, was out in his dory stealin' quahaugs from Seth Andrews's bed over nigh the Wapatomac shore. Ezra stayed long enough to get one good glimpse of us as we bust through the fog; then he cut his rodin' and laid to his oars, bound for home and mother. We could hear him screech for half an hour after he left us.

"Ez told next day that the devil had come ridin' acrost the bay after him in a chariot of fire. Said he could smell the brimstone and hear the trumpet callin' him to judgment. Likewise he hove in a lot of particulars concernin' the personal appearance of the Old Boy himself, who, he said, was standin' up wavin' a redhot pitchfork. Some folks might have been flattered at bein' took for such a famous character; but I wan't; I'm retirin' by nature, and, besides, Ez's description wan't cal'lated to bust a body's vanity-biler. I was prouder of the consequences, the same bein' that Ezra signed the Good Templars' pledge that afternoon, and kept it for three whole months, just sixty-nine days longer than any previous attack within the memory of man had lasted.

"And finally, just as mornin' was breakin,' the bows of the floats slid easy and slick up on a hard, sandy beach. Then the sun riz and the fog lifted, and there we was within sight of the South Ostable meetin'-house. We'd sailed eighteen miles in that ark and made a better landin' blindfold than we ever could have made on purpose.

"I hauled down the sail, unshipped the mast, and jumped ashore to find a rock big enough to use for a makeshift anchor. It wan't more'n three minutes after we fust struck afore my boots hit dry ground, but Billings beat me one hundred and seventy seconds, at that. When I had time to look at that shover man he was a cable's-length from high-tide mark, settin' down and grippin' a bunch of beach-grass as if he was afeard the sand was goin' to slide from under him; and you never seen a yallerer, more upset critter in your born days.

"Well, I got the ark anchored, after a fashion, and then we walked up to the South Ostable tavern. Sim Small, who runs the place, he knows me, so he let me have a room and I turned in for a nap. I slept about three hours. When I woke up I started out to hunt the automobile and Billings. Both of 'em looked consider'ble better than they had when I see 'em last. The shover had got a gang of men and they'd got the gas-cart ashore, and Billings and a blacksmith was workin' over—or rather under—the clockwork.

"'Hello!' I hails, comin' alongside.

"Billings sticks his head out from under the tinware.

"'Hi, pard!' says he. I noticed he hadn't called me 'Grace' nor 'Dewey' for a long spell. 'Hi, pard,' he says, gettin' to his feet, 'the old gal ain't hurt a hair. She'll be good as ever in a couple of hours. Then you and me can start for Orham.'

"'In her?' says I.

"'Sure,' he says.

"'Not by a jugful!' says I, emphatic. 'I'll borrer a boat to get to Orham in, when I'm ready to go. You won't ketch me in that man-killer again; and you can call me a coward all you want to!'

"'A coward?' says he. 'You a coward? And—Why, you was in that car all night!'

"'Oh!' I says. 'Last night was diff'rent. The thing was on the water then, and when I've got enough water underneath me I know I'm safe.'

"'Safe!' he sings out. 'Safe! Well, by—gosh! Pard, I hate to say it, but it's the Lord's truth—you had me doin' my "Now I lay me's!"'

"For a minute we looked at each other. Then says I, sort of thinkin' out loud, 'I cal'late,' I says, 'that whether a man's brave or not depends consider'ble on whether he's used to his latitude. It's all accordin'. It lays in the bringin' up, as the duck said when the hen tried to swim.'

"He nodded solemn. 'Pard,' says he, 'I sure reckon you've called the turn. Let's shake hands on it.'"

FOOTNOTE:

[L] Reprinted from "The Depot Master." Copyright, 1910, by D. Appleton and Company.



XIV—The Dollar[M]

By Morgan Robertson

HIS name was Angus Macpherson—pronounced MacPhairson—but he was so intensely Scotch that in every ship he had sailed in men called him Scotty. He had a face like a harvest-moon, with a sorrowful expression of the eyes, a frame like a gladiator's, a brogue modified from its original consistency to an understandable dialect, and the soul of a Scotchman—which means that he was possessed by two dominant and conflicting passions, love of God and love of Mammon. Add to these attributes a masterful knowledge of seamanship and an acquaintance with navigation, and you have a rough sketch of him as he stood at the wheel of a tow-barge just out of New York.

Her name was the Anita, and she was the second barge in a tow of two. Ahead of her, at the end of a ninety-fathom steel tow-line, was the sister barge Champion, and at an equal distance farther ahead was the steamer Proserpine. Each barge carried stump spars and mutton-leg canvas—which was why Scotty, weary of the endless work in the deep-water windjammers, had gone "tow-barging"—and the three craft belonged to one owner.

The skipper, a young man with a humorous face and democratic manner, as became a lowly barge skipper, appeared before the Scotsman, jingling in his hand a number of bright silver dollars. Scotty eyed them hungrily.

"Fine, aren't they, Scotty?" he said. "How many of these plunkers does the devil need to buy your soul?"

"More than you can count, Cappen Bolt," answered Scotty, gravely. "My soul no belongs to me, but to my Maker."

"Nonsense," laughed the captain. "A Scot loves the siller first, his Maker next. Why, a Jew can't make a living in your country, Scotty."

"Possibly not, cappen; but it's no because Scotchmen are dishonest. The Lord has given us wits—that's all."

"Dead broke, Scotty?" asked Captain Bolt, idly.

"I banked the most o' my pay, sir. Ay, I'm what you might call broke."

"Too bad! Ought to have held some out. There'll be no money at Philadelphia. Owner's kickin'. Wants to save the interest, and he won't pay off till we get back."

Scotty's face assumed a rueful expression, and Captain Bolt watched it from the tail of his eye; then, before Scotty could speak, the prolonged clatter of the steward's dinner-bell began, and the captain moved towards the companion, pocketing the coins as he went. One fell on the deck, the noise of the bell preventing its fall being heard, and the captain did not see it. But Scotty did, and he watched it roll back towards the taffrail, assume a spiral motion, and lie down just aft of the quarter-bitt. The captain was now down in the cabin, but Scotty picked up the coin to hold for him until he came up. He should have let it lie.

For it was bright and beautiful to look at, hard and slippery to the touch as he held it in his trousers pocket, a pleasing contrast to the coming emptiness of that pocket in Philadelphia. Scotty's soul went through the usual conflict in such cases, and when Captain Bolt came up, rubbing his mouth, love of Mammon had won over love of God, and he said nothing about it. Shortly after, he was relieved, and he went forward. On the way a revulsion set in, and he turned back, resolved to hand it over, as though he had forgotten; but the captain had stepped below again, and with the memory of his boasted honesty and the certainty of the captain's skepticism and ridicule in his mind, he turned again and went to the forecastle. When he had eaten his dinner, and slept four hours, he found on waking that his inclination to return it was stronger than at noon; but the certainty of being disbelieved had gained equally in strength, and the dollar remained in his pocket—a source of guilty joy and expectant misgiving. He longed for the day when it would be spent and off his mind, and calculated the days and hours before the tow would reach Philadelphia.

But Scotty did not reach Philadelphia; he fell overboard just within the Delaware capes and though he bawled lustily as the black side of the barge slipped by him in the darkness, and was answered in kind by his watchmates above, the noise did not reach the relentless power eleven hundred feet away, and he was left behind. But one had thrown him a life-buoy, and on this he floated until daylight, when an outbound tug picked him up. The tug was bound to Boston.

"I'll e'en make the best o' it," said Scotty, as he wrung out his wet clothing in the tug's small forecastle. "And I'll regard the dollar as a special deespensation of an all-wise Providence; for what would I do in Boston wi'oot a bit o' money in my clothes?"

But he did not reach Boston. The tug had a full crew, scant accommodations, and a hard-hearted captain, who decreed that Scotty should be put aboard the first craft that would take him. This happened to be a three-skysail-yard American ship—the Baltimore—two days out from New York for Shanghai, whose skipper backed his yard in answer to the tug-captain's offer to give him a sailor, and whose third-mate received Scotty—not with open arms, but clinched fists, as he dropped, swearing, to the deck in a bosun's chair.

"You ought to be glad you're alive," said her skipper, harshly, when Scotty had, later, come aft to protest against his abduction. "He pulled you out of a life-buoy, where you'd ha' drowned 'fore the next craft came along, and puts you aboard a big, safe ship where you couldn't fall overboard if you tried. Get forward, now, and stop this talk."

"And am I to be put on the articles?" demanded Scotty. "I expect to wark where'er I be; but do I get pay, I'm askin'?"

"No. My articles are full. You'll wark your passage."

"Four months' sleevery in a hell-ship," growled Scotty, as he went forward. "This comes o' back-sleedin'. Lord forgi' me for it, but the punishment is hard. Howe'er, I'll just hang on to the dollar. I'll ha' earned it long this side o' the cape."

He did, and continued to earn it until the ship had neared the Yangtse-Kiang. Marked for the officers' attentions by his initial profane and irreverent comment on his transferral by the tug-captain, he was assaulted on the slightest provocation by the mates—no bigger than he or more skillful of fist, but justified by the law—and, though easily the best sailorman of the mixed crew, was put at distasteful tasks while inferior men worked at sailorly work on ropes and rigging.

There was nothing of this in the watch below, for Scotty could thrash the best two men forward, and led them all in forecastle discourse; but as it was a mixed crew, none too honest, in his opinion, he made a monk-bag—a leather pocket—for his dollar, and hung it around his neck; and, to further protect the precious coin, forswore his religion, called himself a Catholic and the monk-bag a phylactery, with a saint's relic within. This brought him to the notice of a gentle-souled Portuguese of the crew, a true believer, who made friends with the Scot and earned his confidence before he learned of the shamness of the phylactery. Scotty, on lookout one night, told him this in a burst of confidence that also included a confession of his peculation. His friend, horrified, not at the theft, but at the sacrilegious fraud, informed him that the coin was accursed, that his soul was accursed, and that the only salvation for him in this life and the next was, first, that he return the stolen dollar by hand to its rightful owner, next that he become a real believer in the only true church instead of an impostor.

"If you do not," he said, "you have alla time badda luck till you die, then purgatory and the flame."

Perhaps the flames of Sheol could not have turned Scotty from his faith; but he was certainly impressed with the first clause of the obligation.

"Ye maun be right, Manuel," he said; "for, though I thought it a deespensation, I find that all my hard luck came after it. I'll gie it back when I may."

"Who's on lookout here?" demanded the burly third mate as he climbed the forecastle steps. "Hey, who's on lookout?"

"I am, sir," answered Scotty, as Manuel drew out of the way.

"Get down on the main-deck, you dago son of a thief," bellowed the officer, aiming a kick at the retreating Portuguese. "D' ye see that light?" he said to Scotty. "With a man to help you keep lookout, d' ye see it?"

Scotty, derelict in his duty, did not see it for some moments—in fact, not until the third mate was through with him. Then he looked through closing eyes to where the third mate pointed—dead ahead, where a white light shone faintly in the darkness.

"Ay, ay, sir," he said, thickly. "I see it; and I'll e'en remember this night when I meet ye on shore, Mr. Smart. I'm no shipped in the craft, and it's a matter for the underwriters to know—puttin' me on lookout. As it is, I doot I'd meet trouble should I pull yer head off the noo. I'm no a shipped man, d' ye hear?"

The last was like the roar of an angry bull, and the officer backed away from the enraged Scotchman. Then he descended the steps, and in a minute a man came up and relieved him.

The light did not move, and, the wind being gentle, the day broke before the ship had come up to it. Then they saw a black tramp steamer, rolling easily in the trough, with a string of small flags flying from aloft and the English ensign from the flag-staff at the taffrail. There was an exchange of signals between the two crafts until eight bells struck, and then Scotty, just about to sit down to his breakfast, was called aft and told to get his belongings ready for another trans-shipment. Scotty's belongings, the few rags he had collected by various methods from his shipmates, were hardly worth taking; but he regretted his breakfast, though glad to quit the ship. As he slid down the davit-tackle he surmised the meaning of the change by the expression on the third mate's face as he peered over the rail, and some words uttered by the captain, among which he only made out one—"underwriters."

"I'm told," said the semi-uniformed captain of the tramp, "that you are a castaway, picked up on the American coast, and are discontented with the ship."

"I dinna ken what the sleeve-drivers telt ye, cappen," answered Scotty, his brogue a little thicker from his emotions, "but I agree that I'm discontented."

"What's wrong with your face?"

"Ran foul o' the third mate's fist for no seem' your light. I were no one o' the crew, yet they put me on lookout. And I strongly suspect, cappen, that I'm bundled off mair on account o' that than because of my discontent."

"Possibly; but I'm a man short, and will sign you at Shanghai wages—three pounds a month. You will not be struck here, and will be well treated while you do your work. We're bound for Boston, and will go on when the engine is mended."

"I'm obleeged to ye, sir," said Scotty, radiantly. "And Boston's the port for me, sir. I've strong reasons for strikin' that coast."

He still had his dollar secure in its leather casing, hung to his neck, but in this ship he said nothing about it.

Nothing unpleasant happened to him on this passage homeward; and he fondly believed that his sincere intent to return the dollar to Captain Bolt had changed his luck—that his painful friction with Mr. Smart's fist was a providential happening; but Providence had ordered otherwise, and in this manner: The steamer captain, ahead of his reckoning while approaching the coast in thick fog, ran his ship at full speed onto the sands of Cape Cod. He was unable to back off; a rising wind and sea threw the steamer broadside to the beach, and here she churned a hole for herself from which a wrecking tug could hardly pull her.

But a wrecking tug was sent for, by signals to the shore when the fog lifted, and in time one arrived, with a lifeboat in tow—which was a lucky forethought of some one, for the rising wind and sea had developed into a storm that was breaking the ship in pieces. Anchored well out, and steaming with full power into the teeth of the gale, the tug slacked down the lifeboat, and one by one the crew sprang into the sea and was pulled in. Six trips in and out completed the rescue, and Scotty came out on the last, with the frantic captain, who never ceased his bitter self-reproach.

But Scotty, irresponsible, had troubles of his own; he was wet and cold—for it was midwinter—and once aboard the wrecking tug, he fled the captain's inward objurgations, and sought the warmth of the firehold. Here he burrowed far along beside the boilers, and being utterly exhausted as well as chilled and drenched, and far from the captain's voice, fell into a sleep which lasted until the tug had tied up at Boston; then he came out, to find his shipmates gone ashore.

"Are you the missing man o' that crew?" asked the mate of the tug. "Your skipper says to stay here, and he'll bring you your pay."

"That's gude," answered Scotty, cheerfully. "But I'll just stretch my legs on the dock a wee bit, for it's a long time since I've been ashore."

The tug was moored outside of a small schooner, whose crew, as he crossed her deck, were "loosing" sails, singling lines and making other obvious preparations to getting away. As he mounted her rail to climb to the dock, he saw his captain looking sadly down on him.

"It's just as well, my man," he said, "that you couldn't be found; for I didn't sign you before the consul, and want no complications. However, I'll pay you here. Just sign this receipt—an even two months at three pounds a month."

"Ay, ay, sir—and thank you, cappen."

He reached up and secured the slip of paper and a pencil handed down; then, first examining the document with Scottish caution, knelt down and signed his name to a receipt for six pounds. Passing it up, he received a cylindrical roll of coins from the captain, and thanked him again. Then he turned to drop to the deck; but his foot slipping on the hard, painted rail, he came down on all fours, and the roll of coin left his grasp.

"Catch it—quick!" called the captain from above. "Look out for that scupper; it's rolling right into it."

Scotty made a frantic scramble towards his treasure, and just missed closing his fingers on it before it rolled into the scupper; then he heard the tinkling sound as it struck the water over the side.

"Domnation!" he roared, as he rose to his feet. "Twa months' pay gone to the de'il, and I never e'en laid eyes on it."

"I'm very sorry, my man," said the captain. "There were six gold sovereigns, and I have your receipt. I can't pay you again."

"Na, na, cappen," answered Scotty, as sadly as the captain. "'Tis na fault o' yourn, nor mine; it's my luck, and it'll ne'er change till I git to New York and find my old skipper. I'm under a curse, I am."

But the captain had gone.

"Want to get to New York?" asked a voice behind him.

"That I do," said Scotty, shortly, as he faced the speaker. It was the captain of the schooner.

"I'm a man short," he said. "Where's your clo's?"

"On my back, cappen. I lost twa months' pay the noo, and can't repleenish my wardrobe."

"It's fine weather, and you won't need any. I pay twenty a month. Turn to."

Scotty went to New York in this schooner—that is, he went as far as the Sandy Hook Lightship, where the skipper, a man of poor judgment, mistakingly put about under the bow of an outward-bound steamer, which had slowed down to discharge her pilot, and which went ahead too soon for the welfare of that schooner. The impact was not dead on—it was a glancing blow that the schooner received, and it only carried away the weather main rigging and the davit on the stern. But Scotty was at work in this weather main rigging, and foreseeing disaster to the frail spider web to which he clung, he leaped for the big stockless anchor of the steamer just before it caught the shrouds. On this he sat perched, while wire rope snapped over and around him, and as the steamer forged ahead, managed to make himself heard over the shouts and curses with which the two skippers paid their parting compliments. He was lifted up and taken to the captain—a man black in the face from rage and overstrained vocabulary.

The captain greeted Scotty with inarticulate snorts.

"And can ye put me on some craft bound in, cappen?" asked Scotty, anxiously.

"Na-ow," roared the irate man. "Put you 'board nothing. Nor will I put you on the articles, curse you. I'll put you to work, and if you don't work your hands off, I'll charge you for your passage to Melbourne. Get out o' this."

"I tell ye," roared Scotty, in return, equally enraged at the prospect of another trip to the antipodes, "if ye don't get rid of me, ye'll no reach Melbourne. I'm a Jonah—a Jonah from the curse that has come to me. Put me ashore, ye poor, unfortunate fule."

Scotty was led away—after the gentle manner of the sea—and, in spite of his loud protestations that he was a competent able seaman, placed at the degrading labor of coal passing. When the cooler atmosphere of the stoke-hole had lowered his temperature somewhat, he again went to the captain and earnestly told his story—of his theft, his bad luck and the bad luck he had brought to others.

"The curse is a-warkin' and a-growin' on me, cappen," he concluded, sorrowfully. "I'm the line-e-al desceendent o' the Flyin' Dutchman, sir. And I'll wrack your ship wi'oot meanin' to."

"I've read the Bible," said the captain, calmly. "I know what to do with Jonahs. I always throw them overboard."

Scotty shoveled and wheeled coal for three months, then his prediction was fulfilled. Within a day's run to Melbourne, the screw slipped off the tail-shaft, and as it went to the bottom of the Indian Ocean, the racing engine went to pieces. This might not have prevented the steamer's reaching port under sail or tow, but the forward crank-pin broke, and the piston drove up with nothing to stop it, fetched up with a mighty jolt against the cylinder head—which held—and disconnected most of the bolts which bound the cylinder to its bed.

As the steamer fell off in the hollow of the sea, she rolled, and at the third roll the half-ton of metal toppled over, crashed down through the bottom of the ship, and sought the company of the screw. She was a compartmentless steamer, and in half an hour had followed, leaving her crew afloat in boats and on life-rafts. Scotty found himself in the boat with the captain, and wisely anticipating rebuke, had brought his shovel. The captain glared unspeakable things at him.

"It'll do ye no good the noo, cappen," said Scotty, anticipating the captain's outburst. "And if you, or a man o' your crew, lay the weight o' your finger upon me, I'll brain ye wi' my staff of office"—he elevated the shovel. "I warned ye in time; ye should ha' heeded me."

"Put down your shovel, and take an oar," commanded the captain. "I'd shoot you dead if it wasn't for the law. But you'll get out o' this boat, onto the first craft we meet—bound in or bound out."

"It'll be bound out, cappen," said Scotty, gravely. "Ha' no fear o' that."

It was an Italian bark, and as Scotty had predicted, she was bound out—to Rio Janeiro, as Scotty learned later. When the flotilla of boats swarmed into her path, she backed her main yards with much chattering and yelling of her crew, and Scotty's boat approached her side, where a Jacob's-ladder hung invitingly.

"Get up there, you miserable Sawnee," said the skipper. "I wouldn't put you aboard a white man's vessel, for you'll wreck her as you did mine."

It is very impolite, and sometimes inexpedient, to call a Scot a Sawnee.

Scotty climbed the ladder with his shovel, and when he stood upon the rail, turned and let it fly towards the captain in the stern-sheets. Had it struck edge first it would have cut him in two; as it happened, the handle merely flattened his nose. The captain sank down, then, rising, fired a revolver at Scotty, but missed, and forthwith ordered his men to give way.

And then, amid the excited cries and orders of the Italian captain, Scotty was pulled down from the rail, mobbed around the deck a little—though he fought furiously—by the three mates of the bark, and bundled into a hatch-house. And long after he was locked in he could hear the excited and puzzled accents of the Italian captain, calling to the misguided castaways, who would not be rescued; then he heard the yards braced, and knew that he was homeward bound.

"If the bloody hooker don't sink on the way," he growled. "Howe'er, I'll no revile the craft that carries me, for it's lang odds she gits the warst o' it."

Shipboard etiquette is international. Scotty, in throwing the shovel, had violated the strictest clause in the code, and the Italian captain, though understanding nothing of the circumstances, had sensed the enormity of his offense, and punished him. But he was not confined long; the door was soon opened, and from the jabbering and gestures of the three mates he understood that he was to go forward. He went, and with a bucket of salt water and a piece of old canvas so improved his personal appearance as to partly overrule the prejudice against him.

Seamanship, like nautical etiquette, is international, and though he understood not one word of what was said to him, and though not a man aboard understood him, yet he knew what to do without orders, and soon proved himself superior to any of the officers. The rather impulsive, but generous, captain noticed this, and made as much of him as was possible without a common means of communication; but Scotty ascribed it to the influence of the unblessed, but jealously guarded, leather pendant often visible on his hairy chest. He made the most of this influence among the men forward, and even went to the blasphemous extent of making the sign of the cross on occasions, and repeating certain words, picked up from his devout shipmates, of the Roman Catholic ritual. But when he prayed, alone and in the silence of the night, he prayed for forgiveness, for the removal of the curse, for opportunity to redeem himself—for the test of a ten-mile swim or a thousand-mile walk, to the end that he might place that stolen dollar in the hand of Captain Bolt.

But his prayers availed not. He became a man without a country. The Italian bark caught fire in the South Atlantic, and in the confusion of abandoning the charred and sinking hulk, Scotty found himself alone in a small quarter-boat, which, like himself, had been left behind, and which he had lowered and unhooked unaided. But he had been unable to find the oars, and the other boats were far away; so he spent seven days and nights in the cockle-shell, freezing by night, roasting by day, with the horrors of hunger and thirst for company, and was then rescued in a delirious state of mind by a Norwegian barkentine, bound for Cape Town.

There is no need of recounting his further adventures in detail. He had now been a year without touching land, and he spent four more at sea before there came to him even a gleam of hope. No matter what the craft, or what the port bound for, something occurred to destroy the ship or prevent him finishing the passage. At times, when an alleged advance of pay was worked off, he drew clothing from the ship's slop chest, and always left it behind when the curse closed down upon him and removed him from that ship. Once he was abandoned with a boy, third mate, and three others on a derelict which they had been sent to inspect, and from the neighborhood of which a furious gale drove their own vessel. They were rescued just before the derelict sank. Again, in Manila Bay, he swam to a near-by ship which he had heard was bound to New York, and secreted himself, only to find when at sea that she was bound for Liverpool. He made the stormy passage of the Horn in midwinter with the clothing he stood in.

Too eager to touch dry land at Liverpool, he quit the ship in a runner's boat before docking, and the boat getting in the way of an outbound ocean-tug, he went to sea on the tug, and was again put aboard the first craft met, an English four-master, bound for Calcutta. And it was in this ship that there came to him the gleam of hope mentioned. In her forecastle he found the quondam third mate of the big skysail-yarder, the Mr. Smart who, backed by the law, had thrashed him on the forecastle deck and later arranged his transfer to the tramp.

Scotty had long since forgiven him, regarding him as but an instrument of the Lord. But the instrument, down on his luck and 'fore-the-mast in a "lime-juicer," must needs refer to it, again and again, until the sorely tried man gave way. Then occurred one of the shortest and fiercest fights that ever delighted the souls of English sailors. Scotty did the fighting, and he struck out twice; but each blow was like the kick of a mule, and Smart was carried aft to have his broken ribs and jawbone reset, while Scotty went in irons for murderous assault; but the captain released him on learning that the war began in an American ship. There was no further trouble between these two, but Scotty drew comfort and hope from the incident because it seemed his first victory over the forces that opposed him.

Cholera was rampant in Calcutta, and not a man but the skipper left the ship while there; then she sailed for New York, and Scotty's hope increased. He carefully guarded the black and grimy talisman of evil that hung to his neck, and prayed fervently for the final test that would redeem him; and he prayed, too—for his great trouble had softened and spiritualized him—that this big ship and large company should not suffer disaster on his account.

But as the ship reached soundings it seemed that the prayer was to be unanswered; for she came driving up to the light-ship before a southerly gale and sea that prevented any sail holding but the foresail and three lower topsails. All lighter canvas was blown away—and lower topsails and a lee shore are a bad combination.

The captain could not conceal his anxiety; there had been no sign of a pilot, and though the holding ground was good, his anchors were small—too small for his big ship. To add to the danger, the spume and spin-drift from the combers were thickened by a mist that seemed to descend from above, blotting out the distant light-ship. But this mist was ahead; astern, the horizon was visible, and far this side of the horizon—not half a mile on the port quarter—was a sight that sent the blood coursing through poor Scotty's veins, and a prayer of thanksgiving to his lips.

Coming along before the storm, but on a convergent course which would soon bring her in the big ship's wake, was the steamer Proserpine towing her barges. Scotty knew them; every detail was pictured on his brain. He knew that big funnel, and big nigger-head in the bow; he knew the stump bowsprit of the Champion, with its one-chain bobstay; and he knew the Anita behind her, straight-stemmed, black and dingy.

And as he looked there came to him the conviction that here was the test required of him—that if he, the Jonah of many ships, should remain where he was, there would be one more catastrophe on the list, while some maneuvering of fate would again send him to sea; but that if he rid the ship of his presence, there was a chance, not only for the ship, but for himself.

Mounting the forecastle deck—where he had a right to be—he watched and waited until the three crafts astern were as one in the wake; then, shedding his oilskins and boots, he sprang overboard. He heard the shouts of a shipmate, and as he came to the surface, saw men on the rail, looking and waving. He saw the second mate heave over a life-buoy, but it fell short, and he did not swim for it. The ship went on, for a square-rigged craft may not round to in a gale.

Scotty swam shoreward at first, for he knew that the steamer and tow would make leeway. On the tops of the seas he took his bearings, and then swam, or paddled, according to the inclination of the steamer's bow. In the hollows he swam towards her. Nearer and nearer she came, and at last he began hailing; but not a man could be seen on her deck, and the bridge was empty; the captain or mate on duty was in the warm pilot-house, no doubt—after the manner of tug-men. Hailing frantically, he met the wash of her bow wave and went under; when he came up she was past him, with her white-painted name staring at him. No one had seen or heard him.

The Champion was coming, and he swam into her path, barely missing a clutch at the steel towline whizzing past him. He hailed her, but there was no response. How could they hear, in the teeth of that furious wind? Realizing this, he saved his breath.

The barge, rolling along before the sea, was making good weather of it, yet she lifted and plunged heavily as the big billows passed beneath her—the chain bobstay often rising six feet out of water, and again sinking as far below. To catch this chain was all that he could hope for; to miss it meant death; for even should he be seen or heard as he passed astern, no power on earth could bring that tug back to windward in such a sea.

When but twenty feet away from him the bow lifted, dripping water from the hawse-pipes—and to the agonized man beneath it this bow and dripping hawse-pipes bore a harrowing resemblance to a large, implacable, yet weeping face, a face that expressed sorrow and condemnation—then it fell upon him, and the heavy iron chain struck his head, then glanced to his shoulder and bore him under. But the downward blow gave him his grip upon it; had it struck him while lifting, he might not have held.

Clinging for dear life, unable to move himself an inch against the rush of water, with head swimming from the impact of the chain, and lungs bursting from lack of air, he waited for the rise, and when it came, moved upward a foot. Then he was borne under again, this time with his lungs full of air, and he suffered less; and when he was lifted out, he gained another foot.

Four times he was plunged under before he had climbed high enough to avoid it, and then he rested, until his head cleared and the awful pain of fatigue left his arms. When strength came back he mounted to the bowsprit, crept in to the topgallant forecastle, and sprang down on the main-deck, to the consternation of two men at the weather fore-rigging. These were foremast hands, and Scotty had no present use for them. He ran past them in his stocking-feet—and they gave room to the wild-eyed apparition—and aft to the poop, where, besides the helmsman, was a man who might be captain or mate, but who could certainly inform him.

"Is Cappen Bolt in charge o' the Anita the neo?" he asked, hoarsely, as he halted before him.

"Yes. Who are you?" asked the astounded man.

"God be thankit!" exclaimed Scotty, and he mounted the taffrail—not for a swim this time, there was no need of it. Stretching back to the Anita was a steel trolley, which was all he wanted. Before the man could do more than yell at him, Scotty had hitched himself out on the towline beyond reach; then, for faster progress, he swung beneath it, head aft and downward, and in this position, hand over hand and leg over leg, he made his way along until the water took him. Filling his lungs with air and locking arms and legs around the rope, he let himself go; and he slid at the speed of the tug down the trolley and up again, traversing half of the length of the towline beneath the surface.

He was nearly dead and fully blind when he felt air on his face, and had only time to take a breath when a following sea immersed him again. But with another breath, he began to climb.

Captain Bolt, aft on the poop, saw men on the Champion waving arms and pointing a megaphone his way. He could not hear, nor could he hope to from the bow, yet he ran forward. As he reached the forecastle steps, an unkempt figure came in over the bow—a big, rawboned man in dripping rags, with blood streaming from arms and legs, with a red, round, and sorrowful face bordered by long, matted, gray hair-with the gleam of incipient insanity in the eyes. He sprang off the forecastle and faced the captain.

"Cappen Bolt," he stammered, as he tore at a small leather bag with fingers and teeth. "Cappen—cappen—here it is. I've fetched it t' ye. I never spent it." From the bag came a stained and oxidized coin, which he forced into the amazed captain's hand. Then, sinking to his knees, he lifted his eyes to heaven, muttered a few inarticulate words, and fell over in a swoon.

"Here!" called the captain, sharply, to two of his men who had drawn near. "Take him below and strip him. Put him to bed, and I'll get some brandy. Lord knows who he is, or where he came from, but he's in a bad way."

Scotty was carried down the forecastle stairs and cared for; but he did not waken to drink the captain's brandy; the swoon took on the form of child-like sleep, and the sleep continued until the barges had made port and moored to the dock. Here, amid the confusion of making fast, opening hatches, and rigging cargo gear, Captain Bolt had about forgotten the mysterious stranger in his forecastle, and was only reminded of him when the captain of the Champion came aboard to inquire.

"He climbed up my bobstays, no doubt; he must have fallen overboard from that big Englishman that anchored in the Horseshoe. Went crazy in the water, I suppose. He went out on your towline like a monkey. I wouldn't ha' believed a man could stand it. He was three minutes under water."

"I can't make it out," said Captain Bolt. "He put this in my hand"—he held out the blackened dollar—"and then went daffy. He's down below now. No, here he comes."

Scotty had climbed to the deck. He stood near the hatch, looking about with a doubtful, bewildered air at the docks and shipping. Then his face cleared a little, and like a cat in a strange street he moved slowly and hesitatingly along the rail towards the fore rigging. Then with one bound he swung himself to the top of the rail, and a mighty upward jump landed him on the string-piece of the dock. Here he paused long enough to sink to his knees and elevate his clasped hands; then he rose, walked hurriedly, and, breaking into a run, disappeared from sight behind the crowd of horses and trucks on the dock.

"By the Lord," exclaimed Captain Bolt, "I know him! It's Scotty. I lost him overboard off the Delaware capes five years ago. How'd he get picked up, I wonder? Where's he been? And this——" he produced the dollar. "I wonder if—why, very likely—a Scotchman has a conscience. Say, cappen, this seems funny. I put up a job on Scotty. I pretended to lose a dollar to see if he'd keep it, and he did. And I'll bet this is the one." He opened his knife and cut into the dingy coin. "Yes, it was a counterfeit."

FOOTNOTE:

[M] Reprinted by special permission from "Land Ho." Copyright, 1890, by Harper and Brothers.



XV.—The Mascot of "Troop 1"[N]

By Stephen Chalmers

THE troop was just about scared to death when the Scoutmaster announced at the close of the meeting that the visitor would remain for an informal talk with the boys.

The visitor was a big man in more than height. He was a State Commissioner—the kind you spell with a big C—a Commissioner of Forests, or Weights, or something like that; and he happened, too, to have an official position with Boy Scout Headquarters. He was, so to speak, a heap big Scout, and Troop 1, Saranac Lake, which is away back in the Adirondacks, felt uneasy.

"There aren't many of you," said the Commissioner to the group of Scouts gathered about him, "but you're all good stuff. You have a chance most Boy Scouts don't get. You were all born in the big North Woods. You have inherited instincts that can't be driven into a boy with teaching. You don't have to be taught trailing, or woodcraft, except maybe for an organized way of handling them. You can open old trails as a good turn to the public. You can patrol the woods, report forest fires, and you can fight forest fires, too, as I hear you have been doing. I hear, too, that the Municipal Board picked this troop to select a Christmas tree; that you felled that tree in a neat way and brought it to the village, helped set it up, and then patrolled the crowd with your staffs, so the little kids crowding around Santa Claus's municipal wagon wouldn't get hurt in the crush."

This made the Scouts breathe a little easier.

"But there is more than that to this Scout game——"

The Scouts began to fidget again. They knew they were not going to be let down as easy as all that, especially by a big Scout like this who knew conditions all over the country.

"The thing that comes easy for you to do is good. But, like bravery, the best form of it is doing what you are afraid to do, or doing what isn't second nature for you to do. You belong to the second generation of the wilderness. There are towns now and you live in them, and it is in the towns——"

The big man suddenly hesitated. He was looking at a small black face that emerged from a khaki collar between two first class Scouts in the front row. The Commissioner pointed at him and said, abruptly, breaking off his remarks:

"By the way, what's your name?"

The small black face went into strange contortions of embarrassment. It tried to hide like the ostrich, but the Scouts in front parted and revealed a little negro boy in Scout uniform with a tenderfoot badge pinned where it should be.

"I'm Smokey," said a faint voice. Then, remembering, he stiffened up, saluted the big man, and amplified:

"Dey calls me Smokey, sir. Dat's all de name I ever has. I'se just a li'l nigger, sir, but dey all's a moughty good bunch and dey don't mek no difference 'cause I ain't white."

There was a little applause and much grinning. The Commissioner of Forests, or Weights—I forget just what he was—stared in a queer way, then went on with his address from where he had left off.

I remember he laid particular stress on the fact that doing one's simple everyday duty was all right, but not just what was called a "Good Turn."

But all the time he was watching Smokey, who stood there drinking in every word and nudging his neighbor, a thin, pallid boy, who also wore a tenderfoot badge.

"What's your name?" the speaker broke off again to ask, pointing at Smokey's neighbor.

"I'm Jimmy," said he. "Smokey's me pal," he added, scrambling to his feet with a belated salute. "We—we likes bein' Scouts, sir."

Smokey wriggled in absolute approval of Jimmy's loyalty and comment.

Again the Commissioner looked puzzled. He went on with his talk, however, and when he had finished and the Scouts had left, he went into the Scoutmaster's office to compare notes with him. But he dismissed the notes pretty swiftly and suddenly said to the Scoutmaster:

"Where did you pick up those two kids, Smokey, and his—his pal, Jimmy?"

"Oh, that's quite a yarn," said the Scoutmaster. "Both of them were New York newsboys. They got sick down there—ill-feeding, lack of care and so on, and drifted up here. We have a lot of invalids who come here for their health—rich mostly. But Jimmy and Smokey weren't rich. In fact, if a couple of our boys hadn't heard about them and done one of the best turns ever pulled off, I——"

The Commissioner leaned forward and tapped the Scoutmaster on the knee.

"Tell me the whole story," said he, his eyes sparkling. And the Scoutmaster did.

THE STORY THE SCOUTMASTER TOLD

Smokey and Jimmy were newsboys in the big city. Smokey was much littler, I expect, when he invested his first pennies in papers and tried to hold his own with the newsboy gang at the Grand Central Station. Jimmy was cock of the walk and had licked every newsboy on the stand. He looked little Smokey over. He resented the smokiness, but hated to wallop him; there was so little to wallop. And because the other newsboys tried to, Jimmy walloped the whole lot of them all over again. After that he felt sort of responsible for Smokey's welfare.

By and by Jimmy found out that Smokey never had had any parents. He came out of a colored orphan asylum—ran away, I expect. Jimmy didn't know anything about his parents, either. He came out of a foundling hospital—ran away, too, perhaps. Anyway, Jimmy says he felt he didn't have much on Smokey. They became close friends. Smokey thought Jimmy was God's little brother, and Jimmy proved it by taking absolute charge of Smokey's destiny.

They saved their pennies. Their living didn't cost much. They fed mostly at the back door of an east side quick-lunch place. For domicile they shared a basement with a drunken janitor, an Italian organ-grinder, and a monkey. The monkey got shoved off a second-story window ledge by some Christian person who probably resented the Darwin theory and died several days later of internal injuries. Smokey nursed him, while Jimmy and the organ-grinder worked harder and raised enough money to get a doctor. The doctor was indignant when he found that his patient was of the Simian persuasion. But that's a story by itself. You ought to hear Jimmy tell it. You'd find yourself laughing on only one side of your face.

About a week after the monkey died, Smokey fell ill. He hated to get up in the morning. He was just as dead-tired in the morning as when he lay down. His smokiness turned from a soft coal to an anthracite hue, and he went off his feed. Jimmy thought maybe Smokey needed a little Christian Science and walloped him as an experiment. Smokey took it as he would have taken anything from Jimmy, but he said—and his eyes were probably as big and solemn as an owl's:

"Jimmy," said he, "dey ain't no use'n you-all wallopin' me. Hones', Jimmy, Ah tinks Ah's a moughty sick li'l nigger."

That stuck in Jimmy's mind. He was sorry he had applied what he thought was practical Christian Science. He tried Smokey with therapeutic treatment. He gave him a cone of strawberry ice-cream. When Smokey ate only half of it, Jimmy knew it was a grave case and that something ought to be done about it.

That night after Smokey had crawled into the packing case where he was in the habit of sleeping—usually with the lid on—Jimmy talked over the crisis with the organ-grinder and the janitor. The janitor thought corn whiskey was good and went out to get some. He didn't come back that night and brought no whiskey when he turned up two days later. The organ-grinder, embittered by the loss of his monkey, had little faith in the medical profession; and in this Jimmy concurred. The newsboy, however, read the papers he sold, and was under the impression that Jimmy ought to get out into the country. Also, he wasn't sure that it was the best thing for Smokey to sleep in that packing-case with the lid on. Lacking funds, however, they were compelled to table the motion that Smokey be sent to the woods. Meanwhile Smokey got thinner and weaker and finally he hadn't the strength to push the lid off when he needed more air. It was then that the Lord provided.

One of Smokey's patrons was Pat Mulcahy, who drives the engine of the Montreal Express out of Grand Central every evening at 6.55. Smokey had been in the habit of taking a latest evening edition through to Pat in his engine cab. Mulcahy didn't get his paper one night, but next evening Jimmy turned up alongside the big locomotive and said:

"Here's yer paper, Mister Mulcahy. Smokey's down an' out. I tink he's got de Ol' Con. He worried hisself near stiff last night 'cos he fergot t' tell me youse was partic'lar 'bout gettin' de final. But don't youse worry, Mister, I'm runnin' the whole biz till Smokey's to rights again—see?"

Mulcahy was a good fellow. He'd bought from Smokey because—well, perhaps he liked the little fellow. He questioned Jimmy, and next night he cross-questioned him, about Smokey, and on the third night, when Jimmy reported the patient in a bad way, the engineer said:

"Now, lookee here, Jimmy. Can Smokey walk? Do you think he can stand a trip?"

"It couldn't make him no wuss, anyhow," says Jimmy.

"All right," said Mulcahy. "You get his things together. . . . Well just as he is, then . . . and bring him along here about 6.45 sharp to-morrow night—Hear?"

"I get yuh," said Jimmy. "Youse gonna give Smoky a free ride up to the country."

"You betcher life, Jimmy."

Smokey, when informed of this new turn of his destiny, didn't care much whether he went or stayed in his box; but Jimmy said he was to go, and of course that was all there was to it.

Next evening, when Smokey, the most washed-out little nigger that ever wobbled on weak knees, turned up at the station with Jimmy, the whole gang was there to give him a send-off. The guards let them all through the gates after the conductor of the Adirondack section had passed a wink, and the group of youngsters escorted Smokey to the big, wheezing engine. Jimmy first presented Mulcahy with his final, refusing the usual cent for it.

"Dat's on de house dis time," said Jimmy.

"Here—you—beat it!" said he. "Do you want to make me trouble?"

Smokey's eyes were full of tears as he said:

"So long, fellahs. You-all's a moughty good bunch."

Then he whispered something to Jimmy, who said, "Aw, fudge!" and went away, much embarrassed.

The engineer turned Smokey over to the conductor of the Adirondack section, and when the Montreal Express got under way he was comfortable on a pile of straw in a corner of the baggage car. At Poughkeepsie the conductor bought him a bottle of "pop." At Albany he fell heir to an orange and a chicken sandwich. At Utica he was sound asleep and a colored porter came through and spread a perfectly good Pullman blanket over the boy.

The train was wheezing at Tupper Lake when Smokey opened his eyes next morning. The baggage car door was opened and Smokey looked out. It was a big country, covered with trees and surrounded with great mountains. The sun was just rising and Smokey felt sure that this was the place where they made the movies. The golden east reminded him of his orange, and he ate it,—the orange.

The colored porter came through and told the boy to stay where he was until ordered to get out. Smokey was disappointed to learn that his friend Mulcahy had gone off duty at Utica, where his wife lived. Ten minutes later the porter came back again. He had a glass tumbler in his hand and it was half full of quarters and fifty-cent pieces.

"You is shuah a lucky kid," said the porter. "Some o' de gents in de Lake Placid smoker heerd 'bout you an' chipped in all dis."

"Dey's shuah-all a good bunch—folks is," said Smokey, his eyes big as he totaled three dollars and twenty-five cents.

The Adirondacks section was switched off the main line at Lake Clear junction, and less than half an hour later Smokey found himself in the main street of Saranac Lake. He made straight for the belt of woods that fringes the river below the falls of the power station, and sat down beneath a big pine. He felt that he could sit there forever and listen to the gossipy river and the whispering trees. It was very restful. He ate some of his accumulated grub and went to sleep, his last thought a wish that Jimmy could be there.

Mr. Commissioner (the Scoutmaster continued), that little nigger was in town about six weeks before our boys got on to him. He was lucky enough to get a job delivering newspapers for Tom Daley and, luckier still, the little fellow began to get well.

So long as the nights were still summery he slept beneath that same pine below the falls, but when the Autumn snap set in he had to find shelter. It was Tolman, the undertaker—a good sort—good as they make 'em—who picked him up, asked a few questions and got him the loft of Fred Smith's paintshop. A ladder ascended to a trap door and the garret was full of old truck; but Smokey thought it was a mansion with a marble staircase. He fixed up a couple of boxes for seats, and there was an old two-legged sofa that he propped up for a couch. He scurried around town, got hold of several burlap bags, stuffed them with hay and made himself a comfortable bed. Between this and improving health and the delivery business, Smokey felt that he was prospering in the world.

Then he got a letter. It was from Jimmy, to whom he had sent picture-postcards without getting a word in reply. But Jimmy's misspelled letter now explained everything.

"Dere smoke" (it ran—or something like that—I read it), "I hate tu tell ya for I dident think it was annything but I got the old Con too an im awful sick and duno whatin bleazes im gone do, say is there anny chanst up there where yu ar, but don you worry bout me. Jimmy."

It was a terrible blow to Smokey, but right away the optimism that seems to breed itself in these woods bolstered him to action. He promptly sent a picture-postcard, and on it he wrote:

"yu se the injiner mr. Milcay, an come on up its fine an I got a swel plaze to liv and lots ov work, no selin jist deliverin. Smokey."

But that was only the beginning of Smokey's discharge of obligation. He interviewed the Pullman conductor. The conductor passed the word to Mulcahy at Utica, and two days later the porter brought back word to the tense, waiting little figure at the Saranac Lake station that it was all fixed and Jimmy was coming on by next night's train.

All that evening and all next day Smokey was mighty busy. He bolted the delivery of the New York papers, but at every house he stopped long enough to gasp:

"Please lady, has you-all got any ole pitcher supplements?"

In the evening he had a pile of them. He had begged leave of Mat Munn, the grocer, to extract nails from discarded boxes. With these, and a brick for a hammer, he covered the sloping roof walls of the garret mansion with stage beauties, art supplements, Buster Browns, Happy Hooligans, baseball giants and magazine covers. This art paneling covered every draughty hole or crack. Flour sacks draped Jimmy's sofa-couch. All that last night, while the Montreal Express brought Jimmy into the hills, there sounded the persistent tap-tapping of Smokey's brick hammer.

But in the morning when Jimmy, pale and sickly, climbed down from the baggage-car, there was no Smokey to meet or greet him. Jimmy wandered around, weakness of body conspiring with disappointment to sap his courage. He had no idea where Smokey lived and, being a New Yorker with a metropolitan turn of thought, in that circumstance he felt himself and Smokey completely lost to each other.

Presently, as Jimmy sat disconsolate on a baggage truck, an individual in shirt sleeves and savoring of paint halted before him. After a moment's study he said:

"Hallo, Jimmy!"

Jimmy started, hope returning; but neither the man nor the savor of paint conveyed anything profitable.

"Aw, can the bunk stuff," said he wearily. "I'm f'm Forty-second Street—see?"

Fred the painter was able to extricate himself from suspicion, however. At the words "Smokey's all to the bad," Jimmy forgot everything, particularly himself and his own illness.

"Where izze?" he asked breathlessly. "I wanna see'm right away. D'yuh get me? Aw, don't you tell me that li'l nigger's gone an' croaked?"

"Naw, he ain't croaked," said Fred Smith, the painter, "but he's awful bad, and he sent me to meet you, Jimmy, and tell you to come right on just the same, 'cause everything's ready."

"He's up there," said Fred when they got to the shack. Jimmy, short of breath as he was, went up that ladder like a streak. At first he could see little, the garret was so dark, but a faint voice said from some burlap bags in the corner:

"Is dat youse, Chimmy?"

"What's de matter, Smoke?" Jimmy's voice was shaky and a short sharp cough punctuated his question.

"Bles' if Ah knows," said Smokey. "Ah was hammerin' a nail in Christy Mat'ewson when somet'in esploded in ma chiss. But say, Chimmy, light de can'le an' pipe de livin' room. Some—swell—Chimmy!—an' Ah done it a-all ma-se'f!"

Jimmy found the candle and lighted it. He surveyed Smokey lying in the corner, his eyes and head seeming a misfit for his frail body. The candle illumined the comic supplements and art sections on the sloping roof walls and the sofa with its flour-sack bedding turned down as for a guest. Lastly Jimmy's eyes encountered several dark red spots on the floor.

"Swell, ain't it, Chimmy?" said Smokey. "Why don't you-all say something?"

For answer Jimmy blew out the candle somewhat hastily, and Fred at the foot of the ladder heard some one sobbing in the mansion above.

The Scoutmaster turned to fumble with some papers on his desk. The Commissioner sat silent, his eyes wide and a bit shiny. He said nothing for at least half a minute, then, clearing his throat:

"And what then?"

"Oh, the rest is simple enough," said the Scoutmaster. "One of our Scouts got wind of it and told his patrol leader and they investigated. Then they got the other Scouts of the patrol together, went into the woods and cut some fuel, got a basket of grub and provisions from their mothers and a delegation of two called on Dr. Trudeau—you've heard of him—died just the other day—the Grenfell of the hills—and the doctor sent a nurse and then moved Jimmy and Smokey to a hospital, and——"

The Scoutmaster broke off, chuckling.

"Funny thing," he said, "when the great doctor climbed the ladder to where the two boys were lying sick, Jimmy, remembering the doctor who wouldn't attend the monkey, got suspicious and he said to Dr. Trudeau: 'There's just wan thing you got to un'stand right away, Doc. Smokey may be a li'l nigger, but he ain't no monk! D'yuh get me?'

"They both got well, and they got work, too. Then one evening they came down to look over this Scout business that had helped them for not so much as a 'thank you' and—well, Jimmy's a good little Scout. As for Smokey, he's the Troop Mascot, but—he still thinks Jimmy is God's little brother; and I don't know that I blame him."

"Fine!" said the Commissioner, and a few seconds later he repeated with even more emphasis, "FINE!"

FOOTNOTE:

[N] Reprinted from "The Boy Scouts' Year Book." Copyright, 1918, by D. Appleton and Company.



XVI.—The Lion's Smile[O]

By Thomas W. Hanshew

Cleek, the Master Detective of Scotland Yard, or "the Man of Forty Faces," as he was sometimes called, solved the riddles that proved too much for his friend, Mr. Maverick Narkom, Superintendent of Police. I am confident boys will enjoy meeting "Cleek" and will, with keen delight, follow him as he unravels the threads of the great mystery of the "lion's smile."—THE EDITOR.

IT was on the very stroke of five when Cleek, answering an urgent message from headquarters, strolled into the bar parlor of "The Fiddle and Horseshoe," which, as you may possibly know, stands near to the Green in a somewhat picturesque by-path between Shepherd's Bush and Acton, and found Narkom in the very act of hanging up his hat and withdrawing his gloves preparatory to ordering tea.

"My dear Cleek, what a model of punctuality you are," said the superintendent, as he came forward and shook hands with him. "You would put Father Time himself to the blush with your abnormal promptness. Do make yourself comfortable for a moment or two while I go and order tea. I've only just arrived. Shan't be long, old chap."

"Pray don't hurry yourself upon my account, Mr. Narkom," replied Cleek, as he tossed his hat and gloves upon a convenient table and strolled leisurely to the window and looked out on the quaint, old-fashioned arbor-bordered bowling green, all steeped in sunshine and zoned with the froth of pear and apple blooms, thick-piled above the time-stained brick of the enclosing wall. "These quaint old inns, which the march of what we are pleased to call 'progress' is steadily crowding off the face of the land, are always deeply interesting to me; I love them. What a day! What a picture! What a sky! As blue as what Dollops calls the 'Merry Geranium Sea.' I'd give a Jew's eye for a handful of those apple blossoms, they are divine!"

Narkom hastened from the room without replying. The strain of poetry underlying the character of this strange, inscrutable man, his amazing love of Nature, his moments of almost womanish weakness and sentiment, astonished and mystified him. It was as if a hawk had acquired the utterly useless trick of fluting like a nightingale, and being himself wholly without imagination, he could not comprehend it in the smallest degree.

When he returned a few minutes later, however, the idealist seemed to have simmered down into the materialist, the extraordinary to have become merged in the ordinary, for he found his famous ally no longer studying the beauties of Nature, but giving his whole attention to the sordid commonplaces of man. He was standing before a glaringly printed bill, one of many that were tacked upon the walls, which set forth in amazing pictures and double-leaded type the wonders that were to be seen daily and nightly at Olympia, where, for a month past, "Van Zant's Royal Belgian Circus and World-famed Menagerie" had been holding forth to "Crowded and delighted audiences." Much was made of two "star turns" upon this lurid bill: "Mademoiselle Marie de Zanoni, the beautiful and peerless bare-back equestrienne, the most daring lady rider in the universe," for the one; and, for the other, "Chevalier Adrian di Roma, king of the animal world, with his great aggregation of savage and ferocious wild beasts, including the famous man-eating African lion, Nero, the largest and most ferocious animal of its species in captivity." And under this latter announcement there was a picture of a young and handsome man, literally smothered with medals, lying at full length, with his arms crossed and his head in the wide-open jaws of a snarling, wild-eyed lion.

"My dear chap, you really do make me believe that there actually is such a thing as instinct," said Narkom, as he came in. "Fancy your selecting that particular bill out of all the others in the room! What an abnormal individual you are!"

"Why? Has it anything to do with the case you have in hand?"

"Anything to do with it? My dear fellow, it is 'the case.' I can't imagine what drew your attention to it."

"Can't you?" said Cleek, with a half smile. Then he stretched forth his hand and touched the word "Nero" with the tip of his forefinger. "That did. Things awaken a man's memory occasionally, Mr. Narkom, and—— Tell me, isn't that the beast there was such a stir about in the newspapers a fortnight or so ago, the lion that crushed the head of a man in full view of the audience?"

"Yes," replied Narkom, with a slight shudder. "Awful thing, wasn't it? Gave me the creeps to read about it. The chap who was killed, poor beggar, was a mere boy, not twenty, son of the Chevalier di Roma himself. There was a great stir about it. Talk of the authorities forbidding the performance, and all that sort of thing. They never did, however, for on investigation—— Ah, the tea at last, thank fortune. Come, sit down, my dear fellow, and we'll talk whilst we refresh ourselves. Landlady, see that we are not disturbed, will you, and that nobody is admitted but the parties I mentioned?"

"Clients?" queried Cleek, as the door closed and they were alone together.

"Yes. One, Mlle. Zelie, the 'chevalier's' only daughter, a slack-wire artist; the other, Signor Scarmelli, a trapeze performer, who is the lady's fiance."

"Ah, then our friend the chevalier is not so young as the picture on the bill would have us believe he is."

"No, he is not. As a matter of fact, he is considerably past forty, and is, or rather, was, up to six months ago, a widower, with three children, two sons and a daughter."

"I suppose," said Cleek, helping himself to a buttered scone, "I am to infer from what you say that at the period mentioned, six months ago, the intrepid gentleman showed his courage yet more forcibly by taking a second wife? Young or old?"

"Young," said Narkom in reply. "Very young, not yet four-and-twenty, in fact, and very, very beautiful. That is she who is 'featured' on the bill as the star of the equestrian part of the program: 'Mlle. Marie de Zanoni.' So far as I have been able to gather, the affair was a love match. The lady, it appears, had no end of suitors, both in and out of the profession; it has even been hinted that she could, had she been so minded, have married an impressionable young Austrian nobleman of independent means who was madly in love with her; but she appears to have considered it preferable to become 'an old man's darling,' so to speak, and to have selected the middle-aged chevalier rather than some one whose age is nearer her own."

"Nothing new in that, Mr. Narkom. Young women before Mlle. Marie de Zanoni's day have been known to love elderly men sincerely: young Mrs. Bawdrey, in the case of The Nine-fingered Skeleton,' is an example of that. Still, such marriages are not common, I admit, so when they occur one naturally looks to see if there may not be 'other considerations' at the bottom of the attachment. Is the chevalier well-to-do? Has he expectations of any kind?"

"To the contrary; he has nothing, but the salary he earns, which is by no means so large as the public imagines; and as he comes of a long line of circus performers, all of whom died early and poor, 'expectations,' as you put it, do not enter into the affair at all. Apparently the lady did marry him for love of him, as she professes and as he imagines; although, if what I hear is true, it would appear that she has lately outgrown that love. It seems that a Romeo more suitable to her age has recently joined the show in the person of a rider called Signor Antonio Martinelli; that he has fallen desperately in love with her, and that——"

He bit off his words short and rose to his feet. The door had opened suddenly to admit a young man and a young woman, who entered in a state of nervous excitement. "Ah, my dear Mr. Scarmelli, you and Miss Zelie are most welcome," continued the superintendent.

"My friend and I were this moment talking about you."

Cleek glanced across the room, and, as was customary with him, made up his mind instantly. The girl, despite her association with the arena, was a modest, unaffected little thing of about eighteen; the man was a straight-looking, clear-eyed, boyish-faced young fellow of about eight-and-twenty, well, but by no means flashily, dressed, and carrying himself with the air of one who respects himself and demands the respect of others. He was evidently an Englishman, despite his Italian nom de theatre, and Cleek decided out of hand that he liked him.

"We can shelve 'George Headland' in this instance, Mr. Narkom," he said, as the superintendent led forward the pair for the purpose of introducing them, and suffered himself to be presented in the name of Cleek.

The effect of this was electrical; would, in fact, had he been a vain man have been sufficient to gratify him to the fullest, for the girl, with a little "Oh!" of amazement, drew back and stood looking at him with a sort of awe that rounded her eyes and parted her lips, while the man leaned heavily upon the back of a convenient chair and looked and acted as one utterly overcome.

"Cleek!" he repeated, after a moment's despairful silence. "You, sir, are that great man? This is a misfortune indeed."

"A misfortune, my friend? Why a 'misfortune,' pray? Do you think the riddle you have brought is beyond my powers?"

"Oh, no; not that—never that!" he made reply. "If there is any one man in the world who could get at the bottom of it, could solve the mystery of the lion's change, the lion's smile, you are that man, sir, you. That is the misfortune: that you could do it, and yet I cannot expect it, cannot avail myself of this great opportunity. Look! I am doing it all on my own initiative, sir, for the sake of Zelie and that dear, lovable old chap, her father. I have saved fifty-eight pounds, Mr. Cleek. I had hoped that that might tempt a clever detective to take up the case; but what is such a sum to such a man as you?"

"If that is all that stands in the way, don't let it worry you, my good fellow," said Cleek, with a smile. "Put your fifty-eight pounds in your pocket against your wedding-day and good luck to you. I'll take the case for nothing. Now then, what is it? What the dickens did you mean just now when you spoke about 'the lion's change' and 'the lion's smile'? What lion—Nero? Here, sit down and tell me all about it."

"There is little enough to tell, Heavens knows," said young Scarmelli, with a sigh, accepting the invitation after he had gratefully wrung Cleek's hand, and his fiancee, with a burst of happy tears, had caught it up as it slipped from his and had covered it with thankful kisses. "That, Mr. Cleek, is where the greatest difficulty lies, there is so little to explain that has any bearing upon the matter at all. It is only that the lion, Nero, that is, the chevalier's special pride and special pet, seems to have undergone some great and inexplicable change, as though he is at times under some evil spell, which lasts but a moment and yet makes that moment a tragical one. It began, no one knows why nor how, two weeks ago, when, without hint or warning, he killed the person he loved best in all the world, the chevalier's eldest son. Doubtless you have heard of that?"

"Yes," said Cleek. "But what you are now telling me sheds a new light upon the matter. Am I to understand, then, that all that talk, on the bills and in the newspapers, about the lion being savage and a dangerous one is not true, and that he really is attached to his owner and his owner's family?"

"Yes," said Scarmelli. "He is indeed the gentlest, most docile, most intelligent beast of his kind living. In short, sir, there's not a 'bite' in him; and, added to that, he is over thirty years old. Zelie, Miss di Roma, will tell you that he was born in captivity; that from his earliest moment he has been the pet of her family; that he was, so to speak, raised with her and her brothers; that, as children, they often slept with him; and that he will follow those he loves like any dog, fight for them, protect them, let them tweak his ears and pull his tail without showing the slightest resentment, even though they may actually hurt him. Indeed, he is so general a favorite, Mr. Cleek, that there isn't an attendant connected with the show who would not, and, indeed, has not at some time, put his head in the beast's mouth, just as the chevalier does in public, certain that no harm could possibly come of the act.

"You may judge, then, sir, what a shock, what a horrible surprise it was when the tragedy of two weeks ago occurred. Often, to add zest to the performance, the chevalier varies it by allowing his children to put their heads into Nero's mouth instead of doing so himself, merely making a fake of it that he has the lion under such control that he will respect any command given by him. That is what happened on that night. Young Henri was chosen to put his head into Nero's mouth, and did so without fear or hesitation. He took the beast's jaws and pulled them apart, and laid his head within them, as he had done a hundred times before; but, of a sudden an appalling, an uncanny, thing happened. It was as though some supernatural power laid hold of the beast and made a thing of horror of what a moment before had been a noble-looking animal. Suddenly a strange hissing noise issued from its jaws, its lips curled upward until it smiled—smiled, Mr. Cleek!—oh, the ghastliest, most awful, most blood-curdling smile imaginable, and then, with a sort of mingled snarl and bark, it clamped its jaws together and crushed the boy's head as though it were an egg-shell!"

He put up his hands and covered his eyes as if to shut out some appalling vision, and for a moment or two nothing was heard but the low sobbing of the victim's sister.

"As suddenly as that change had come over the beast, Mr. Cleek," Scarmelli went on presently, "just so suddenly it passed, and it was the docile, affectionate animal it had been for years. It seemed to understand that some harm had befallen its favorite—for Henri was its favorite—and, curling itself up beside his body, it licked his hands and moaned disconsolately in a manner almost human. That's all there is to tell, sir, save that at times the horrid change, the appalling smile, repeat themselves when either the chevalier or his son bend to put a head within its jaws, and but for their watchfulness and quickness the tragedy of that other awful night would surely be repeated. Sir, it is not natural; I know now, as surely as if the lion itself had spoken, that some one is at the bottom of this ghastly thing, that some human agency is at work, some unknown enemy of the chevalier's is doing something, God alone knows what or why, to bring about his death as his son's was brought about."

And here, for the first time, the chevalier's daughter spoke.

"Ah, tell him all, Jim, tell him all!" she said, in her pretty broken English. "Monsieur, may the good God in heaven forgive me if I wrong her; but—but—— Ah, Monsieur Cleek, sometimes I feel that she, my stepmother, and that man, that 'rider' who knows not how to ride as the artist should, monsieur, I cannot help it, but I feel that they are at the bottom of it."

"Yes, but why?" queried Cleek. "I have heard of your father's second marriage, mademoiselle, and of this Signor Antonio Martinelli, to whom you allude. Mr. Narkom has told me. But why should you connect these two persons with this inexplicable thing? Does your father do so, too?"

"Oh, no! oh, no!" she answered excitedly. "He does not even know that we suspect, Jim and I. He loves her, monsieur. It would kill him to doubt her."

"Then why should you?"

"Because I cannot help it, monsieur. God knows, I would if I could, for I care for her dearly, I am grateful to her for making my father happy. My brothers, too, cared for her. We believed she loved him; we believed it was because of that that she married him. And yet—and yet—— Ah, monsieur, how can I fail to feel as I do when this change in the lion came with that man's coming? And she—ah, monsieur, why is she always with him? Why does she curry favor of him and his rich friend?"

"He has a rich friend, then?"

"Yes, monsieur. The company was in difficulties; Monsieur van Zant, the proprietor, could not make it pay, and it was upon the point of disbanding. But suddenly this indifferent performer, this rider who is, after all, but a poor amateur and not fit to appear with a company of trained artists, suddenly this Signor Martinelli comes to Monsieur van Zant to say that, if he will engage him, he has a rich friend, one Senor Sperati, a Brazilian coffee planter, who will 'back' the show with his money, and buy a partnership in it. Of course M. van Zant accepted; and since then this Senor Sperati has traveled everywhere with us, has had the entree like one of us, and his friend, the bad rider, has fairly bewitched my stepmother, for she is ever with him, ever with them both, and—and—— Ah, mon Dieu! the lion smiles, and my people die! Why does it 'smile' for no others? Why is it only they, my father, my brother, they alone?"

"Is that a fact?" said Cleek, turning to young Scarmelli. "You say that all connected with the circus have so little fear of the beast that even attendants sometimes do this foolhardy trick? Does the lion never 'smile' for any of those?"

"Never, Mr. Cleek, never under any circumstances. Nor does it always smile for the chevalier and his son. That is the mystery of it. One never knows when it is going to happen; one never knows why it does happen. But if you could see that uncanny smile——"

"I should like to," interposed Cleek. "That is, if it might happen without any tragical result. Hum-m-m! Nobody but the chevalier and the chevalier's son! And when does it happen in their case, during the course of the show, or when there is nobody about but those connected with it?"

"Oh, always during the course of the entertainment, sir. Indeed, it has never happened at any other time—never at all."

"Oho!" said Cleek. "Then it is only when they are dressed and made up for the performance, eh? Hum-m-m! I see." Then he lapsed into silence for a moment, and sat tracing circles on the floor with the toe of his boot. But, of a sudden: "You came here directly after the matinee, I suppose?" he queried, glancing up at young Scarmelli.

"Yes; in fact, before it was wholly over."

"I see. Then it is just possible that all the performers have not yet got into their civilian clothes. Couldn't manage to take me round behind the scenes, so to speak, if Mr. Narkom will lend us his motor to hurry us there? Could, eh? That's good. I think I'd like to have a look at that lion and, if you don't mind, an introduction to the parties concerned. No! don't fear; we won't startle anybody by revealing my identity or the cause of the visit. Let us say that I'm a vet. to whom you have appealed for an opinion regarding Nero's queer conduct. All ready, Mr. Narkom? Then let's be off."

Two minutes later the red limousine was at the door, and, stepping into it with his two companions, he was whizzed away to Olympia and the first step toward the solution of the riddle.

II

As it is the custom of those connected with the world of the circus to eat, sleep, have their whole being, as it were, within the environment of the show, to the total exclusion of hotels, boarding-houses, or outside lodgings of any sort, he found on his arrival at his destination the entire company assembled in what was known as the "living-tent," chatting, laughing, reading, playing games and killing time generally whilst waiting for the call to the "dining-tent," and this gave him an opportunity to meet all the persons connected with the "case," from the "chevalier" himself to the Brazilian coffee planter who was "backing" the show.

He found this latter individual a somewhat sullen and taciturn man of middle age, who had more the appearance of an Austrian than a Brazilian, and with a swinging gait and an uprightness of bearing which were not to be misunderstood.

"Humph! Known military training," was Cleek's mental comment as soon as he saw the man walk. "Got it in Germany, too; I know that peculiar 'swing.' What's his little game, I wonder? And what's a Brazilian doing in the army of the Kaiser? And, having been in it, what's he doing dropping into this line; backing a circus, and traveling with it like a Bohemian?"

But although these thoughts interested him, he did not put them into words nor take anybody into his confidence regarding them.

As for the other members of the company, he found "the indifferent rider," known as Signor Antonio Martinelli, an undoubted Irishman of about thirty years of age, extremely handsome, but with a certain "shiftiness" of the eye which was far from inspiring confidence, and with a trick of the tongue which suggested that his baptismal certificate probably bore the name of Anthony Martin. He found, too, that all he had heard regarding the youth and beauty of the chevalier's second wife was quite correct, and although she devoted herself a great deal to the Brazilian coffee planter and the Irish-Italian "Martinelli," she had a way of looking over at her middle-aged spouse, without his knowledge, that left no doubt in Cleek's mind regarding the real state of her feelings toward the man. And last, but not least by any means, he found the chevalier himself a frank, open-minded, open-hearted, lovable man, who ought not, in the natural order of things, to have an enemy in the world. Despite his high-falutin nom de theatre, he was a Belgian, a big, soft-hearted, easy-going, unsuspicious fellow, who worshiped his wife, adored his children, and loved every creature of the animal world.

How well that love was returned, Cleek saw when he went with him to that part of the building where his animals were kept, and watched them "nose" his hand or lick his cheek whenever the opportunity offered. But Nero, the lion, was perhaps the greatest surprise of all, for so tame, so docile, so little feared was the animal, that its cage door was open, and they found one of the attendants squatting cross-legged inside and playing with it as though it were a kitten.