Chapter XXXII: How a Song Saved Alaric's Life (1)

When Alaric made that promise he had no more idea of how it was to be kept than he had of what was to become of Bonny and himself. He only knew that active exertion of some kind was necessary to keep him from utter despair. Besides, it was just possible that he might discover and secure another bird, though not at all probable, as the one on which he had breakfasted was the first that he had encountered since coming to the mountain.

By the time he emerged from the timber the morning clouds had rolled away, the sun was shining brightly, and the whole vast sweep of gleaming snow and tumultuous rock, from timber line to distant summit, lay piled in steep ascent before him. It was a wonderful sight, but as terrible as it was grand, for in all its awful solitude there was no movement, no voice, and no sign of life.

Oppressed by the loneliness of his surroundings, and having no reason for choosing one direction rather than another, the lad mechanically turned to the right and began to make his way along a bowlder-strewn slope, where every now and then he came to the bleached skeletons of stunted trees, winter-killed, but still standing, and seeming to stretch imploring arms to their retreating brethren of the forest.

He had not gone more than a mile when there came something to him that caused him to halt and glance inquiringly on all sides. At the same time he lifted his head and sniffed the air eagerly, like a hound on the scent of game. He was certain that he had smelled smoke. Yes, there it came again; a whiff so faint as to be almost imperceptible, but the unmistakable odor of burning wood.

Facing squarely the breeze that brought it to him, the lad pushed forward, and a few minutes later stood on the verge of a little mountain meadow, sun-warmed and rock-walled on all sides save the one by which he had approached. Here the slope was so gentle that he started down on a run. He had thus gone but a short distance when he suddenly paused with his eyes fixed on the ground where he was standing.

He had been unconsciously following a path, faintly marked and hardly to be distinguished, but nevertheless one that he felt certain had been trodden by human feet. The discovery filled him with excitement, and he bounded forward with redoubled speed. Half-way down the slope, at a point commanding a lovely view of the flower-strewn valley, the trail ended at a crystal spring that bubbled from among the roots of a tall young hemlock. Other trees were grouped near by, and beneath them stood a rude hut built of poles and boughs, but having a rain-proof roof of thatch. Before it smouldered a log fire, from which rose the thin column of smoke that had directed Alaric's attention to the place.

Filled with exultation and wild with joy over his discovery, the lad gazed eagerly about for some sign of the proprietor or occupants of this lonely camp, and at length, seeing no one, he began to shout. Receiving no response, he entered the hut, and was surprised at the absence of even the rude comforts common to such a place. There was a heap of white goat-skins in one corner, and a quantity of meat, either smoked or dried, hung from a rafter overhead. A kettle and fry-pan lay outside near the fire, an axe was driven into the trunk of one of the trees, and, so far as Alaric could see, there was nothing else. But even these things were enough to indicate that this was a place of at least temporary human abode, and wherever its proprietor might be, he would return to it sooner or later. Then, too, Alaric believed it to be the camp of a white man; for though his knowledge of Indians was limited, it in no way resembled that of Skookum John.

"At any rate," he said to himself, "I must try and get Bonny here as quickly as possible, for he will be a thousand times better off in this place than where I left him."

So, with a lighter heart than he had known since his comrade's accident, Alaric started back over the trail by which he had come. Bonny was awake and sitting up when he reappeared, and the sufferer's face brightened wonderfully at the great news of at least one other human being, a camp, and an abundance of food so near at hand.

"Do you really think I can get there, though?" he asked.

"Yes," replied Alaric, "I know you can; for, as you said yesterday when we were looking at that precipice, it is something that must be done. We can't stay here without either food or shelter, and we don't dare wait for the owner of that camp to come back and help us move, because he may stay away several days. I know it is going to hurt you awfully to walk, but I know too that you'll do it if you only make up your mind to."

"All right, I'll try it; but, Rick, don't you forget that if I ever get down from this mountain alive, never again will I climb another."

As Alaric was doing up the sleeping-bags a familiar-looking baseball rolled from his, and caught Bonny's eye.

"If you aren't a queer chap!" he exclaimed. "What ever made you bring that ball along?"

"Because," answered the other, "it means so much to me that I hated to leave it behind, and then I thought perhaps it would be fun to have a game on the very top of the mountain. When we reached there, though, I forgot all about it."

"Yes," said Bonny, grimly, "we did have something else to think of. Ough! but that hurts."

This exclamation was called forth by the poor lad's effort to gain his feet, which he found he was unable to do without assistance.

Although Alaric carried both packs, and lent Bonny all possible support besides, that one-mile walk proved the most difficult either of the lads had ever undertaken. Brave and stout-hearted as Bonny was, he could not help groaning with every step, and they were obliged to rest so often that the little journey occupied several hours. At its end both lads were utterly exhausted, and Bonny was suffering so intensely that he hardly noticed the place to which he had been brought. The moment he gained the hut he sank down on its pile of goat-skins with closed eyes, and so white a face that he seemed about to faint.

When Alaric was there before he had mended the fire and set on a kettle of water, with a view to just such an emergency as the present. The water was still boiling, and so within three minutes he was able to give his patient a cup of strong tea that greatly revived him. Food was the next thing to be thought of, and Alaric did not hesitate to appropriate one of the strips of goat's flesh that hung overhead. Not being quite sure of the best way to cook this, he cut one portion into small bits, put these into the kettle with a little water, and set the whole on the fire to simmer. Another portion he sliced thin and laid in the fry-pan, which he also set on the fire. Still a third bit he spitted on a long stick and held close to a bed of coals, where it frizzled with such an appetizing odor that he could not wait for it to be cooked before cutting off small bits to sample. They were so good that he went to offer some to Bonny; but finding the latter still lying with closed eyes, thought best not to disturb him. So he sat alone and ate all the frizzled meat, and all that was in the fry-pan, and was still so hungry that he procured another strip of meat from the hut, and began all over again.

They had been nearly two hours in the camp before his ravenous appetite was fully satisfied, and by that time the contents of the pot had simmered into a sort of thick broth. At a faint call from Bonny, Alaric carried some of this to him, and had the satisfaction of seeing him swallow a whole cupful. Then, as night was again approaching, he helped his patient into one of the sleeping-bags, which he underlaid with several goat-skins, and sat by him until he fell into a doze. When this happened Alaric went softly outside and, to dispel the gathering gloom, piled logs on the fire until it was in a bright blaze. Sitting a little to one side, half in light and half in shadow, and having no present occupation, the lad fell into a deep reverie. How was this strange adventure to end? Who owned that camp, and why did he not return to it? What would he think on finding strangers in possession? Had any boy ever stepped from one life into another so utterly different as suddenly and completely as he? One year ago at this time he was in France, surrounded by every luxury that money could procure, carefully guarded from every form of anxiety, and dependent upon others for everything. Now he was thankful for the shelter of a hut, and a meal of half-cooked meat prepared by his own hands. He not only had everything to do for himself, but had another still more helpless dependent upon him for everything. Was he any happier then than now? No. He could honestly say that he preferred his present position, with its health, strength, and glorious self-reliance, to the one he had resigned.

Still there had been happy times in that other life. Two years ago, for instance, when his mother and he had travelled, leisurely through Germany, halting whenever they chose, and remaining as long as places interested them. Thoughts of his mother recalled the plaintive little German folk-song of which she had been so fond.

_Muss i denn._ Yes, that was it, and involuntarily Alaric began to hum the air. Then the words began to fit themselves to it, and before he realized what he was doing he was singing softly:

"Muss i denn, muss i denn
Zum Städtele 'naus, Städtele 'naus:
Und du mein Schatz bleibst hier--"

So engrossed was the lad with his thoughts and with trying to recall the words of the song running in his head that he heard nothing of a soft footstep that for several minutes had been stealthily approaching the fire-lit place where he sat. He knew nothing of the wild eyes that, peering from a haggard face, were fixed upon him with the glare of madness. He had no suspicion of the brown rifle-barrel that was slowly raised until he was covered by its deadly aim. But now he had recalled all the words of his song, and they rang out strong and clear:

"Muss i denn, muss i denn
Zum Städtele 'naus, Städtele 'naus:
Und du--"

At that moment there came a great cry from behind him: "Ach, Himmel! Wer ist denn das!" and the startled lad sprang to his feet in terror.

[TO BE CONTINUED.]

THE MANUFACTURE OF GUNPOWDER.

BY FRANKLIN MATTHEWS.

There would be no sense in having powerful war-ships, enormous cannons, and hard, tough projectiles to use in them, if we did not have improved powder to make them all effective. The high-grade powder used in warfare in these days is known in this country as "brown powder," because of its color. In Europe such powder has a dozen or more names, generally called after the men who have invented each kind. There are only two places in this country where the powder used in our big guns is made. One of them is the works of the E. I. Du Pont de Nemours & Company's plant on the Brandywine Creek, near Wilmington, Delaware, and the other is the works of the California Powder Company, near Santa Cruz, California. In both of these places the process is secret, and no one except those employed about the works is supposed to know exactly how "brown powder" is made.

All powder, whether it is intended for blasting, hunting, rifle-shooting, or warfare purposes, is made in the same general way, and so, in telling of a visit I recently made to the Du Pont Works, near Wilmington, I shall reveal no secrets if I describe the various mills and processes which practically all powder goes through before it is finished. Ordinary powder is composed of three ingredients--saltpetre, sulphur, and charcoal, or nitrate of soda, sulphur, and charcoal. Powder intended for blasting is generally made with soda; powder intended for shooting is generally made with saltpetre. It takes a great deal more than these ingredients, however, to make powder. There must be a lot of small buildings, generally scattered about a ravine, through which a stream runs to furnish power to the mills. These mills are for the most part small, one-story structures, that look at first glance like tumble-down affairs, out in the woods. Closer examination shows that they are built for the most part of stone on three sides and wood on the fourth, and that they all have light wooden roofs. Still closer examination reveals that the floors are laid with big wooden pegs instead of nails, and that so far as possible all the machinery they contain is made of wood. All the shovels and other implements used by the workmen are of wood, and every man about the place wears shoes with wooden-pegged soles instead of shoes which have nails. Fancy these conditions in a beautiful wooded park, running for three miles along the picturesque Brandywine Creek, near Wilmington, and you can imagine something of the attractive external appearance of the Du Pont Works.

There is good reason for the use of wood instead of metal in the thirty or forty buildings which make up this plant. You may not know it, but, it is said to be a fact that there must be a spark to ignite powder. You may take a live coal, for example, and drop it into a dish of powder, and the result will be that the powder will simply burn rapidly. Strike a spark and let it come in contact with the powder, and there is an explosion. All powder-mill explosions, with their dreadful losses of life, are caused by sparks. It is to avoid sparks that wooden-pegged floors and shoes are required in the mills, and that wooden shovels and machinery are used. You can see how dangerous metal is about a powder-making plant when your guide takes a bunch of keys from his pocket to unlock a mill where the work is done for the day. He inserts the key in the padlock as slowly and as gently as if he were performing a most delicate surgical operation, one where life is at stake by the mere turn of the wrist. He turns the bolt as carefully as if the lock were made of an egg-shell, which he didn't want to break. Your life and his really are at stake, and neither he nor you can exercise too much care.

There are two distinct stages in powder-making. The one is the part that is not dangerous of itself, and the other is the part that is dangerous--so dangerous, in fact, that the life of no one engaged in the work is safe. Still, so thorough are the precautions taken that the percentage of loss of life at this work is really very small, and one sees about the Du Pont Works men who have been employed there for thirty and forty years. The part of the manufacture that is not dangerous consists of the preparation of the ingredients that compose the powder. In one of these mills the charcoal is made. For the higher grades of powder only willow wood is used in making the charcoal. For blasting-powder almost any wood of good grain is used. The willow is grown largely on the grounds of the beautiful park, and the smaller limbs of trees are taken. Willow has an especially fine grain and texture, and this makes it valuable for powder manufacture.

In another mill the saltpetre is refined by boiling. The refined product is dumped into vats, from which it is shovelled into barrels to be taken to the mixing-house. The saltpetre in the vats is so pure and white that one might fancy that the roof had opened and an old-fashioned snow-storm had fallen inside the building, and the men who are shovelling it up resemble snow-shovellers, except that they are not bundled up. The sulphur is prepared in another place, and then the ingredients are taken to the mixing-mill, where they are weighed and mixed, and there the part of the work that is not dangerous ends.

Near by the mixing-mill are the rolling-mills. Now we are close to danger. In the centre of this mill is a big iron saucer, probably six feet in diameter. The rim of the saucer is about eighteen inches high. Standing up in the saucer are two wheels. They seem to be about six feet in diameter also, and their rims about a foot broad. These wheels and this saucer do the rolling of the powder--that is, they grind the three substances that compose the powder into a new mixture. The wheels are swept around and around in the saucer, and they also turn on their own axes. It is as if they were kept rolling over and over, just as the wheels of a carriage roll, but also as if some power kept them turning about constantly in the small circle of this saucer. This mill is where wooden machinery cannot be used, and of course that makes it a very dangerous place.

The mixture of the ingredients of the powder is brought in and dumped carefully in the saucer. It is spread about smoothly by a workman, who, after this work is done, goes outside the mill, and does not come back until the powder is rolled thoroughly. The workman goes to a wheel a few feet away from the building and turns it very slowly. It starts the machinery that moves the wheels in the saucer. The greatest danger in rolling comes at this time. The rolling must be begun in the slowest possible way. The danger is that there may be a lump in the mixture in the saucer that will raise one of the wheels as it turns around and then drop it suddenly in the saucer, causing a spark. If this comes, away goes your mill and machinery, and possibly the workman's life with them. There are many of these rolling-mills in the Du Pont plant, because the owners act on the principle that it is not a good thing to carry all your eggs in one basket. Rarely is more than 150 pounds of powder rolled at one time, and it takes from three to eight hours to do the rolling, according to the grade of powder that is being made. The workman in charge will go to the door of the mill from time to time to look in, but he never steps inside until he has stopped the machinery and the rolling is done.

After the powder is rolled it is shovelled up and taken to a press-mill. It is put into a long wooden trough about two feet high and two feet broad, and packed between thin plates of aluminum. Pressure is applied by water-power to one end of the trough, and the powder is squeezed into thin slabs of hard dry cakes. After all the moisture is squeezed out, these cakes are removed, and one by one they are slipped down into a slot between some rollers, where each is broken up into bits that resemble the small stones that are used in making macadam roads. This breaking-up process makes a terrific noise, and when one thinks of the dangerous compound that is being handled, this noise is likely to cause a feeling of great fear in one who hears it for the first time. At this stage of the process it is difficult to restrain the impulse to take to one's heels and run out of hearing of the terrifying sound.

After the cakes have been broken up into these bits of rough, dirty stone, the powder is taken to a graining-mill. This is really the most dangerous part of all the work. One man runs each of these mills. He cannot start the machinery in motion and go away, like the man who has charge of a rolling-mill, but he must stay in the place all the time, and feed the stones to the machinery that crushes them into grains of various sizes. He shovels the powder into a large hopper, big wooden wheels go around and around, and the powder passes between zinc rolls and through sieves of various sizes. It is a grewsome place. The machinery reminds one of the pictures that we have all seen of some of the contrivances they used to have in the days of the Inquisition with which to torture people, and it is hard to keep back a shudder as one looks at this work. Sometimes there is as much as a ton of powder at one time in the big hopper of this machine. In one of these mills at the Du Pont Works you will notice that the stone wall is eight feet thick on one side. This is on the side next to a press-mill. One side of the place is entirely of wood. This is toward the creek. The idea is to save as much property as possible in case of an explosion.

After the powder is broken up into grains it is taken in bags to another mill. This is known as a glazing-mill. It is here that the powder is polished and made shiny. There are several sheet-iron hoppers that resemble enormous barrels in this place. The powder is dumped into them, and they are turned over and over. A certain quantity of lamp-black is put into each barrel, according to the amount of powder each contains, and the barrel is turned until every grain has received a polish. The polish simply gives the powder a nice appearance. It adds no strength to the product, but it helps to keep out moisture, and it prevents the powder from losing some of its strength in damp weather. Every one knows how much better a pair of shoes look when they are polished, and how desirable it is at all times to have one's shoes kept in this condition. It is for that same reason that a polish is put on the grains of powder.

When the powder is polished, and separated by means of sieves again into grains of various sizes, it is ready for packing. It is then run into tin or wooden kegs, and is ready for storage in a magazine in a remote part of the grounds. The kegs are made in another part of the grounds, and painted in various colors, each color indicating the kind of powder the keg contains. It is then ready for shipment to the places where it is used. The powder that goes into cartridges for shooting purposes goes to the factories where cartridges are made, the blasting powder goes to the men who sell it, and thus it is carted off the place, and the mills go on making a supply to take its place.

The government powder is made in a general way in the same manner that ordinary powder is made. The chemical ingredients are somewhat different, of course, but it may be said that powder for use in cannons is simply of a finer grade than ordinary powder. It is what is technically known as a "slow" powder. That is, it ignites slowly, and burns more slowly than ordinary powder. Of course to the eye it goes off in a flash, like ordinary powder, but really it is slow in its explosion compared with ordinary powder. The object of this is to secure the full force of the power in the powder, and also to start the projectiles in cannon very slowly in their terrible journey of destruction. By using a slow powder there is less strain on the cannons and less danger of their bursting. There must be as little shock as possible to the cannons, when they contain such a terrible power as an ordinary charge of powder, and it is desirable that all of the powder should be used. Hence the need for "slow" powder. The government powder is packed in small cakes or prisms, with a little hole through the centre. These prisms look like the nuts used on the hubs of big wagons. A lot of them are put together in a package and stowed away in the cannon behind the projectile, and a spark is used to set the charge off.

One soon gets used to danger, and in going through a powder plant it is interesting to watch the men go about their tasks with as little concern apparently as if they were employed in a flour-mill. It is healthy work, aside from its danger, and for that reason it would be difficult to find a sturdier lot of men than those employed at this task. The men saunter about the place as if they preferred that sort of life to any other. In their manner there is no indication that they are oppressed by the possibility that some day they may be blown into bits. Most of them seem to be what are known as fatalists. One must die sometime, and a powder explosion provides a speedy and painless exit. They can get no insurance on their lives, but doubtless they console themselves with the thought that the percentage of the loss of life is small, much smaller than in many other kinds of hazardous employment.

These men may count with reason upon a long life, and a physician is rarely needed by any of them. They live in comfortable homes in the park where they are employed, and seem most contented with their lot. The Du Pont people have fitted up a delightful club-house on the grounds for their employees, and these find existence in their lot in life so attractive that they remain in it year after year, a contented and prosperous set of men.

A PALM-LEAF FAN.

BY CAROLINE A. CREEVEY.

When ministers preach sermons they take texts. We will make a text out of a palm-leaf fan.

Palms do not grow around Brooklyn, where I live; but the children of North Carolina, and further south, know their straight slim palmetto-tree, bearing a cluster of large frondlike leaves at the top, as we know a chestnut-tree. Indeed, one of the Southern States is called the Palmetto State, and has a palm-tree in its State emblem.

Small palms may be obtained at a florist's, and are fashionable parlor ornaments. But in a greenhouse they do not grow very large. In hot countries they sometimes reach a height of 150 feet. The bud at the top must not be broken off, else the tree will die; for, unlike Northern trees, palms do not branch, but continue always to grow straight up. As the leaves become old, they drop off, leaving curious scars on the trunk. New leaves grow one at a time from the apex. A maple-tree branches in all directions, and you may pinch off its buds anywhere without interrupting its growth. But it is rare to see a palm with even two branches. Such are called forked palms, referring to old-fashioned two-tined forks. Another curious thing about a palm is that it has no bark. My fan-handle is the natural stem of the leaf, and it has never had more bark than it has now.

Have you noticed a trunk of a hickory or chestnut tree which has been sawn straight across? There is a distinct centre, with rings of wood around it, growing larger and larger, all covered by bark. On such trees the outside ring of wood forms new every year, and if you can count the rings you can tell how old the tree is. When the tree is cut lengthwise into boards, these rings make beautiful grainings. A palm-tree has no apparent centre, no rings of wood, and no real bark. It is a very different kind of tree from the chestnut. There is wood, of course, in the palm trunk, else it would not be stiff enough to stand up so straight and tall. But the wood is in threads, long and slender, scattered without order through the trunk. The dots in the end of my fan-handle are the tips of threads of wood. If you were to see a palm sawn across you would find hundreds of similar dots. You cannot tell how old the palm is. The cut end of a cornstalk will show the same kind of structure, woody dots in soft juicy tissue. Grasses grow in the same way, and so do orchids, lilies, hyacinths, daffodils, iris, flag-root, cat's-tails, and many of our pretty spring wild flowers--the yellow dog-toothed violet, lily-of-the-valley, Solomon's-seal, etc. Our grains--corn, wheat, oats, rye--are humble but useful members of this same grand division of _Endogens_. All other trees and herbs which have bark, wood, and pith, and which when long lived increase by additional rings of wood under the bark, are _Exogens_.

Next examine the spread-out part of our fan. Ridges start from a common centre, where the stem joins the blade, and radiate towards the circumference. These ridges are the paths for the veins, and all leaves whose veins run side by side are called _parallel_-veined leaves. A plantain leaf shows this plainly. A chestnut leaf has an arrangement of veins like a feather. There is a central _midrib_, from which veins spring, running across the leaf, joined irregularly with intertwining _veinlets_. These leaves are _net_-veined, and grow on exogens. The parallel-veined leaves of endogens often clasp and surround the stem, the upper leaf growing from within the lower. Even the seed of endogens grows differently from that of exogens. A grain of corn sends up one first leaf; so do lilies and grains. A squash seed sends up two first leaves. The first leaves of a seed are _cotyledons_, and the one-leafed seed is _mono_cotyledonous, while two-leafed seeds are dicotyledonous.

Banana-trees are endogens, and produce such abundant fruit in their native soil that ground which planted in wheat would support two persons, if planted with bananas would nourish fifty. If you were cast away on a desert island you would fare better if the trees above you were endogens than if they were exogens. A grove of bananas and a cocoanut palm would support you better than chestnuts, hickories, oaks, and maples.

JENSEN FALLS OVERBOARD.

BY OSCAR KING DAVIS.

The United States Revenue-cutter _Corwin_ was taking the court officials from Sitka to Juneau to hold court. There was to be a term to deal with the seizures of seal-poachers that had been made by the patrol fleet in the Bering Sea that summer. They were in a hurry, and the _Corwin_ was doing her best. It was perhaps 4 o'clock in the afternoon of a dismal dull November day that the revenue-cutter rounded a point in Chatham Straits, and came plump upon a sleek little Columbia River fishing-sloop beating down the channel. Something in her trim suggested smugglers to the officer of the deck. The Captain was below with some of the court officials when the messenger from the Lieutenant reported. When he got on deck a quartermaster was already standing by the flag halyards, ready to send aloft the signal to the sloop to stop, and a boat's crew stood ready to clear away the dingy. The Captain took in the situation at a glance, and almost with one breath ordered the signal flown and the boat cleared away. The men in the little sloop had been watching with eyes of experience, and as the signal-flags fluttered from her spanker-gaff they swung their boat up into the wind and dropped the jib.

On the cutter the men were lowering the dingy, and the Lieutenant stood by the rail ready to go the moment his boat caught the water. Three sailor-men were in the boat, two at the fall-ropes and one in the middle with the oars and cushions. Jensen, the man at the after fall-rope, was a fine big Swede, broad-shouldered and stalwart. A drizzling rain was driving down from the mountains that line the Straits, and all the men were in their oil-skins and sou'westers. Jensen had added a great pair of rubber boots with long tops that reached up to his hips. The fall-ropes had begun to slip through the sheaves, and the dingy had started toward the water, when the eye-bolt at the stern, to which the lower block of the fall-rope was hooked, broke with a snap like a pistol crack. Instantly the stern of the boat fell into the water, but quickly as it fell the sailor-men were quicker. As they heard the snap of the breaking bolt and felt the boat begin to go out from under their feet, all three threw up their hands and grasped the wire stay that stretches between the davits. Two caught it with both hands, but Jensen missed with his right. The lurch with which the dingy fell had given him a twisting motion, and as he clung to the stay with his left hand he swung around until his arm could be twisted no further, and then he let go.

Instantly there was a tumult on the cutter, but it was not the crew of the _Corwin_ that made it. The court officials from Sitka and their wives had come on deck to see the fishing-sloop examined, and the instant they saw Jensen fall and heard the splash of the water as he struck, they set up a shout of "Man overboard!" Then they began to throw things over to the sailor-man, who was rapidly drifting astern. The first signal to the fishing-sloop had been accompanied by an order to the engine-room to stop and back, but the _Corwin_ was still under good headway when Jensen fell. As the dingy struck the water it turned bottom up, and all the oars and cushions and movable gratings in the bottom fell out and floated astern with the sailor-man. Added to these things were a lot of deck-gratings and things slung over by the excited Sitkans. Half a dozen life-buoys that were thrown over at the first alarm promptly went to the bottom. They had been cleaned and painted so many times that not even the heavy salt water would float them.

At the cry of "Man overboard!" Captain Hooper's orders were short and sharp. In response to them a boat's crew leaped at the big whaleboat. Almost in the twinkling of an eye it was in the water, and eight sturdy fellows were responding with all their might to the bo's'n's exhortations to "give way." But at the same time another crew had cleared away the Captain's gig, and the young Lieutenant who was to have boarded the suspected sloop from the dingy was placidly going about his errand in the gig.

It takes a long time to tell it, almost as long, perhaps, as it seemed to Jensen, but all this really occupied a very few minutes. The people from Sitka, hanging over the taffrail and wondering if the cutter would never begin to go astern, saw Jensen go down, and held their breath with the instant's fear that he had given up. But presently he bobbed up again, and then one, with a glass, made out that he had taken off his heavy oil-skin coat. He had his big sou'wester in his teeth, and was treading water. As he stood up out of the water he lifted one side of the heavy coat. He caught the air under it, when he dropped the edge of it again, and the man with the glass could see the coat float by itself. Then Jensen disappeared under the water again. He was down what seemed an interminable time, and they thought that surely this time he was gone for good. But he came up again, and this time he had his long rubber boots in his left hand. He caught his sou'wester in his teeth again, and, swimming with his right hand and holding his boots in his left, and pushing his coat with his brawny chest, he struck out comfortably for the whaleboat that was rapidly bearing down on him.

Before it reached him, however, there floated by one of the gratings that had been flung over after him. They were half a mile or more astern of the revenue-cutter, and the thick day prevented the nervous watchers on the _Corwin_ from seeing what happened. But the bo's'n in the whaleboat saw Jensen grasp one end of the grating with his right hand and try to crawl up on it. Its buoyancy wasn't enough to stand the weight of the burly Swede and his heavy boots. His end sank, and the other end rose out of the water further and further as Jensen scrambled up. At last, with a smash, it turned end for end, and cracked the plucky sailor-man a resounding whack on the head. He went down as if he had been lead, and even the bo's'n in the whaleboat thought it was all up with him. But Jensen apparently was not born to drown. He was up again almost as soon as the grating was, and as the whaleboat dashed alongside he flung his big boots in and crawled over its side, helped by half its crew.

Then the whaleboat started back for the _Corwin_, and as it went along it stopped at intervals, and picked up the oars and cushions and seats and gratings and things that had been spilled out of the dingy, or flung over for Jensen. The water was desperately cold. A glacial current sets down the coast through Chatham Straits, and it was this ice-water that Jensen had been in for what seemed half an hour, but was really not half so long. His teeth chattered when he got into the whaleboat, and he needed something to warm him up. When the whaleboat returned to the cutter the court officials and their wives crowded along the rail, expecting to see a half-drowned man lying in the bottom of the boat. They saw only the boat's crew, and one extra man, not Jensen, standing up in the stern sheets, beside the bo's'n.

"Why, where's Jensen?" some one asked Captain Hooper.

"There he is," said the Captain, "pulling the bow-oar."

That was Jensen's way of warming up. He scrambled up on deck in his wet clothes and in his stocking feet, with his coat and rubber boots under his arm, saluted the Captain, and stood at attention. There was an ugly cut on his face where the grating had hit him.

"How did you fall?" asked the Captain.

"The bolt broke, sir," said Jensen, "and she went down."

"Go forward and get some dry clothes," ordered the Captain; "and here, messenger," he added, to his boy, "tell the apothecary to give Jensen something to warm him up!"

The Captain turned to one of the Sitkans and said, "He goes overboard almost every other day just to get warmed up afterwards."

As the whaleboat was slung in the davits again, the gig came back from the fishing-sloop.

"She's apparently all right, sir," reported the Lieutenant. "They say they are examining the coast, looking for a place to found a colony."

There was a jingling of bells in the engine-room, and the _Corwin_ steamed full speed ahead again, hurrying to Juneau.

BY GASTON V. DRAKE.

XIX.--FROM BOB TO JACK.

GENOA.

DEAR JACK,--Maybe we haven't been travelling! My! Pop met a man in
Geneva and he says going to Venice aren't you? Not much said Pop.
New York's wet enough for me. Then you make a great big error said
the man. It's fine this time of year and anybody that gets as far
into Italy as Genoa without going a little further to see the most
unicorn city in the world doesn't know as much as he thinks he does
and wastes an elegant importunity. So Pop spoke to Ma about it and
Ma said she'd sort of like it and as for Aunt Sarah she was so
pleased she forgot all about the music-boxes and recovered her
health right away, but it's kept us on the jump, and I've seen so
many things I hardly know how to begin telling you about 'em. The
first jump was to Luzerne where we only stayed all night though Pop
was afraid we might have to stay there forever in order to get
money enough to pay our bill. They had a band playing in the office
of the hotel which seemed very nice until the bill came in the next
morning and they'd charged us forty cents apiece, babies and all
for it. Pop said it would have been cheaper for us to have bought
an orchestrion and sat up with it in the Park all night. Next day
we took the corkscrew train and bored our way right through the
Alps, over the St. Gothard railway into Italy, landing at Milan
late in the afternoon, where there isn't much for boys to see,
though Jules says the cathedral collectors think it's bully; and
then we went on to Venice and of all the places yet it's the best.
Talk about going yachting, or sailing across the ocean in a great
big ship--it's all nothing to living in a place like Venice where
you can sit in your parlor at home and still be on the water, with
no motion to make you seasick and no fear that a big wave will come
up to engollop you in its midst. We stayed at a hotel that used to
be a palace and it was palatial--that is, it was in front. All the
parlors were fine, but the bedrooms in the rear wouldn't do for
store-rooms home. These old Dukes that used to live there were
great on parlors, salongs they called them, but when it came bed
time most anything was good enough.

I suppose you know that Venice is built mostly on water--like
American railroads Pop says, though I never saw one of them and I
guess that's what Aunt Sarah calls one of Pops suttle political
whimsies. The houses are held up by spiles that have been driven
down into the mud, and when people want to go anywhere they hire a
gondola and get paddled off to where they want to go. Of course
they haven't any horses and Pop says the only driving they can do
is spile driving. He told Jules to get a team of quiet gentle
spiles that a lady could drive and let me try 'em, but Jules was so
stupid he didn't understand--though he pretended he did and
promised to have 'em at the door at three o'clock, and when three
o'clock came he told Pop he was very sorry but every one in town
had been hired for the season. Jules is smart even if he can't
understand American jokes.

Venice is a great many years old and used to be managed by men they
called Dodges. They didn't have mares the way we do in our cities
because horses couldn't get along there, but they whacksed very
rich and built magnificent houses and churches and palaces. They
have a great big public square called St. Marks where the bandolins
play every night and it's full of pigeons.

Pigeons are so sacred here that when they have 'em on the bills of
fare at the hotels they call them squab for fear the populace would
rise and tear them limb from limb for eating pigeons. They make
glass in Venice too, smelling bottles and tumblers and chandeliers,
but the best part of the whole thing is the canals. The water isn't
very clean but it's clean enough and I tell you what a boy has a
great advantage over a nurse in a place like Venice. One morning
when Pop and I were getting gondoliered along the Grand Canal we
heard a fearful shrieking in one of the palaces and in a minute we
saw a boy being chased by his nurse. He was only about a foot ahead
and she almost had him when he jumped off the front stoop into the
canal and swam up and down just out of her reach and my, wasn't she
mad! I don't know what she said because she spoke Italian, but I
could guess generally what she meant. Just think of it for a
minute. If you want to go swimming or fishing or boating you can do
it all right in front of your own house. We'd be pretty rich in
America if we could stand on our front door steps and catch all the
dinner we needed.

One great thing for children is to stand in the square and feed the
pigeons I was telling you about. Pop bought me three bags of corn
and the minute I dropped one little kernel of it on the walk about
a hundred pigeons flew down. A lot of 'em roostered on my arms and
one fellow sat on my hat, and then we went inside the cathedral
which is magnificently furnished with things the Venetians used to
steal from the heathen they went out to convert, but they're a
little sore because Napoleon came down and stole a few things from
them. People over here don't like to put the boot on the other leg
any more than they do at home, which Aunt Sarah says shows that
human nature is the same in Italian as it is in English.

Where they haven't got canals in Venice there are little narrow
streets about three feet wide mostly and you'd have as hard a time
finding your way about through them as Pop would trying to follow
the lines of a sailor suit for a boy of seven through one of Ma's
Bazar patterns. That's what Pop said. He said Venice must have been
laid out after a BAZAR pattern and he asked Ma to go up in a high
tower they have there called the Campanini to get a bird's eye view
of it and see whether it was a bicycle costume or a pignoir they
had in mind when they laid it out. Ma said Pop was flippant and he
said all right my dear, I'll let you find our way home and she
tried it and in ten minutes she had us lost and she turned to Pop
and said I guess you're right about the BAZAR pattern, popper, this
is the worst yet.

We all wanted to stay there a week but it wasn't possible. A birds
eye view of it was all we had time for and so we left for Genoa
after two days at Venice. To-morrow we sail for Hoboken on the
_Werra_ and my next letter will be from home, when I'll tell you
all about Gibraltar, Genoa, and Hoboken.

Good-bye BOB.

P.S. The bandolins came and sang under our window at Venice the
last night and it was very romantic Pop says even if the soprano
did fall into the water reaching up for a ten cent piece Pop had.

A notable event in interscholastic baseball was the defeat of Lawrenceville, May 27, on their own grounds, by the St. Paul's nine. The game was a hard one, and lasted for twelve innings, the final score being 3-2. As the score indicates, the teams were very evenly matched, but St. Paul's excelled slightly in team-work, and (Cadwalader being unavailable for Lawrenceville) was stronger in the box. Hall, the Garden City pitcher, is a better man than either Arrott or Blake. He showed himself to be especially strong when he had men on bases.

St. Paul's School.]

In batting, the teams were about equal, in spite of the fact that the tabulated score credits St. Paul's with ten hits to Lawrenceville's six. Arthur Robinson, the clever young sprinter who did such remarkable work at the Long Island Interscholastics, played short-stop in this Lawrenceville game without an error; he had five difficult chances, and accepted them all. The out-fielders on the St. Paul's team distinguished themselves not only in field-work, but also at the bat. This victory, coupled with the fact that the St. Paul's nine has not been defeated by any school team for two years, places the Garden City team in the front rank of scholastic ball-players.

The Columbia Interscholastic Tennis Tournament, which was played on the Oval at Williamsbridge, was won by J. M. L. Walton, of the Callisen School. He met R. D. Little, of Cutler's, in the final round, and took the match in three straight sets--6-1, 6-2, 6-1. His work was steady throughout the tournament, and he showed good head-work, especially in his contest with Little.

Winner of the N.Y.I.S.A.A. Tennis Tournament]

First place in the tournament for the tennis championship of the New York I.S.A.A. was taken by T. R. Pell, of Berkeley. This tourney was held on the Berkeley Oval, but no playing of a very high order developed. Pell won all his matches in straight sets, and defeated Wenman of Drisler's in the finals--6-3, 6-1, 6-1. In the semi-final round he met R. D. Little, who lost to Walton in the Columbia tournament, and disposed of him--6-4, 6-2.

The winning of the New York I.S.A.A. Tennis Tournament does not entitle Pell to play at Newport. Walton, however, as the winner of the Columbia-Interscholastic Championship, has the privilege of representing this district at the national event, and will no doubt be seen on the courts at Newport in August.

Fincke, s.s. Camp (Capt.), 3 b. Warner, c.

McKelvey, 2 b. Parton, c.f.

HOTCHKISS SCHOOL BASEBALL NINE.]

The Hotchkiss School baseball Team is rapidly getting into shape, and promises to be a stronger nine than that which represented the school last year. Five of the old men are back, and the new material is developing rapidly. The batting is considerable of an improvement over last season's. Warner, the catcher, makes a good back-stop, but is not reliable in his throwing to bases. He is weak too on high fouls, and somewhat slow; but he makes up for these deficiencies in his batting, and runs the bases well.

Cook, in the box, is a new man, and promises to develop into a strong pitcher. He is liable to be wild at times, but grows steadier at critical points of the game. He bats well and he runs well. Noyes, at first, is very strong on high throws, but muffs badly on grounders. His throwing is only fair, but he handles the stick pretty well. McKelvey, at second, is a veteran, and is keeping up to his old standard. He still retains his old fault, however, which is a very bad one, of stepping back from the ball when he is batting. This is a fatal weakness for a man who hopes to become a hard hitter. He slides well, but does not run quite fast enough around the bases.

Fincke, at short-stop, is a good athlete, and comes from good athletic stock. He is a cousin of the quarter-back of last year's Yale team, and he has only recently made a record for himself by winning the Yale Interscholastic Tennis Tournament. This is his first year on the team. He throws and fields well, but bats only fairly. He is slow on the bases, but has the promise of an excellent ball-player. Captain Camp, at third, is steady both in fielding and in throwing. He bats well, but would have a better average if he were not constantly trying to make home runs. He is a good base-runner, but his responsibilities as captain have somewhat weakened his all-round work.

Coy, in left field, is another new man who has also done well on the tennis-court. He is sore on high flies, but unreliable on running catches. He does not throw well, and his batting is only fair, whereas his base-running is open to great improvement. Parton is also new to the team. He is not sure of line drives, and would be an excellent thrower if he could cultivate accuracy. He is good on the bases. Decrow is probably the best fielder on the team; he covers more ground than any of the others, and shows good judgment on flies. He throws better than he did last year, and his batting is improving, but he needs a good deal of coaching on base-running and sliding.

The Fourth Annual Interscholastic Meet of the Illinois high-schools was held at Champaign on May 16, and the banner went to Rockford H.-S. with 23 points, Englewood High, the favorite, coming second with 21 points. But as the bicycle-race was protested, and has gone to the L. A. W. for final decision, Englewood may yet attain the title of champion.