DEAR BOB,—Your two letters from the steamer got here yesterday. Sandboys says your polite Pirate was stuffing you about that money in Venezuela, and he thinks you'll get your money back when oysters climb trees and not before, and I sort of agree with him. That story about jumping overboard and getting washed back don't seem to me ought to be told to people that love truth. Anyhow Sandboys didn't like it, and he told me to tell you to tell your old Pirate that he can do his own Grand Viziering when he gets to his Island Kingdom and save his ten dollars a week—there's more money in carrying ice-water up and down stairs here, Sandboys says, and he's going to stick to it.

I'm pretty lonesome for you this summer, though there's a half a dozen pretty good fellows here; one of 'em's named Billie Tompkins and he lives out in Chicago. He says there's no place like Chicago in this world for fun. It's situated right out in the prairies and he's got a sand-yacht that he goes sailing about in every spring. I never heard of a sand-yacht before and neither did Sandboys, but Billie Tompkins described it to us and I should think it would be a pretty good thing to have. It has wheels, and is built just like a cat-boat with a mast and a rudder, but no keel. He says that he's sailed over pretty much all of Illinois with it and had lots of adventures with Indians and kiyoots. Of course you know what kiyoots are, they're prairie wolves and they're very dangerous to people that need sleep because they howl all night. He's had lots of trouble with them, but the Indians have bothered him worse than anything, frequently chasing him for miles just to get his scalp. One of 'em caught him once, when he was out sailing one day in March. He had a little seal-skin cap on fortunately, and the Indian ran away with that thinking sure he'd caught his head of hair. Ever since that time he's worn seal-skin caps for sailing. The most exciting time he ever had though was last spring. He'd gone out for an afternoon's cruise and had got about forty miles out on the prairie. He was sailing along beautifully before the wind when he saw a black speck off on the horizon coming towards him like lightning. He didn't know what it was at first but as it alarmed him just a little he took a tack off to the East, and then he knew that the object was bearing down for him for it changed its course just as he had and came on in hot pursuit. In about five minutes he saw that it was an Indian on horseback and he began to get sorry that he'd disobeyed his father and come so far out. You see his father isn't a millionaire and was rather put out about his losing that seal-skin hat, and he'd told him to keep away from where the Indians were. It's pretty tough to be placed where you're bound to get hurt whatever happens, and Billie got pretty anxious contemplating—how's that for a word?—getting scalped or spanked. He steered his yacht right about, so's she'd fly before the wind, which was his only chance, but it was too late. The Indian was close enough to lasso him. Suddenly the pursuer's rope shot out, but by some mistake in the aim didn't catch Billie, but got the mast right in the noose. The horse stopped short, braced himself and the Indian began to grin, expecting to see the boat capsize, but he forgot that the boat had a speed of a hundred miles an hour on and weighed three times as much as the horse in the bargain. He found out in a minute though, for the rope snapped taut, yanked the horse out from under the Indian, threw the Indian over on his own neck and broke it, and went sailing over the prairie with the poor, kicking horse in tow. Billie stopped the yacht as quick as he could for the horse's sake, though it couldn't hurt him much towing him through the soft sand. The horse got on his legs again, as meek as you please. Billie fastened him to the rudder post and went back to where the Indian was and found he was deader than a door-nail, and, strangely enough, hanging from his girdle was the identical seal-skin cap that had been scalped off Billie's head two years before.

He sailed home in triumph, having made a horse and recovered his cap as well, and his father forgave him for not having minded, and when the horse was sold later on for fifty dollars he gave Billie five dollars of it all for himself.

Sandboys says that was a wonderful adventure and I sort of feel that way myself. He says if Billie keeps on having adventures like that there's no reason why he shouldn't grow up to be as successful a man as your Pirate, but he thinks Billie ought to stick by Chicago and not go seeking his fortune anywhere else because there isn't another city in the world where a thing like that could happen, which I guess is true. It certainly couldn't happen anywhere around Boston, because even if they had a prairie and Indians you couldn't steer a yacht through the fearful crowds of bicyclers they have there, without having a collision.

Speaking of bicyclers there's a fellow here that's going to coast down Mt. Washington next week and he's awfully proud of himself, which he needn't be. It would be much harder work to go up Mt. Washington on a bicycle, Sandboys says, and he ought to know, because he's done both, and last year he came down all the way on one roller skate without touching his other foot once. If you see your Pirate ask him what he thinks of that.

Barring Billie and Sandboys everything's pretty slow here. We've only changed the boots in the hall once, and the new head waiter has got eyes like a ferret so's no one can sneak an apple or a banana out of the dining room without its getting in the bill. We boys are going to hold a Mass Meeting this week to see what can be done about this. It isn't any fun eating fruit at the table, and what's the good of nuts and raisins if you can't carry 'em off in your pockets? If you see any live Dukes tell me about 'em.

Always yours,
Jack.

3. The Finish. 2. The Stride. 1. The Start.
From instantaneous Photographs of T. E. Burke, Champion Quarter-miler of the World.

Boardman. Lakin. Crane. Kilpatrick. Hollister. Kingsley.
Start of Half-mile Race at the Inter-collegiate Games, 1895.
RUNNING THE MIDDLE DISTANCES.