Copyright, 1896, by Harper & Brothers. All Rights Reserved.

MOTHER-IN-LAW TO THE CREW.

ONE OF THE OLD SAILOR'S YARNS.

BY W. J. HENDERSON.

It was a beautiful summer morning. There was a light wind from the southwest, which just tempered to a degree of endurance the blazing heat of the full-orbed sun. A few wisps of feathery white lay slantwise across the broad field of deep-toned blue sky, promising a change of weather within a day's time. The sea was a vast undulating mirror of blue, as if all the sapphires in the world and in all the other worlds had been melted and poured into earth's majestic basin. From the rounded slopes of the broad low swells the rays of the sun danced in a million flashes of dazzling silver. The swells themselves ran in slow, sinuous folds to the inner bar, where they reared themselves in curving walls of translucent green shot with bars of snow, and then with the burst of far-off thunder fell forward into spurting, writhing acres of yeasty foam. Softness, warmth, and languorous sparkle lay over the sea.

Far away upon the uncertain horizon loomed the black hull of an ocean liner, cleaving her way across the polished path at twenty knots an hour, to make a new record, homeward bound. The tense cordage of her rigging, the strained squareness of her tapering yards, the horizontal backward rush of the torrents of smoke from her yawning funnels gave her the appearance of a true greyhound, with every nerve and muscle strained in the effort at speed. Nearer the land three schooners, two loaded to their scuppers, and one flying light, so that she seemed to sail on her keel, were making a long leg to the southward, close-hauled on the starboard tack. Further in yet a score of tiny sea skiffs rose and fell on the bosom of the deep, and now and then the glitter of sunlight on the scales of a captured fish could be seen.

Henry Hovey and his little brother George—who was not so little as he used to be—were walking along the ocean road. Often and often they had gone down to the old wooden pier, and sighed much because it no longer held their interesting friend, the Old Sailor. They had met other sailors, but none of them could tell tales of the sea; and, worse than that, none of them knew anything about the wonderful places the Old Sailor had seen. So Henry and George contented themselves with telling the old tales over, and speculating on the causes of the remarkable events related therein. On this beautiful summer day they unconsciously wandered down to the pier, and to their surprise there was a man sitting on the end of it. He looked so much like their old friend that they both stopped short and gasped. Then they shook their heads sadly and walked slowly out on the pier. As they drew near the man they saw that his shoulders were shaking with laughter. George gripped Henry's arm and said, "Is it a dream?"

"I don't know," answered Henry, in a whisper. "I'm afraid—"

"W'ich the same it are not!" cried a voice they well knew; and the next instant there was the Old Sailor himself, half laughing and half crying, dancing on one foot and holding each of the breathless boys by a hand. "It are not no dream," continued the Old Sailor; "'cos w'y, dreams goes by contraries, an' this are the werry identical sailor wot it used to be, an' not no contrary wotsomever."

"Oh! when did you come?" cried George.

"Jes now."

"What?"

"Jes now. I jes come ashore. I were a-sittin' on this 'ere werry identical pier a-lookin' fur my trunk."

The two boys gazed at their old friend in silent wonder, for they were sure that behind that trunk there lay some mystery.

"Where is it?" asked Henry at length.

"Down there," answered the Old Sailor, pointing at the water. "Under hatches, stove in an' sunk. I wouldn't 'a' parted with that trunk fur a good hogshead o' baccy. 'Cos w'y; I got that there trunk in Noo Yawk the day I shipped, an' I had her loaded right to her hatches with things to bring home to ye. Howsumever, it were drownin' or losin' 'em, an' so me an' the trunk got ashore—leastways I did; an' that's wot."

With these words the Old Sailor once more sat down on the end of the pier, and the boys sat beside him. He sent one of his long searching glances around the horizon, indulged in one of his peculiar silent laughs, and then suddenly said,

"S'pose I was to go fur to ask ye wot kind o' wessel are that out yonder?"

"It's an ocean liner," answered Henry.

"An' s'posin' I was to say wot are them three yonder?"

"Schooners," said George, "under all plain sail, close-hauled on the starboard tack."

"My son," said the Old Sailor, solemnly, "you are growin' werry salt. An' s'posin' I were to ask ye wot are that high-sided one loaded with?"

"Nothin'," said Henry. "She's flying light."

"Werry good too. An' may I be run down an' sunk by a bar'l o' your mother's hot biscuit ef this here warn't the werry identical way wot it happened. I shipped in St. Thomas as second mate onto the four-masted schooner Raw Tomatters. She were bound fur Noo Yawk with an assorted cargo o' cigarettes, pickled pigs' feet, mares' nests, and ice-cream."

"Mares' nests!" exclaimed Henry.

"Ice-cream!" cried George.

"Them's it! The mares' nests is built in the mountains by the wild mares, an' is imported to this country for political purposes. The ice-cream made in St. Thomas are werry bad, werry bad indeed; but it won't melt in this here climate 'cos it are so hot where it are made, an' so it are imported here in bricks an' sold as ice-cream candy, w'ich the same you may have eat, but don't do so no more. Howsumever that 'ain't got nothin' to do with this 'ere yarn wot I'm a-tellin' ye. The Raw Tomatters are a werry big schooner, an' she got under way with a crew o' twenty men, all told, includin' me, wot were the second mate, an' the Cap'n's mother, w'ich the same she were the cause o' the whole bilin'. The Cap'n's name were Janders Blue, an' he were a smallish man with a turned-up nose, one glass eye, an' a wooden arm, w'ich the same he got in the whalin' trade. His mother's name were Mehitabel Blue, an' she stood six feet three, an' could lift a barrel o' salt horse. So bein', it putty soon come to be knowed that she were not only the Cap'n's mother, but a mother-in-law to the hull crew. The trouble with her were that she weren't brought up among seafarin' pussons, but in a werry respectable country town where there were more churches than stores. She'd went down to St. Thomas on a steamer fur her health, she said, an' were now goin' fur to make the v'yidge back with her good son. I didn't see wot she wanted o' any more health than she had; but I didn't say nothin', her bein' the Cap'n's mother an' me the second mate, w'ich the same 'ain't got much to say.

"Waal, the squalls commenced fur to make up jes as soon as ever we started to git the anchor. The old lady, wearin' a wide-brimmed straw hat with a long red feather into 't, an' holdin' a white umbreller over her head, stood aft alongside o' her son. Sez he, 'H'ist the outer jib.' Sez I, 'Lively there, you swabs.' With that the old woman she shet the umbreller down with a snap, jumped forrad in about four hops, an' sez she ter me, sez she,

"'Wot kind o' langwidge are that ter use in the presence of a lady?'

"'Beggin' yer pardon, ma'am,' sez I to she, sez I, 'I weren't aware as how it were onperlite,' sez I, jes like that.

"'Don't you dast to call no man no sich names ag'in w'ile I'm on this 'ere boat,' sez she; 'ef ye do, I'll git my son ter discharge ye right off.'

"Then she h'isted the umbreller ag'in an' went aft. The men looked at me an' I looked at them, an' we didn't none on us say nothin'; 'cos why, there weren't nothin' to say. But blow me fur pickles ef 'twere more'n five minutes afore she bruk out in a noo place. Bill Doosenbury, the fust mate, he sings out fur some un to set the torps'ls.

"'Lay aloft an' loose torps'ls,' sez he. 'Lively now, you sea-cooks!'

"May I never cross the blessed hequator ag'in ef the old woman didn't dance right up to Bill, an' fetch him a swat over the head with the umbreller.

"'I'll not stand it,' sez she to he, sez she. 'I'll not listen to no sich talk.'

"With that the Cap'n comes a-runnin' up to her, an' sez he, 'Mother, wot's wrong?'

"'Wot d'ye mean, Janders Blue,' sez she to he, sez she, 'by allowin' o' sich permiskis langwidge on your boat?'

"'W'y, mother,' sez he, 'that are reg'lar sea langwidge.'

"'Then it are got to be changed,' sez she to he, sez she, jes like that, him bein' Cap'n of the schooner, an' she bein' his mother with a white umbreller. She turned around to go aft ag'in, an' stopped like she were hit herself. 'Janders Blue,' sez she, 'look at this here rope!'

"'Wot's the matter with 't, mother?'

"'It are all covered with tar!'

"'That's allers the way with 'em on ships,' sez he.

"'Nonsense!' sez she. 'I ain't a-goin' to stand it. You're all in a plot to make this 'ere v'yidge o' mine a failure. I won't have it! Janders Blue, you set them lazy sailors to work right off with hot water 'n' soap a-scrubbin' that stuff off. Ugh! Tar! Ugh!'

"I hope I may turn into a bloomin' Sally Growler ef the Cap'n didn't do jes wot she told him. Ye never in the hull course o' your life see sich a ridikalous sight as sailor-men a-scrubbin' the tar off their own riggin'. An' that weren't the wust o' 't. Byme-by, o' course, it come on night, and the side-lights were set. Now it so happened that we had a strong breeze on the starboard beam that night, an' we was putty well hove over. Mrs. Blue she come on deck jes after the lights was sot, an' she vowed as how she were tired o' the starn part o' the wessel, an' were a-goin' to walk up an' down forrad. She came along to the fok's'le deck an' got down on the lee side to walk up an' down. Jes as soon as she done that she seed the red light in the port riggin'. She let out a yawp as almost killed the wind, and called fur Bill Doosenbury. He come a-runnin' half scart to death, fur fear she'd got hurt. But she sez to him, sez she:

"'Take that nasty red light down. It hurts my eyes.'

"'But, ma'am,' sez Bill, 'that's our side light.'

"'Waal,' sez she, 'put it on t'other side, and put the green one over here. I don't mind green.'

"'Couldn't you walk on t'other side?' sez Bill.

"'No, I couldn't,' sez she; 'you know it's too windy up there. You change them lights!'

"Bill tried to tell her why it couldn't be did, but she wouldn't listen to him. She hollered fur the Cap'n, an' he come forrad, an' findin' out wot were the matter, offered to put out both lights, blow me fur a herrin' ef he didn't.

"'Wot!' sez she, 'an' leave me in the dark to fall down an' break my neck?'

"An' with that she set up a weepin' an' wailin' that her son didn't love her, till I'm blowed ef the old man didn't go an' shift the lights to suit her. An' then we had to put on double lookouts fur fear we'd run into somethin'. O' course soon's she went below we shifted 'em back. In the mid-watch 't come on to blow putty fresh, and I, bein' on watch, sung out a few orders about reefin', an' the watch jumped to work. Up come the old woman in a long night-gown an' a red flannel night-cap, two steps at a time.

"'Wot d'ye mean,' she yells, 'a-raisin' such a racket up here at this time o' night? It's time all decent people was in bed. Shame on ye! Shame on ye! Roisterin' an' carousin' out here this way! Go to bed, ye miserable sinners, go to bed!'

"I tried to explain to her as how the schooner'd got to be worked through the night.

"'Nonsense!' sez she to me, sez she; 'my son Janders'd never make no man work all night. He'd stop the ship an' have a night watchman to mind her till mornin'. This are some o' your doin'. You're the wust o' the hull lot. Th' idee of your bein' out this time o' night. You're old nuff to know better!'

"By that time the Cap'n were on deck, an' somehow he coaxed her to go below an' stay there. But the werry next mornin' she were at 't ag'in. We started in to wash down decks, an' up she come without her hat on an' her hair all up in yaller curl-papers. She tuk one look along the deck, an' then she bruk out:

"'Waal, of all the oncivilized ways o' cleanin' a floor I must say I 'ain't never seed nothin like that. Squirtin' onto 't with a hose! Janders! Janders! Come out here!'

"The Cap'n come on deck lookin' putty tired, an' she sez to he, sez she:

"'I won't stand it—I won't! Make them lazy men git soap an' water an' scrubbin'-brushes, an' git right down on their knees an' scrub the floor honest. Th' idee o' squirtin' onto 't!'

"An' by the great hook block we had to do 't. Right down onto our knees, es ef we wus so many old women hired out fur to do cookin', washin', an' ironin! Waal, ye may keel-haul me an' copper-bottom me on top o' my head with yaller paper ef I didn't begin fur to git putty mad. I made up my mind that the next thing o' that sort wot the old girl called out fur us to do were not a-goin' fur to be did. Waal, it weren't so werry long afore the trouble bruk loose. We had a little more wind than we wanted day afore yistiddy, an' afore we could git the torps'ls clewed down there were a hit of a split in one ov 'em. Yistiddy I got my sail needle an' palm an' were a-startin' to go up to mend the sail. The old woman stopped me an' asked me wot I were a-goin' to do. She looked at me an' at the sail needle an' the palm, an' then she let go:

"'I 'ain't never seed sich an old heathen in the hull course o' my life,' sez she. 'The idee o' climbin' up there an' riskin' your life w'en you could have the sail brung down! An' then to try to sew it with sich things as them! I won't stand it, that are all I got to say.'

"I told her that were the way them things was allers did at sea, an' she vowed it were time sich nonsense were changed. Then she called fur her son, an' sez she to he:

"This 'ere old sailor are a-doin' his best to make me mis'able aboard this 'ere ship. I won't stand it! You make him bring that sail down here and sew it up proper.'

"An' the Cap'n he sez to me, sez he, that I'd better do it her way, jes like that, him bein' Cap'n an' me second mate. I got mad an' slammed the palm down on deck, an' said I'd be swabbed afore I'd do 't.

"'Oh—h!' screeched the old woman, 'to think as how I'd be talked to like that in my son's own boat! I won't stand it! Janders Blue, you put that old man off this vessel at oncet, or I'll jump off myself an' wade ashore!'

"'But it are too deep fur wadin',' sez the Cap'n.

"'Then give him a boat.'

"'I can't spare my men.'

"'Let him row it hisself.'

"'He can't do that all alone.'

"'Oh, to think that my own son'd turn ag'in me, an' all fur a measly, chicken-faced, turkey-footed old sinner that wants to sew with a skewer!'

"An' she beginned fur to squeal so that the Cap'n, sez he to me, sez he, 'You git ashore somehow, quick.' Waal, my sons, we wuz about eight miles off yonder, an' I couldn't swim so far. But down in the fok's'le I had my trunk wot I'd carried off to bring home things in. So I went below an' emptied all the things out 'ceptin' a Chinese umbreller an' a Indian shawl. I brung the trunk on deck, an' sez I to the Cap'n, 'You rig a tackle an' lower me an' my trunk into the sea,' sez I, 'an' I'll git ashore right here. I've got friends on that there coast.' So he lowered us—me an' the trunk—an' the wind bein' fair, I set sail with the Chinese umbrella fur a sail. The old woman she stood on deck a-shakin' her umbreller at me, an' yellin' loud,

"'Don't ye dast to come back to this 'ere boat, ye old reprobate!'

"'Not as long as there are any land to stay on,' sez I to she, sez I.

"'I won't stand it!' sez she.

"'Then go to bed!' sez I.

"An' by that time the schooner were so fur away I couldn't tell wot she sez. It tuk me all night to git in half a mile o' the beach, an' then the wind changed an' I had to paddle. The surf smashed my trunk ag'in the pier; I lost my umbreller an' my shawl; but here I are, an' here I stays. An' the previous part o' my percedins I'll tell ye some other day, but jes now I'd like to see your mother an' ask her ef she's forgot how I like her coffee."

[RÖNTGEN RAYS.]

BY WILLIAM A. ANTHONY.

It is now some two months since the public was startled by the announcement that Röntgen of Bavaria had discovered that electric discharges in certain vacuum tubes, that is, tubes from which the air has been exhausted, gave out rays that would pass through wood, card-board, flesh, and numerous other substances opaque to light—that is, through which light would not pass, and would then affect the sensitive plates used in photographing, making it possible to show upon the plates the outlines of objects entirely hidden from the eye.

Probably what most aroused the interest of the public was the fact that when a structure, like the hand, was interposed in the path of these rays, the bones would cast a deep shadow, while the shadow cast by the flesh was very faint. It was thus possible to photograph the bones of the living body, and, of course, to show the presence of foreign substances or abnormal growths.

What has excited most surprise, perhaps, is the fact that these rays pass through bodies that are generally considered opaque, for it seems to those not familiar with the facts and demonstrations of science a most surprising thing that any rays should go through wood planks or sheets of metal or living flesh or brick walls. But is it really any more wonderful than that rays of light should go through glass or quartz or diamond or water? We are familiar with this last fact, because we can "see through" these substances. We know that glass does not shut out light, because we can see the space beyond it illuminated. But we have no sense that tells us of the presence of the Röntgen rays. We must resort to the photographic plate or the fluorescent screen (to be described further on), to show their presence, and for all information as to their behavior. The photographic plate is affected, while our eyes are not, and we are obliged to let such plates take the place of our eyes, and receive impressions which we can afterwards interpret.

But what are "rays"? When we stand in front of a fire of glowing coals we feel the warmth, and our eyes tell us of the light. Light and heat are said to radiate from the glowing coals, and both light and heat proceed in straight lines. These straight paths followed by radiations we have called rays. These rays are quivering motions in a medium which we call the ether, and which we believe extends through all space and pervades all bodies. They are waves, having the character of waves on the water, which we can see, and sound waves in air, which we know exist.

These ether waves, those that affect the eye and those which do not, differ from each other, as all wave motions differ, in the distance from wave to wave, or what is the same, in the frequency of the vibratory motions. As an example, compare the long ocean swell that comes thundering upon the beach at intervals of several seconds with the frequent swash, swash, swash of the little ripples on the shore of a fish-pond, or the vibrations that can be felt as a tremor of the whole church when the deep bass pipes of the great organ are sounded with the sharp shrill tones of the high treble pipe.

There are means of measuring the distances from wave to wave of the different rays in the ether, and the result is astounding. The frequency is something of which it is impossible to form any conception. About 20 millions of millions per second is the lowest, and about 1000 millions of millions the highest frequency. Of these, those only which lie between 400 and 760 millions of millions per second excite vision. In other words, the ether waves breaking upon the optic nerve must come at the rate of at least 400 millions of millions per second before that nerve will carry any impression to the brain—before we can "see" them. Why rays of these frequencies only should affect the eye we do not know. We only know that the structure of the eye is such that the other rays are powerless to produce vision. Neither do we know why the low-frequency rays will go through hard rubber and will not go through glass. We only know it is a fact.

All these ether rays may produce heat. The high-frequency rays affect the photographic sensitive plate, and also produce another effect that is of especial interest in connection with the study of the Röntgen rays. They have the power of exciting a peculiar luminosity, or light, in certain substances, which are for that reason called fluorescent.

Electrical discharges in vacuum tubes have long been known as sources of radiations which produce heat and affect the eye. Every student of physics knows the experiment with the aurora tube, which, when exhausted by a good air-pump and connected to a Holtz machine or induction coil, is seen filled with a pale light having something the appearance of the streamers of the Aurora Borealis.

FIG. 1.—THE APPARATUS USED IN MAKING RÖNTGEN RADIOGRAPHS.

Professor Crookes, by obtaining a vastly better vacuum, obtained in these tubes some new and very interesting phenomena. As the vacuum became better and better, the light within the tubes finally disappeared, and only the inside of the glass was illuminated. This Professor Crookes explained upon the supposition that the air particles remaining in the tubes are repelled from the negative terminal or "cathode" within the tube, and shoot off from it, proceeding in straight lines, until they come into collision with other particles or with the walls of the tubes, producing light wherever the collision occurs. When the exhaustion is sufficient these particles shooting out from the cathode meet with no obstructions until they reach the walls of the tube, which are bombarded by the flying particles until they shine with a sort of phosphorescent light, while the whole interior of the tube remains dark.

FIG. 2.—A RADIOGRAPH OF A MAN'S HAND.

These experiments have been repeated again and again for the last eighteen years in scientific laboratories and lecture-rooms, always exciting the greatest interest in the wonderful phenomena disclosed. But not until recently has it been known or suspected that all the time there were proceeding from the bombarded surface other rays, incapable of exciting vision, but possessing properties, and capable of producing effects even more wonderful than any that the Crookes tube had before shown. That certain invisible rays existed in the Crookes tube radiations was known about four years ago, but it remained for Professor Röntgen to demonstrate the remarkable properties which they possess. He found that a piece of card-board painted on one side with barium platino cyanide was illuminated when held near the excited Crookes tube, and that the painted surface was equally well illuminated, whether it or the reverse side of the card-board was presented to the tube. He further found that when the whole tube was covered with black paper, so that no rays affecting the eye could emerge, the painted screen was still illuminated, and further yet, that the illumination remained visible when a board an inch thick, a book of a thousand pages, or a plate of hard rubber was interposed between the tube and screen.

On the contrary, he found that glass, thin pieces of metal, the bones of the hand, more or less stopped the rays, and so cast shadows. It must have been a startling image that met Professor Röntgen's eye when first he placed his hand in the path of the rays, and saw upon the screen a bony skeleton hand with only a faint outline of flesh and cartilage. It was a startling experiment to me, after I had read all the accounts of Professor Röntgen's work, and knew what to expect, when I first saw the shadow of my own hand upon the fluorescent screen. Fig. 2 shows the appearance of such a shadow. After demonstrating in this way the transmission powers of various substances, Professor Röntgen tried the effect of the rays upon the photographic plate, and found it possible to fix there the images that he had seen upon the fluorescent screen.

Fig. 1 will show how the results are obtained. A is a galvanic battery, B is a Ruhmkorff induction coil, C is a Crookes tube, and D is the plate-holder containing the sensitive plate.

FIG. 3.—A GOLDFISH WITH THE SPINE AND SOME OF THE INTERNAL ORGANS VISIBLE.

The battery produces a low-tension harmless current that is rapidly closed and broken at the induction coil, which transforms it into a high-tension current capable of producing electric sparks, and giving exceedingly painful if not fatal electric shocks. Wires convey this high-tension current from the coil to the terminals of the Crookes tube, where the Röntgen rays are produced whenever the current is turned on. In the figure the plate-holder is shown only a few inches from the tube, where the effect of the rays is strong.

Fig. 3 shows a goldfish, with all his scales and flesh on. The line of his spine is clearly visible, and many of the inner organs of his body can be clearly seen, and the skeleton comes out very clearly, because the bones are more opaque to these rays than is any other part of the body.

FIG. 4.—WING OF A PIGEON, SHOWING THE SHADING EFFECT IN BONES.

Fig. 4 shows the wing of a pigeon, which is interesting, because while the outline of the flesh is distinctly marked the feathers have practically disappeared. The bones are not only clear, however, but the thinner parts are lighter than the thicker. Fig. 5 shows the leg and head of the pigeon. Around the head it is just possible to make out the outline of the feathers, the flesh is clearly marked, and all the bones of the neck are visible. In like manner the leg is interesting.

The transparency of the flesh makes it possible to show the presence and location in the body of foreign substances. Bullets, needles, and bits of glass have already been located by means of Röntgen ray photographs, and afterwards removed by a surgical operation.

FIG. 5.—HEAD AND LEG OF PIGEON.

It is curious that the part of the eye which is transparent to the light, and through which light passes to reach and affect the optic nerve, is nearly opaque to the Röntgen rays. Vision by means of these rays would therefore be impossible, even if the optic nerve were sensitive to them.

But suppose these rays could excite vision. What should we see? Holding a purse between the eye and a Röntgen ray source, we should see the coins within it. If a person stepped in the path of the ray we should see his bony skeleton. We might see something of his internal organs; perhaps we could see his heart beat. A broken bone could be seen, and the operation of setting it could be watched. Diseased bones or enlarged joints could be examined. Tubercles in the lungs would be visible. But these things would be visible only when they came between the eye and the source of the rays, much as on a dark night objects might be visible between you and a camp fire.

In daylight objects become visible by means of the light which falls upon them and is reflected to the eye. This brings out the detail of the visible surface. But the Röntgen rays are scarcely at all reflected, and even if they produced vision, objects would become visible only as they intercepted the rays. They would not be illuminated as they are illuminated by rays of light, and only outlines, therefore, would be seen. Even fluorescent bodies which appear light under the action of the Röntgen rays are not really illuminated, but are rendered luminous—that is, are made to shine by their own light. When bodies opaque to the rays are placed before the fluorescent screen, merely a shadow is seen on it. So the photographs or "radiographs" obtained are only shadows, but they are not the flat featureless shadows of the "shadow pictures" often introduced as an entertainment at social gatherings, when the identity of the person casting the shadow is often impossible to make out. Few substances are entirely opaque to the Röntgen rays, hence the shadows of thicker portions of an object will be deeper than of the thinner portions, and the shadow becomes a shaded picture that may give details of the surfaces of the object. A Röntgen ray shadow of an aluminum medal may show the design stamped upon the surface. The shading effect is well shown in the bones of the pigeon.

But if there are few substances entirely opaque to the newly discovered rays, there appear to be none that are entirely transparent. Even in air the rays appear to be rapidly absorbed, so that an extremely powerful apparatus is required for producing effects at any distance. Air seems to behave toward the Röntgen rays much as fog behaves to light, and it seems unlikely that effects can be procured at any great distance, perhaps not more than one hundred feet from the source.

It would be rash to attempt to predict the future of the Röntgen ray. The uses to which it may be applied in surgery have already been hinted at in this article. The transparency of wood makes it possible to inspect the work of a carpenter, and determine whether the work hidden under the exterior finish has been honestly done. Hidden compartments in a desk or cabinet might be revealed. The contents of a packing-box might be ascertained without opening it. But to scientific men these rays have a very great interest. What are they? Are they vibrating movements transmitted in waves, like light? Are they particles shot off from the Crookes tube and flying with enormous velocity? These are questions to be answered.

When you stand in front of a Crookes tube in action these flying particles are streaming through your body, stopping not at all at your clothing, and hardly at all checked by the flesh, nor wholly stopped even by the bones. A hard-wood board held between you and the tube is no protection. The streams pass through it unchecked. Sheets of metal even do not wholly stop them. The wonder of it all is that for nearly twenty years experimenters with the Crookes tube have been pierced through and through by these subtle streams and have never known it. Do they produce any effect as they pass through the body? Can they cause or cure disease?

It has been proved that they pass quite freely through the lungs, but if tubercules are present they stop the rays. Might not the touch of the flowing streams dissipate the tuberculosis growth and restore health? Questions like these are coming up for solution, and experimenters are seeking the answers. The study of the Röntgen ray has just begun. What may not the next few months bring forth?

AN "OLD-FIELD" SCHOOL-GIRL.[1]

BY MARION HARLAND.

CHAPTER IV.

The Foggs lived on a funny little piece of land wedged in between two of the Greenfield farms. The house was a cabin of two rooms, with a stone chimney built on the outside, but the Foggs boasted that fifty-three children had been born and brought up in it. How they lived was a partial mystery to the neighborhood. They raised corn and potatoes and little else in the ground enclosed by a "worm-fence," built, it was more than suspected, of rails stolen, a few at a time, from the Greenfield fences. An acre of woodland behind the house was supposed to furnish them with fuel, and there were always pigs and chickens running wild, with a dozen or so children, in the road and fields.

They were "poor white folks" in a county where nearly everybody was respectable and well-to-do. No member of the family was ever convicted of an offence that took him into the courts. They might be suspected of stealing chickens, pigs, and wood, and even of robbing a smoke-house once in a while, but nothing was ever proved against them. Not one of them, so far as was known, had ever been in prison, and not one had ever grown rich or really respectable.

As the Grigsby children, neat and trim, lunch bags and books in hand, passed the Fogg cabin on the Monday morning the school opened, two men and four children were in and about the yard. Mrs. Fogg, the mistress of the house, stood on the porch, her married daughter, with two dirty babies holding to her skirt, leaned against a corner of the chimney; a barefoot boy was chopping sticks upon a log, a smaller boy trying to grind his knife upon a grind-stone. All stopped what they were doing to stare at the sisters and brother, and the elder matron hailed them in a coarse voice more like a man's than a woman's.

"Goin' t' school, ain't you?"

Dee nodded without halting; Bea walked straight onward, her chin level, her white sun-bonnet hiding her face. To her horror and displeasure Flea stopped, and replied politely over the tumble-down fence:

"Good-morning, Mrs. Fogg! I hope you are all well to-day."

"Tolerable, thank God!" said the old woman, changing her tone into a snuffling whine. "Ain't you too soon fo' school? The teacher 'ain' gone by yet."

"We like to be in good time," rejoined Flea, affably. "Aren't your boys going?"

"No, bless you, honey. Major Duncomb won't let them go in on the county, an' pore folks ain't got no money to pay teachers with. Ah well! Th' Almighty, He knows! The new teacher's real spry, ain' he?"

"Flea Grigsby!" called Bea, over her shoulder. "Come right along, or I'll tell ma when I go home."

Flea noticed her as little as she noticed Mrs. Fogg's remark on the new teacher's spryness. She had an idea, and was in a hurry to air it. "Major Duncombe!" she repeated. "Could he let the children in free if he liked?"

"Cert'nly, honey! He has the fus' word in all the county. Nobody dar' say his soul's his own 'less he lets 'em. 'Lord! how long? how long?'"

"I am very well acquainted with Major Duncombe," rushed on Flea, with an important air. "And you may be sure, Mrs. Fogg, that I'll speak to him about your grandchildren. Good-morning!"

She was out of breath when she overtook her sister. Bea had walked fast purposely to make the others run, loyal Dee having loitered behind with Flea.

"I should think you'd be 'shamed of yourself, stoppin' to talk with poor white folks 'long the road," commented the elder sister.

Flea smiled mysteriously. "I had business with Mrs. Fogg."

"Business! Well, I never! The less you have to do with that kind, the better."

"Mrs. Fogg is not a bad woman, Bea," said Flea, seriously. "When you ask how she is, she always says, 'Pretty well, thank God,' just like Mrs. Elton in Anna Ross. I think she is a very pious person, and it is not her fault that she is poor. I stopped in the porch once when it was raining, and she talked a great deal about the trouble she had had, and how much she prayed, and so on. If I could, I'd be a benefactor to people like that."

"I think sometimes you 'ain't got the sense you were born with, Flea Grigsby. The idea o' you benefacting anything or anybody!"

Flea's smile was yet more mysterious. In her glee over her new scheme she squeezed Dee's arm.

"You wait and see! We know—don't we, Dee?"

"Yes, sir-r-r!" said Dee, stoutly.

The prospective benefactress was still swelling with her secret when they arrived at the school-house. The boys sat on one side of the room, the girls on the other, a narrow aisle separating them. Dee dropped into a seat near the door; the girls walked well forward and took places close to the aisle. Three minutes afterward the teacher appeared in the doorway, and Major Duncombe with him. Whispers and shuffling ceased instantly; all eyes were fixed upon the two gentlemen as they went up to the top of the room, turning there to face the school. It was all quite proper and dignified, until the Major, having motioned to Mr. Tayloe to take the chair ready for him, hung himself, as it were, across the corner of the desk, as Flea had seen him do last Saturday.

"For all the world like a pair of saddle-bags," Bea told her mother afterward.

Sitting thus, he watched the assembling of the motley crowd with kindly interest. Now and then he smiled and bowed, and it was always a girl whom he noticed in this way. Flea flushed delightedly at seeing that his smile and salutation to her were especially friendly. His eyes said that he was glad she was here and no worse for her adventure. Many recollected, in after-days, how sombre was the aspect of the new teacher by contrast with the Major's sunny face. One recalled that he had looked at her and frowned when she returned Major Duncombe's bow and smile.

At the time the frown gave her no concern. Her patron had distinguished her from the common herd by special courtesy. It was a promise of the eminence that would be hers from this time onward. She was already set apart and above her schoolmates.

The Major made a little speech by way of opening the session of the school. It was like himself, informal and pleasant.

"Young ladies and boys," he said, not rising from the desk, and even switching his boot lightly with his riding-whip while he talked, "I have gone security for your good behavior to the gentleman who takes charge of you for the year to come. I know you won't disappoint him or me. I have proved my faith in him as a gentleman and a scholar by putting my two boys under his care. I have told him to be strict with them. The teacher who does his duty is bound to be strict. A school is like an army. Orders must be carried out and no questions asked, and no tales told out of school. That was the law in my school-days, and it is a good law. From the very start you must believe that your teacher is your friend, and that he is doing his best. Take my word for that until you find it out for yourselves. I go his security too. I know all about him. I knew his grandfather and his father. They were true Virginia gentlemen from crown to toe. And a Virginia gentleman of the right sort is the best specimen of a man ever made. Never forget that, boys. I knew Mr. Tayloe's mother also, young ladies." In addressing them he arose to his feet, and his voice was gentler: "She was a lady such as a man takes his hat off to when he so much as thinks of her. For her sake I know that her son will treat you kindly and respectfully. For my sake I hope that you will prove yourselves, as young ladies always do, the most obedient and diligent students in the school. Upon my word"—abandoning the attempt at formal gallantry, and relapsing into his every-day manner—"when I look into these bright eyes and rosy faces, I envy Mr. Tayloe the privilege of leading you along the flowery paths of learning.

"This is all I have to say to you at present. All I ought to say, I mean, for I could talk for hours, it is so delightful to see you, and to live over for the time my own school-days in this very place. And so, good-day, and God bless every one of you!"

In passing down the aisle he laid his hand lightly upon what her father called Flea's "Shetland-pony mane," and sent a merry flash of his gray eyes into hers uplifted in enchanted surprise.

Mr. Tayloe rapped smartly upon his desk with the ruler, and flourished it at the beginning and the end of his short speech.

"Children, I am here to teach. You are here to be taught. I mean to do my duty. I shall make it my business to see that you do yours. I shall treat you, one and all, boys and girls, exactly alike. I shall have no favorites, and show no partiality to anybody. If you are lazy and disobedient and saucy, you will be punished without fear or favor. If you study well and behave well, you will not be punished.

"The school will be opened every morning by reading the Scriptures and with prayer. Open your Bibles at the first chapter of Genesis."

Every scholar had a Bible. Some had brought no other book with them. The rustling of leaves caused by the command subsided, and the teacher read distinctly, in a metallic tone, the first verse:

"'In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.' What is your name?" addressing in precisely the same voice a boy who sat at the extreme left of the front row of benches.

"Thomas Carter, sir!" faltered the startled lad.

"Thomas Carter will read the second verse, the boy next to him the third, and so on, right across the room to the end of the front bench where those girls are sitting. Then the girl next to the wall on the second bench will take her turn, and so on, clear across the room back to the other wall. Go on, Thomas Carter."

Some of the scholars read badly, some tolerably well. With one exception, none of them did themselves justice. They were diffident under the gaze of the pale blue eyes, or flustered by the sound of their own voices in the deep stillness that had fallen upon the school-room. Flea Grigsby alone kept a steady head and a steady voice. She read uncommonly well for a girl of her age, and she knew it. The boy across the aisle from her had fallen over the word "firmament," and the teacher had helped him to pass it by obliging him to spell the word twice, then to re-read the verse. Flea was the first girl who was called upon to read.

In her zeal she spoke more loudly than she was conscious of doing, emphasized certain words in a marked way, and did not forget to count "one" to herself at the comma, and "one, two, three," at the colon.

"And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so."

Bea's pretty lips were parting to begin the next verse when the teacher's gesture arrested her. An unpleasant smile drew up the corners of his mouth; his eyes were fixed upon Flea's face. To the amazement of the school he proceeded to read aloud the verse she had just finished, mimicking her girlish pipe, and exaggerating into absurdity the emphasis she had meant to make effective.

Some of the boys snickered; a few girls giggled. The rest looked scared and puzzled.

"THAT IS NOT READING; THAT IS MOUTHING."

"That is not reading; that is mouthing," Mr. Tayloe ended the imitation by saying. "The sooner you get rid of that sort of affectation, Felicia Grigsby, the better for yourself. It may do for your private Shakespeare studies. It will not do for the Bible and this school. You think it very fine; it is really ridiculous. Next girl, read the eighth verse!"

The blow was brutal. It cut, as he had meant it should, down to the quick of the child's sensibilities. True, her self-conceit and her mannerisms had drawn it upon her. When children are thus "taken down" by their superiors in age and position we say, "It hurts, but it is good for them. But for such rubs they would be prigs; but for such pricks to vanity they would grow up cads. We all had to go through the small mill. In after-years we are the wiser for it."

Had Felicia Grigsby dropped from the bench in a dead swoon it would have been a merciful relief from what she endured, as, with eyes bent upon the page she could not see for the hot haze that swam between her and it, she sat perfectly still and let teacher and pupils think what they might of her.

At last she was dully awake to the fact that the boys on the front bench were upon their second round. Her turn would be upon her again before she could stop breathing fast or swallow the burning ball in her throat. She could not speak! She would not try. Nearer and nearer came the husky, reedy voices of the big boys. There were five on the front bench. The smallest of the five sat next to the aisle. His name was Senalius Snead. They called him "Snail" for short. He had a high, squeaking voice, like a pig's squeal. She had not turned a leaf. She could not have read a line if she had, but her ears, grown all at once acute, lost not one of the stammered words. Senalius Snead read horribly. She had pitied him when he read awhile ago. She could wish now that he would go on forever.

"And-the-evening-and-the-morning-were-the—"

"Spell it!" ordered the teacher, as the boy brought up short.

Without looking at him, Flea knew that he used a stubby forefinger with a dirty nail as a "pointer."

"S-i-x-t-h!" he squeaked. "Sixtieth day!"

"It would have been the sixtieth if you had had a hand in the job," said the master, smiling his unpleasant smile. "As it is, 's-i-x-t-h,' spells 'sixth.' Let us pray! The scholars will kneel."

The chapter was ended then! Flea grew sick all over. Her head felt queer, and the sweat started out in icy drops upon her forehead and upper lip. She never knew how she got upon her knees, but she was there, her face in her hands, her elbows upon the bench. Mr. Tayloe stood up and read a short prayer from a book. It asked, among other things, that "our hands may be kept from picking and stealing." There was nothing about breaking the hearts and casting down the dreams of others, or trampling under foot the small, sweet courtesies that make working-day lives tolerable. If there had been, Mr. James Tayloe would have read it all in the one tone—a tone as void of feeling and sympathy as the "rat-a-tat-tat" of a spoon upon a dish-pan.

The morning was given up to examination and arrangement of the scholars into classes. There was good stuff in Felicia, for by the time she was called forward, with six other girls about the same age and size with herself, to show what she knew, she had plucked up spirit to answer clearly every question put to her. Except that her eyes were dull, and the lip-lines sagged somewhat, she looked like her usual self. The questions that fell to her were many, and the questioner pressed them closely, taking nothing for granted. He even laid traps for her by varying the forms of the queries.

"You said that General Washington fought the battle of the Cowpens, I believe?" he said once.

"No, sir; Colonel Washington."

And again, "You don't pretend to tell me that Cornwallis did not give his sword to Washington's representative after the battle of Trenton?"

"No, sir. That was at Yorktown."

By-and-by—"The sun is nearer to the earth than the moon is, or it would not be so much hotter. That is so—isn't it?"

Flea's dull eyes did not light up, but a slight smile contracted her mouth. "The sun is 95,000,000 miles from the earth. The moon is 240,000 miles."

It was small game for a grown man, but the exchange of question and reply became presently a sort of wordy duel. The girl was on her mettle—Scotch mettle—and showed no sign of confusion when sure of her ground. Hers was an excellent mind, retentive as well as quick. What she had learned she kept, and understood how to use it.

Her father would have been proud of his lassie's proficiency in geography, grammar, and history, of her reading, her spelling, and her writing, had he been there. His heart would have been sore for her when the inquisitor at length probed her weak spot. She disliked arithmetic, and was hardly further advanced in it than the little girls beside her, who had heard with hanging jaws and round eyes what was to them a miraculous show of learning.

Mr. James Tayloe's faint blue eyes shone and twinkled at the first blunder. At the fifth he laughed out the short harsh snarl his pupils were to learn to dread.

"Aha!" He actually snapped his fingers with glee. "You don't know everything then, if you are to be a 'comfort and a pride' to your teacher—his one 'industrious and intelligent pupil!' When I meet with a boy—and especially with a girl—who thinks she can tell me more than I ever thought of learning, I like to take her down a peg or two!"

He need not have said it. The whole school looking on, partly in alarm, partly, I am sorry to say, in amusement that was the livelier for a dash of envy, understood already that for some reason he would enjoy lowering the girl in her own eyes and in the sight of others.

He was a man of strong prejudices and overbearing temper. He had been brought up as a rich man's son, and his father had died poor just as his son had left the university. In order to get the means for studying law, he must teach school for a couple of years, and Major Duncombe, who knew his story, offered him the neighborhood school, doubling the salary out of his own pocket without letting this be known to the young teacher.

He had taken a positive dislike to our poor Flea on Saturday, upon what seemed to him good grounds. Her forced composure under the severe examination to which he had subjected her was, in his opinion, sheer effrontery. She thought too much of herself, and should be taught her proper place. If she had trembled and cried, as several of the other girls had, he would have let her off more easily. She was as vain as a peacock and as stubborn as a mule, in his opinion. Such behavior was rank rebellion, and he meant to put it down with a strong hand.

[to be continued.]

[RICK DALE.]

BY KIRK MUNROE.

CHAPTER XV.

CAPTURED BY A REVENUE-CUTTER.

The sight of that armed boat making fast to the sloop, and its agile occupants springing on board, was so startling to the two lads taking in its every detail from their point of vantage on shore, that if excitement could have affected Alaric Todd's heart it would certainly have done so at that moment. As it was, he did not even realize that his heart was beating unusually fast. His mind was too full of other thoughts just then for him to remember that he had a heart. He only realized that the vessel of which he had formed the crew had fallen into the clutches of outraged law, and that for the present at least her career as a smuggler was at an end. Now that she was really captured, he was conscious of a regret that after successfully eluding her enemies so long she should after all fall into their hands. He even felt sorry for Captain Duff, surly old bear that he was.

At the same time he was thankful not to be on board the captured craft, and rejoiced in the thought that this sudden change of affairs would sweep away all Bonny's scruples, and leave him free to seek some occupation other than that of being a smuggler.

As for that young sailor himself, his feelings were equally contradictory with those of his companion, though his sympathies leaned more decidedly toward the side of the law-breaker.

"Poor Cap'n Duff!" he exclaimed in a low tone. "This is tough luck for him; and I must say, Rick Dale, that the whole thing is pretty much your fault, too. If you'd kept a half-way decent lookout you'd have seen that yawl when she was two miles off. Then we could have got under way, and given her the slip as easy as you please. Now you and I have lost our job, while Cap'n Duff will lose his and his boat besides. I'll never see my wages, either; and, worst of all, in spite of my invention working so smooth these revenue fellows have got the laugh on us. I say it's too bad, though to be sure it does let us out of the smuggling business. I expect it will be a long time, though, before I get another job as first mate, or any other kind of a job that will be worth having."

"But, Bonny," interposed Alaric, anxious to defend his own reputation, "I wasn't told to look out for boats, but only to watch the cutter, and I hardly took my eyes off of her until you came."

"That's all right; only by the time you've knocked round the world as much as I have you'll find out that any fellow who expects to get promoted has got to do a heap of things besides those he's told to do. What he is told to do is generally only a hint of what he is expected to do. But just listen to the old man. Isn't he laying down the law to those chaps, though?"

The voices of those on the sloop came plainly to the ears of the hidden lads, and above them all roared and bellowed that of Captain Duff, as though he expected to overwhelm his enemies by sheer force of bluster.

"Chinamen!" he shouted—"Chinamen! No, sir, ye won't find no Chinamen aboard this craft, nor nothing else onlawful."

"Smell 'em, do ye? Smell 'em! So do I now, and hev ever sence you revenooers come aboard. Seems like ye can't get the parfume out of your clothing."

"Going to seize the sloop anyway, be ye? Waal, ye kin do it, seeing as I'm all alone and a cripple. There'll come a day of reckoning, though—a day of reckoning, d'ye hear? I'm a free-born American citizen, and I'll protest agin this outrage till they hear me clear to Washington."

"He's heard over a good part of Washington this minute," whispered Bonny. "But what are they talking about now?"

"Phil Ryder!" the Captain was shouting. "Philip Ryder! No, sir, there ain't no one of that name aboard this craft, nor hain't ever been as I know of. I did know a Phil Ryder once, but— What's that ye say? That'll do? Waal, it won't do, ye gold-mounted swab, not so long as I choose to keep on talking. Lookout there, or I'll brain ye sure as guns! Lookout, I—"

This last exclamation was directed to a couple of sturdy bluejackets, who, obeying a significant nod from their officer, seized the irate Captain by either arm, hustled him down into his own cabin, and drew the slide. Then leaving these two aboard the Fancy, the others re-entered their boat and began to pull toward shore, with the evident intention of making a search for the missing members of the sloop's crew as well as for her recent passengers.

"Hello!" cried Bonny, softly, "this thing is beginning to get rather too interesting for us, and the sooner we light out the better."

So the lads started on a run, and had gone but a few rods, when Alaric, catching his toe on a projecting root, was tripped up and fell heavily. With such force was he flung to the ground that for several minutes he was too sick and dizzy to rise. When he finally regained his feet, and expressed a belief that he could again run, it was too late. The boat's crew were already scattering through the woods, and one man, detailed to search the point, was coming directly toward the place where the boys were concealed.

It seemed inevitable that they should be discovered, and Alaric, already giving himself up for lost, was beginning to see visions of the government prison on McNeil's Island, when Bonny spied one avenue of escape that was still open to them.

"Scrooch low!" he whispered, "and follow me as softly as you can."

Alaric obeyed, and the young sailor began to move as rapidly as possible toward the beach. With inexcusable carelessness the Lieutenant had left his boat hauled up on the shore without a man to guard her. Bonny noticed this, and also that the sloop's dinghy still lay where he had left it. If they could only reach the dinghy unobserved they would stand a much better chance of making an escape by water than by land.

So the boys crept cautiously through the undergrowth without attracting the attention of their only near-by pursuer, until they reached the beach, where a cleared space of about one hundred feet intervened between them and their coveted goal, and this they must cross, exposed to the full view of any who might be looking that way. They paused for an instant, drew long breaths, and then made a dash into the open.

Almost with the first sound of rattling pebbles beneath their feet came a yell from behind. The bluejacket had discovered them, and was leaping down the steep slope in hot pursuit.

"RUN, RICK! YOU'VE GOT TO RUN!" PANTED BONNY.

"Run, Rick! You've got to run!" panted Bonny. "Give me the bag." Snatching the canvas bag from Alaric's hands as he spoke, the active young fellow darted ahead and flung it into the dinghy. "Now shove!" he cried. "Shove with all your might!"

It was all they could do to move the boat, for the tide had fallen sufficiently to leave it hard aground, and with their first straining shove they only gained a couple of feet; the next put half her length in the water, and with a third effort she floated free.

"Tumble in!" shouted Bonny, and Alaric obeyed literally, pitching head foremost across the thwarts with such violence, that but for his comrade's hold on the opposite side the boat would surely have been capsized.

With the water above his knees, Bonny gave a final shove that sent the boat a full rod from shore, and in turn tumbled aboard.

He was none too soon; for at that moment the sailor reached the spot they had just left, and rushing into the water, began to swim after them with splendid overhand strokes. Bonny snatched up the dinghy's single oar, and seeing that they would be overtaken before he could get the boat under way, brandished it like a club, threatening to bring it down on the man's head if he came within reach.

A single glance at the lad's resolute face convinced the swimmer that he was in dead earnest, and realizing his own helplessness, he wisely turned back. Then with a shout of derision Bonny began to scull the dinghy toward open water, while the sailor strove with unavailing efforts to launch the heavy yawl.

Without troubling themselves any further about him, the lads turned their attention to the sloop, which they were now approaching. The two men left in charge had watched with great interest the scene just enacted so close to them, but in which, having no boat at their disposal, they were unable to participate. Now one of them shouted: "Come aboard here, you young villains! What do you mean by running off with government property?"

"What do you mean by eating my breakfast?" replied Alaric, hungrily, as he noticed the men making a hearty meal off the food they had discovered in the sloop's galley.

"Your breakfast is it, son? So you belong to this craft, do you? Come aboard and get it, then."

"Don't you wish we would?" retorted Bonny, jeeringly, as he stopped sculling and allowed the dinghy to drift just beyond reach from the sloop. "I say, though, you might toss us a couple of hardtack."

"What? Feed you young pirates with rations that's just been seized by the government? Not much. I'm in the service, I am."

Just then a bright object flashed from one of the little round cabin windows and fell in the dinghy. It was a box of sardines. Tins of potted meat, mushrooms, and other delicacies followed in quick succession. One or two fell in the water and were lost; but most of them reached their destination, and were deftly caught by Alaric, whose baseball experience was thus put to practical use. So before the bewildered guards fully realized what was taking place the dinghy was fairly well provisioned. At length one of them seemed to comprehend the situation, and sprang in front of the open port just in time to stop with his legs a flying tumbler of raspberry jam. As it broke and streamed down over his white duck trousers the boys in the dinghy shouted with laughter, and nearly rolled overboard in their irrepressible mirth.

All at once there came a hoarse shout from the same cabin port. "Look astarn, ye lubbers! Look astarn!"

So occupied had the lads been with the sloop that they had given no thought to what might be taking place on shore, but at this warning a startled glance in that direction filled them with dismay.

Another sailor, attracted by the shouts on the beach, had returned to the assistance of his mate, and together they had succeeded in launching the yawl. Then, pulling very softly, they had slipped up on the unwary lads, until they were so close that one of them had quit rowing, and crept forward to the bow, when he crouched with an outstretched boat-hook, that in another second would be caught over the dinghy's sternboard.

CHAPTER XVI.

ESCAPE OF THE FIRST MATE AND CREW.

The situation certainly looked hopeless for our lads, and the men on the sloop were already shouting derisively at them. Alaric caught another mental glimpse of the government prison, and even Bonny's stout heart experienced an instant of despair. He was still standing in the stern of the dinghy and holding the oar that he had used in sculling. Moved by a sudden impulse, and just as the extended boat-hook was dropping over the stern of the dinghy, he struck it a smart blow with his oar, and had the good fortune to send it whirling from the sailor's grasp. With a second quick motion the lad set his oar against the stern of the yawl, that was now within four feet of him, and gave a vigorous shove. The slight headway of the heavy craft was checked, and the lighter dinghy forged ahead.

"Oh, you will, will you, you young rascal?" cried the sailor, angrily, as he leaped back to his thwart, and bent to his oar with furious energy. His companion followed his example, and under the impetus of their powerful strokes the yawl sprang forward. At the same time Bonny, facing backward, and working his oar with both hands, was sculling so sturdily that the dinghy rocked from side to side until it seemed to Alaric that she must certainly capsize. She was making such splendid headway, though, that the much heavier yawl could not gain an inch. Its crew, unable to see the fugitive dinghy without turning their heads, and having no one to steer for them, were placed at a disadvantage that Bonny was quick to detect.

Watching his opportunity, he caused his craft to swerve sharply to one side, and the yawl holding her original course for some seconds before his manœuvre was discovered, his lead was thus materially increased.

Just as Bonny was ready to drop his oar from exhaustion a shrill, long-drawn whistle sounded from the now distant beach. Its effect on the crew of the yawl was magical. They stopped rowing, looked at each other, and consulted. Then they gazed at the retreating dinghy and hesitated. They felt it to be their duty to continue the pursuit, but they also knew the penalty for disobeying an order from a superior, and that whistle was an unmistakable order for them to go back.

The cutter's third Lieutenant had returned from his expedition into the woods with three wretched Chinamen, whom, despite their eagerly produced certificates, he had seen fit to make prisoners. He was amazed to find the yawl gone from where he had left it, and the details of the chase in which it was engaged being hidden from him by the intervening sloop, he gave the whistle signal for its immediate return.

As the crew of the yawl hesitated between duty and obedience the peremptory whistle order was repeated louder and shriller than before. This decided the wavering sailors, and they reluctantly turned their boat.

As for the fugitives, they could hardly believe the evidence of their senses. Was the chase indeed given over, and were they free to go where they pleased? It seemed incredible. Just as they were on the point of being captured, too, for Bonny now confided to Alaric that he couldn't have held out at that pace one minute longer. As he said this the tired lad sat down for a short rest.

Almost immediately he again sprang to this feet, and thrusting his oar overboard, began to scull with one hand. "It won't do for us to be loafing here," he explained, "for I expect those fellows have been called back so that the whole crowd can chase us in the sloop."

"Oh, I hope not," said Alaric; "I'm tired of running away."

"So am I," laughed Bonny—"tired in more ways than one; but if fellows bigger than we are will insist on chasing us, I don't see that there is anything for us to do but run. There! thank goodness we've rounded the point at last, and got out of sight of them for a while at any rate."

"Where are you going now, and what do you propose to do next?" asked Alaric, who, fully realizing his own helplessness in this situation, was willing to leave the whole scheme of escape to his more experienced companion.

"That's what I'm wondering. Of course it won't do to stay out here very long, for in less than fifteen minutes the sloop will be shoving her nose around that point. Nor it wouldn't be any use to try and get to Tacoma—at least not yet a while—for that's where they'll be most likely to hunt for us. So I think we'd better cross the channel, turn our boat adrift, and make our way overland to Skookum John's camp. It isn't very sweet-smelling, and they don't feed you any too well—that is, not according to our ideas—but just because it is such a mean kind of a place no one will ever think of looking for us there. Besides, Skookum's a very decent sort of a chap, and he'll keep us posted on all that happens in the bay. So if you don't mind roughing it a bit—"

"No, indeed," interrupted Alaric, eagerly. "I don't mind it at all. In fact, that is just what I want to do most of anything, and I've always wished I could live in a real Indian camp. The only Indians I ever saw were in the Wild West Show in Paris."

"Have you been to Paris?" asked Bonny, wonderingly.

"Yes, of course, I was there for— I mean yes, I've been there. But, Bonny, what makes you think of turning this boat adrift? Wouldn't we find her useful?"

"I suppose we might; but she isn't our boat, you know, and you wouldn't keep a boat that didn't belong to you just because it might prove useful, would you?"

"No, certainly not," replied Alaric, rather surprised to have his companion take this view of the question. "I would try and hand her over to the rightful owner."

"So would I," agreed Bonny, "if I knew who he was; but after what has just happened I don't know, and so I am going to turn her adrift in the hope that he will find her. Besides, it wouldn't be safe to leave her on shore, because she would show anybody who happened to be looking for us just where we had landed."

"That's a much better reason than the other," said Alaric.

During this conversation the dinghy had been urged steadily across the channel, and was now run up to a bold bank, where the boys disembarked. After removing Alaric's bag and the several cans of provisions so thoughtfully furnished them by Captain Duff, Bonny gave the boat a push out into the channel, down which the ebbing tide bore her, with many a twist and turn, toward the more open waters of the sound.

"To be left in this way in an unknown wilderness makes me feel as Cortez must have felt when he burned his ships," reflected Alaric, as he watched the receding craft.

"I don't think I ever heard about that," said Bonny, simply. "Did he do it for the insurance?"

"Not exactly," laughed Alaric; "and yet in a certain way he did too. I'll tell you all about it some time. Now, what are you going to do next?"

"Climb that bluff, lie down under those trees while you eat something, and watch for the sloop," answered Bonny, as though his programme had all been arranged beforehand.

They did this, and Alaric was so hungry that he made away with a whole box of sardines and a tin of deviled ham. He wondered a little if they would not make him ill, but did not worry much, for he was rapidly learning that while leading an out-of-door life one may eat with impunity many things that would kill one under more ordinary conditions. He had just finished his ham, and was casting thoughtful glances toward a bottle of olives, when Bonny exclaimed. "There she is!"

Sure enough, the sloop, with the cutter's yawl in tow, was slowly beating out past the point on the opposite side of the channel. She stood well over toward the western shore, and the tide so carried her down that when she tacked she was close under the bluff on which the boys, stretched at full length and peering through a fringe of tall grasses, watched her. She came so near that Alaric grew nervous, and was certain her crew were about to make a landing at that very spot. With a vision of McNeil's Island always before him, he wanted to run from so dangerous a vicinity and hide in the forest depths; but Bonny assured him that the sloop would go about, and in another moment she did so, greatly to Alaric's relief.

They could see that Captain Duff was still confined below, and they even heard one of the men sing out to the officer in command: "There it is now, sir, about two miles down the channel. I can see it plain."

"Very good," answered the Lieutenant; "keep your eye on it, and note if they make a landing. If they don't, we'll have them inside of half an hour."

"Yes, you will," said Bonny, with a grin.

As the sloop passed out of hearing the lads crept back from the edge of the bluff, gathered up their scanty belongings, and started through the forest toward the place where Bonny believed Skookum John's camp to be located.

After an hour of hard travel, they came suddenly on the camp, and were terrified at sight of the cutter's yawl lying in the mouth of the creek, and the revenue officer standing on shore engaged in earnest conversation with Skookum John himself. Soon he shook hands with the Indian and stepped into his boat. Just as it was about to shove off, a villanous cur, scenting the new-comers, darted toward their hiding-place, barking furiously.

[to be continued.]

MAP OF THE CONGO BASIN.

STORIES OF CONGO DISCOVERY.

THE SECOND LARGEST RIVER IN THE WORLD.

BY CYRUS C. ADAMS.

A NATIVE RIVER BRIDGE.

About a hundred years ago the school children of our country were reading in their Morse's Geography that there were no great mountains in North America, and that our largest mountains were the Alleghanies, which were supposed to be a continuation of the Andes, interrupted by the Gulf of Mexico. Teachers in those days edified boys and girls with more or less amusing misinformation such as this about the land they lived in. It was three hundred years after Columbus had discovered America, and such blunders in the text-books show how very slowly geographical knowledge had grown in those centuries.

But there has been a revolution. For over fifty years men and women have been eagerly studying this great house where we abide, with its five big rooms and its thousands of little ones. No one ever saw before such zeal for geographical discovery. Africa heads the list, for that continent, a fourth larger than our own, which was scarcely known a century ago, except in its outlines and along some of its rivers, has been thrown open to our gaze in nearly every corner; and the part of Africa where the greatest amount of work, the largest interest, and the most surprising discoveries have centred is the basin of the Congo, the second largest of the world's river systems.

Europe knew of this mighty river before she ever heard of Columbus. For four centuries sailors of various lands saw the Atlantic tinted for forty miles from the shore by the yellow Congo tide; but no one knew till Stanley told, eighteen years ago, where this mighty flood came from. Livingstone lived and travelled for many months along the far upper Congo, but the great old man died in the belief that he had traced one of the sources of the Nile. It was the Niger problem reversed. Nobody knew for centuries where the Niger River reached the sea. Nobody knew where the Congo gathered its great floods. One river needed a mouth, and the other a fountainhead, and so some wise geographers united the two, making the Niger the upper part of the Congo. Mungo Park, who traced the upper Niger for a thousand miles, believed it was a Congo tributary, if not the Congo itself; and the Tuckey expedition perished of fever among the lower Congo cataracts in 1816, while bravely trying to fulfil their mission to ascend the Congo to the Niger, if the two rivers were really one.

Eighteen years ago Stanley traced the Congo from central Africa over 1500 miles to the ocean. His great discovery made him famous, but other men who followed him, some of whose names are hardly known, except to geographers, have travelled far more widely in the Congo basin than Stanley was able to do. He led the way, and forty or fifty followers, scattering all over the Congo basin, which is half as large as the United States, have been revealing this land to us; and students of the ocean have been studying the sea-bed off its mouth. Let us glance at a few facts that have been learned about this mighty river system.

It is found that more water pours into the ocean through the Congo's mouth, which is six miles wide, than from all the other rivers in Africa put together. The soft, dark-colored mud brought down by the river has been distinctly traced on the ocean bottom for six hundred miles from the land. In no other part of any ocean do the influences of the land waters make themselves felt so far out to sea.

But it is not the deep lower Congo, which large steamers from Europe ascend to the foot of the rapids, nor the roaring torrents along the 235 miles of the cataract region, that have attracted most attention. It is the placid upper Congo, with its few reaches of rapids, and its many tributaries, stretching away to far-distant parts of inner Africa, that has kept the map-makers busy. This is the part of the continent where explorers have been most active and the results most remarkable. No part of the world of the same extent ever yielded so many geographical surprises as did this region from 1885 to 1890. It was simply impossible for the cartographers to keep their maps abreast of the news as it came from the upper Congo.

BOMA, THE CAPITAL OF THE CONGO STATE. STANLEY'S BOAT IN THE FOREGROUND.

In January, 1885, the missionary George Grenfell started from Stanley Pool on his little steamboat in quest of villages of friendly natives where mission stations might be planted with good prospects of success. He had previously been far up the river, and thought he knew it very well; but on this trip he accidentally got out of the Congo, and did not discover his mistake until he had steamed along a whole day, and found that his little craft was pushing into a region where no white man had ever been before. Grenfell had stumbled into the mouth of the Mobangi-Makua River. For more than two years Stanley and his followers had been travelling up and down the Congo, but they never saw—or at least they never recognized—this great affluent, which is larger than any European river except the Volga and the Danube. Grenfell forgot his missions for the time, became the zealous explorer, and kept on his course up the wide river until he was stopped by rapids, having left the Congo about 400 miles behind; and while he was threading the virgin stream Stanley was in England making his large map of the Congo, on which not a trace of its greatest tributary appeared. The distinguished explorer was the first victim of the swarm of discoveries which from that day for years made every new map of the Congo behind the times as soon as the next mails arrived from the river.

Perhaps some of the other white men had seen the mouth of the Mobangi-Makua, and thought it merely an arm of the Congo enclosing an island; for this is the region of the sealike expansion of the river, where only a water horizon could be seen from either shore if it were not for the myriad islands that cut the river into scores of tortuous channels. There were white men on these Congo banks who neither saw nor heard of the fleet of vessels that passed them a few miles away, carrying the hundreds of men of the Emin relief expedition. Before Stanley came whole tribes on one shore had never seen the people who lived across the river.

A little later in 1885 a steamboat was sent up the Congo to the mouth of the big river that enters it at Equatorville. No vessel could have a more pleasant mission, for this steamer was the bearer of loving letters from home and fresh supplies of European food for Wissman's party of explorers, who had been in the African wilderness for many months, and might be in sore need of succor. It was thought the party was quite certain to emerge from the great unknown region south of the Congo at Equatorville, and the reason for this belief is interesting.

NATIVE VILLAGE WHERE WISSMAN STARTED DOWN THE KASSAI.

Many years before, Livingstone had crossed the upper waters of a river, the Kassai, now known as the second largest Congo tributary. Stanley believed the Kassai emptied into the Congo at Equatorville, and all the map-makers adopted his hypothesis. Captain Wissman and his comrades were sent from Germany to march inland from the Atlantic to the upper waters of the Kassai, and then to follow it to its mouth; and as this point was supposed to be at Equatorville, the mails and supplies for Wissman were sent there, and the officers of the steamer expected any day to see his expedition float into view.

Wissman reached the upper Kassai, and discovered there a remarkable tribe, the Baluba, whose chief had cut down all the palm-trees in his country to keep his people from getting drunk on palm wine. This chief helped Wissman to hollow big canoes out of tree-trunks, and then he and many of his subjects, who engaged with the explorer as paddlers, set out with the white men down the unknown stream.

Wissman expected that the river would carry him far to the north, but in a few days he was much surprised to find that he was travelling much further west than north. Day after day he floated further and further to the west, and after many weeks, and some curious adventures that cannot be told in this chapter, he reached the Congo. A few days later another stern-wheeler ascended the Congo, and at Equatorville pulled up to the shore alongside the waiting vessel.