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

THE CRUISE OF A COMMERCE-DESTROYER.

BY YATES STIRLING, JUN.

The officer of the deck is pacing his last hour of a very dull forenoon watch upon the bridge of the U. S. S. Minneapolis. The tropical sun beats down with unflinching savageness upon his head; his eyes are restlessly scanning the horizon at every turn, but nothing has disturbed the monotony of its outline, as his sullen pacing bears witness. The sentries and men on lookout are at their stations, and are listlessly walking to and fro on the small patch of deck called their posts. Small knots of men are gathered together here and there on the spar-deck, under the shade of a boat or a gun-shield, spinning yarns or playing at sailor games. Some of the younger officers can be seen aft on the quarter-deck gazing fixedly over the wide expanse of ocean, as if they expected an enemy to rise up before them from the sea. Some of the more impulsive ones occasionally lift their voices in expostulation at the dull life they are leading, while others are seeing active service on fighting-ships. The great hull of the cruiser is slowly forging ahead in the quiet sea; her huge and powerful engines are barely turning over.

Like a picture in a kinetoscope, all this has changed. Every man on board has awakened from his lethargy. All hands are alert and gazing at the horizon to the eastward. What is the cause of this sudden awakening? Two words from the lookout in the foretop: "Sail ho!" Yes, broad on the port-bow can be seen a low line of black smoke that to any but a sailor's eye would appear to be a cloud on the distant horizon. Scarcely a quarter of an hour, and with all speed the cruiser is cutting the sea in the direction of the fast-approaching smoke.

Eager young officers have ascended into the tops to be the first to make out the character of the stranger. In the foretop are two midshipmen, still in their teens, class-mates at the Naval Academy, and stanch friends. Scarcely a thought has one the other does not share. With that reckless ambition that is one of the attributes of youth they are both longing for excitement. Their dreams of battle and glory have toppled like a castle of cards.

As yet the Minneapolis has seen no fighting; she has been doing the work cut out for her without bloodshed. Merchantman after merchantman has been overhauled and captured or ransomed in the last six months, and the cruiser's name has become the terror of the enemy's merchant marine.

Once only, while coming out of a neutral port, she had to run the gauntlet of two of the enemy's cruisers, but with her superior speed two hours sufficed to put the enemy hull-down astern, with but slight damage to the commerce-destroyer. Her orders were, on the outbreak of the war "to capture or destroy the enemy's commerce wherever met; refuse battle," and this order had been faithfully carried out. All hands had grown rich in prize-money; fresh provisions were obtained in abundance.

Coal was the problem. It had been attempted to coal at sea from captured vessels, but this mode could not be relied upon to replenish the bunkers of a ship with such a tremendous expenditure. So a certain amount of risk had to be run in coaling in neutral ports.

The Minneapolis and her two sister ships were the prizes coveted of all the enemy's cruisers. When the United States was building them other nations laughed at the idea, and put their dock-yards at work building ships of greater armament but less speed. But now they saw too late the awful advantage of these beautiful toys, as the foreign press were wont to call them, that could give or refuse battle at pleasure.

Ship after ship of the enemy's navy was in search of these "freebooters," but very few had even had the honor of coming within signal distance. One of these was the Whistle, a cruiser of a little heavier armament, but several knots less speed. The Minneapolis was in the port of St. Thomas, coaling, when this warlike hull hove in sight. Very little time was lost in putting to sea, but not before two or three shots had been exchanged, and some very taunting signals had been displayed by the disappointed ship.

All the officers and men would gladly have accepted battle, with but small fear of the result, but each and every one knew what awful odds would be on the Whistle's side. America had but a few handfuls of ships; if these were pitted against the navy of the enemy, they would be overwhelmed, annihilated. No; the quickest way to humble the foe is through her commerce. So the bitter pill had to be swallowed in silence. But the mere thought of the occurrence brought a hot flush to the cheek of every man aboard.

The stranger has drawn near, and is soon made out to be a merchantman, an ocean liner, one of the greyhounds that had plied between New York and Harborport before the outbreak of hostilities. Large volumes of black smoke from her immense smoke-pipes show she has scented danger, and is making all speed to escape.

The young officers in the foretop are thrilled with excitement as their glass shows them the character of the stranger. The younger is a boy of eighteen, his light hair and blue eyes betokening his Saxon ancestry. He is clad in a neat-fitting blue uniform, and his cap set jauntily on the back of his head revealed a mass of light curly locks. With his eyes fairly sparkling, he bears a striking contrast to his companion. Dark and sullen, with lowering eyes and heavy forehead, the other showed not by a single sign that he realizes that in a short time the first and long-cherished battle of his life will be enacted.

The younger lad has dreamed of battles both in his sleep and his waking moments, in which he has cut his way with his sword to honor and distinction. He has oftentimes pictured his friends, his mother, and his sweetheart reading of his heroic deeds in the daily papers of his home, and now it seems to his youthful mind his dreams are to be fulfilled.

As his glass scans the stranger he realizes that in the eyes of naval experts the stranger is nearly equal to the Minneapolis in fighting qualities. He knows that these fast ships have been subsidized by the hostile government, and are heavily armed and protected. His dreams fairly dance before his eyes. But another picture flashes across his mental vision. He is on the battery-deck; the decks are wet and slippery with blood; the terribly mangled dead and wounded are lying all about him; he sees brave men struck down around. A cold shiver runs through his well-knit frame as he shakes from him the ghastly nightmare.

The other lad is not a dreamer. Morose, almost cynical, he never gives himself up to such reveries. To him everything appears in a less gilded light. He knows that if the stranger has not superior speed, his services and his companion's will soon be needed on the deck below.

The two lads scramble down through the hollow mast as the drummers are beating the long-roll to quarters. All during the hot sultry day the chase continues, and when night settles down on the watery waste the Minneapolis is still out of gun-shot astern. The night is bright, and when morning dawns the blood-hound is still upon the trail. The crew of the 8-inch breech-loading rifle on the forecastle is called to quarters, and a shell is sent speeding over the water in the direction of the fleeing ship. Slowly the distance diminishes. Suddenly a white cloud of smoke bursts from the liner, and a heavy shell strikes close aboard the American ship.

All hands are soon at their stations, and in a short time all is in readiness for battle. The stars and stripes at her trucks flaunt a challenge to the enemy's ensign at the Calabria's gaff.

The two ships are now within battle range, and the thunder of their heavy ordnance breaks the stillness of the ocean.

Shells go speeding through the unarmored sides of the ships, their explosions making terrific havoc among their unprotected crews. The picture before the midshipman's eyes is now a reality. Tirelessly the two lads work; their guns are next to each other. As they give their commands in sharp decisive voices, the contrast seems less striking. A shell comes in the gun-port and strikes down the captain of the younger lad's gun; the lock-string falls from his lifeless hand. Gently laying the dead man aside, he takes the lanyard.

As he stood at his gun before the heat of action, he was seized with an awful trembling, and he feared lest he might show by his actions the white feather to his men. Then came the bursting of shells and the explosion of discharges, and then the shell striking down his gun-captain, spluttering his life-blood all about him. At once his fears left him, his eyes brightened, and a terrible anger awoke in him, the like of which he had never known. He fired his gun at the enemy with a fierce exultancy, wondering in a cruel way how many lives the shell had cut down. It seems ages since the battle started. With his eyes always on the enemy, he is spared from seeing his friend, struck by a flying splinter, being carried below to the surgeons. He sees the Calabria, her sides ablaze with fire, sweep majestically across his small horizon, and then disappear. He is always aware of her awful presence from the never-ceasing bursting of her shells around him. Then again she appears, and is once more in his angle of fire. During this small space of time his gun has done all that could be expected; he has watched shell after shell from it explode aboard the enemy; he can see large rents in her black hull, and he notices her fire is becoming more desultory; the fight will soon be over. As she disappears again, he musters up courage to look about him. There is but little life on the battery-deck, that only a half-hour before was the scene of so much activity. The gun next his is not in action; a shell has completely shattered the breech-plug; nearly its entire crew are lying about on the deck, their dark life-blood staining the white planking. His companion's cap is lying near a dark mass on the deck. Is it his blood? His senses are so paralyzed that he feels his mind must give way. The enemy emerges into view; his hand is upon the lock-string; the elevator and trainer are attentively watching for their orders. They do not come. His thoughts are far away in the midst of a modest New England home. He sees a beautiful motherly woman, her face pale and anxious, and by her side is a young girl in the first blush of womanhood.

He is suddenly conscious of a young seaman standing before him, giving him a message. In a dazed way he relinquishes his lock-string to one of his gunners, and is making his way over the reeking deck toward the bridge. He hears a voice, as if in a dream, giving him orders to be ready to board the prize. Then the enemy has surrendered? His gaze seeks the other ship. But a short distance away he sees her shattered hull rolling in the smooth sea. A huge white flag flutters from her signal-halyards. The boats are ready and alongside. The men are embarking. He takes his place, and they shove off, and are soon scaling the side of the captured vessel. Her decks are almost deserted, scarcely a living man is about, but everywhere death and destruction reign. He hears a well-known voice close to him. Has the last hour been an awful nightmare, or has his mind been shaken at last? He cannot grasp the situation. There is his friend, looking paler than ever, his right arm in splints, and his head tied up in a huge bandage. His joy knows no bounds. With a fervent "Thank Heaven!" they embrace. There is no time now for explanations; it is enough to know that his companion is still alive. With orders from his Lieutenant, he is leading, pistol in hand, a gang of tars down into the Calabria's bowels. The surprised firemen and stokers are quickly manacled, and ready Americans have taken their places. An engineer officer is giving rapid orders to his men; the huge engines start ahead, slowly at first, then the revolutions increase, till the shafts are revolving at a terrific speed. When he again reaches the deck everything is again calm and peaceful. On the port quarter, but a short distance away, he sees the Minneapolis. Both ships are going at full speed; and astern, just out of gun-shot, he sees the hulls of three more ships. He understands it all now. The Calabria had nearly led them into a trap.

A red wigwag flag is waving on board the white cruiser: "Must reduce speed in order to reach port." Coal is running short. The horribly significant signal can hardly be realized. Will she fall a prey to the enemy's cruisers after such a glorious victory? Foot by foot the hostile ships draw nearer to the commerce-destroyer and her prize. In case they are overtaken, the Calabria is to go on and reach Hampton Roads in safety. It is the only thing to do. Why sacrifice another ship unnecessarily? For two days and nights the pursuit continues. Cape Henry Light-house is sighted on the port bow. Just within gun-shot astern are the three heavily armed cruisers, using their bow chasers with great rapidity and precision on the fleeing ships. Large volumes of brown smoke pour from the American cruiser's smoke-pipes. She is making her last spurt for life. Bulkheads, furniture, and all combustible material have been fed to the mighty furnaces.

Slowly they draw away from their pursuers. The light-house is close on the port beam. The heavy guns there are directed against three dark hulls to the eastward. They are the baffled enemy.

There is a story told of an Irishman who went out in the woods to shoot a bear. It was winter-time, and the Irishman wanted a fur coat very badly. When he finally sighted his bear he cried out, "Ah, there is my fur overcoat!" The bear was very hungry, and when he saw the hunter, he cried out, "Ah, there is my meal!" Well, the hunter fired his rifle and the bear jumped behind the tree. Now, the amusing part of the story is, that the hunter fired his rifle and didn't hit the bear; still he got the fur of the bear for an overcoat because the bear ate the hunter. Which of the two was the better satisfied is still in doubt.

[PRACTICAL GOLF.]

BY W. G. van TASSEL SUTPHEN.

(In Five Papers.)

V.—STYLE AND FAULTS.

he question of style is a ghost that will not down. There are those who say that form is the all-important point, and that if you get the swing right all the rest will follow. And there are others who as stoutly affirm that the only thing to do is to thump away at the ball, and trust to nature and the laws of mechanics. Now it is certainly true that style by itself will never drive a ball, and it may be laid down as an axiom that whenever the mind is intent upon some point of how to strike rather than upon the actual business of hitting, a miss more or less palpable is sure to follow. But it is just as true that hands or feet or body may be in such a position that a fair stroke is utterly impossible, and this is surely not golf. Evidently truth lies between the two extremes.

There can be no question but that in all games the right way is easier and productive of better results than the wrong way, and golf cannot claim to be entirely independent of this general principle. Therefore it is wise to begin our practice on the general lines laid down by the wisdom of the ages, subject of course to the necessary modifications due to age, sex, or previous conditions of servitude to tennis, baseball, and other obsolete forms of amusement. Undoubtedly the most satisfactory method is instruction from a competent coach. The beginner may think that he is following faithfully the instructions given him in these papers, and yet be unconsciously going wrong in a dozen ways, imperceptible perhaps except to an expert eye. By all means seek the counsel and instruction of a professional golfer or expert amateur, if there be one within reach, for he can certainly save you many false steps.

BEGINNING OF FULL SWING—INCORRECT.

But supposing that there is no way of obtaining this practical assistance, must we give up golf as unattainable and book knowledge as untrustworthy? Not at all. Study and digest the instructions and hints given in these papers as thoroughly as you can, and do your best to put them into practice. There is only one thing to guard against, and that is the tendency of exaggeration in any or all points. For instance, I tell you that the left wrist must be kept taut, and this is indeed necessary. But if you go to work with the idea that in a stiff wrist lies the secret of all golf, you are turning a caution into a fetich, and the result must be unsatisfactory. Even the italicized injunction at the end of each article, about the necessity of keeping the eye upon the ball, is not the whole of golf, and, important as it is, it must not absorb the whole of your attention. All these things work together for golf, and the moment that you exalt any one of them above the others you destroy both your mental and your physical balance, and the result is no game. Finally, let the forming of style be reserved for practice play. Once engaged in a tournament (and, by-the-way, you should enter as many regular competitions as possible), you must let your style take care of itself, and devote the whole of your attention and energy to hitting the ball clean. If you begin to think how you are going to hit it, or how far you will drive it, or anything about it except the simple duty of hitting it, you will fail altogether. In practice let your aim be style; in a match let it be the hitting of the ball.

The detection and cure of specific faults are difficult tasks on paper, for very often different causes may produce what is apparently the same effect, and it is obvious that the particular remedy depends upon the specific disease.

For example, the ball has a great tendency to go off to the right of the line instead of straight. Now the reason may be that the player is putting a cut on the ball by drawing in his arms ("slicing" proper), or he may have the face of the club turned back (wrong grip), or he may be hitting off the heel of the club ("heeling") and at the same time putting a "slice" on the ball. Evidently the same corrective will not answer in every case. For "slicing" proper it will be well to attend to the precept of "slow back," so that the body muscles may be used, and the arms allowed to go freely out both in the up swing and in the "follow on." Perhaps the right foot is too far advanced, and a change in position (not distance) may encourage the loins and shoulders to get in the work. Try drawing the right foot back in proportion to the amount of "skid." Laying the face back is the result of a wrong grip. The left hand may be too far under, and the right hand may be holding too loosely. Look up the instructions for the proper grip. "Heeling," or hitting off the heel, is due to poor aim. Stand up and hit more carefully.

END OF FULL SWING—INCORRECT.

"Pulling" or "hooking," which sends the ball off to the left of the proper line, is not so common a fault. Generally it is the result of having the club face turned in, and this in turn comes of "pressing," or trying to strike too hard and without the proper swing. Give up the idea that you are hitting at a baseball, and guard against stooping forward.

When a ball is "topped" or hit above the centre it is nearly always due to carelessness, or overdue concentration on some point of style. If your swing is too straight up and down, and you are drawing in your arms across the line of fire, a "top" is pretty sure to follow. Let your arms go out so that the curve of your swing may be longer, or rather flatter, and try to look at the side of your ball, and not straight down upon it. If you are looking persistently at the top of your ball, and your "eye is in," the club head must perforce obey its instructions. It is not only the ball but the side of the ball that you want to hit. Another reason why players "top" is because they are afraid of the ground and of breaking their clubs. Now, as a matter of fact, an honest "sclaff" or scrape does no harm either to the club or to the flight of the ball, except perhaps when the ground is frozen, and the game cannot properly be played at all. Therefore get down to the ball always.

In the approach stroke "slicing" is the most troublesome fault to mend. It is a great help in the shorter shots to keep the right arm rubbing lightly against the body, for the sake of its support, and, indeed, without some such aid steadiness is impossible. And keep the left wrist taut.

INCORRECT "STANCE."

When a player goes off in his putting, the case is pretty sure to be mental, i.e., lack of patience and concentration. And this is particularly true of the short holing-out puts of thirty inches or so. Still, the sin may be one of commission: the player is playing with a jerk, or he is looking at the hole instead of at the ball, or both of his arms are hanging clear of his body, and consequently deprived of its support, or, finally, his putter may be badly balanced. Once the cause is discovered, the remedy is easy of application.

The beginner will do well to study carefully the illustrations that have appeared in the preceding articles. The professional Willie Dunn, who appears in most of them, is not only a fine player himself, but his form is especially good, and a safe model upon which to pattern. The incorrect positions illustrate faults in stand and swing into which the beginner is particularly liable to fall, and a study of them may save him from many misconceptions.

It is to be noted that no distinction has been made in these articles between the girl's game and that of her brother's, and, indeed, none is necessary. The same instructions apply, and virtually the same results should follow. The girl may not be able to drive so far, but there is no reason why she should not hold her own in approaching and putting, and a sensible costume will obviously be of advantage.

Left-handed players must of course make the necessary correction in the instructions, but if possible they should try to play in the ordinary style. It is a curious fact that, unlike tennis, billiards, or baseball, first-class golf is seldom acquired by left-handers.

Finally, don't think the game too easy, and so play carelessly, and, on the other hand, don't get discouraged and give it up as too difficult. In the words of an old-time hero of the green, "It's dogged as does it."

[CATCHING SHAD FOR MARKET.]

BY J. PARMLY PARET.

Hooks and lines are about as useless in shad-fishing as nets would be if eels were wanted. Not one of those long rows of shad you see in the markets was caught with a hook. They were all foolish enough to swim straight into nets spread out to trap them, and they hadn't sense enough to swim out again. So when you see Mr. Shaddie served up before you for your breakfast, you may remember that it is because he has more bones than brains that you have a chance to eat him. Mr. Shaddie inherits two fatal features—his lack of brains and the breadth of his shoulders. One gets him tangled up in fish-nets, and the other prevents his getting out again. Were it not for this, shad would be as scarce in the market as terrapin.

Just as soon as the last ice has left the rivers the shad-fishermen begin to prepare for the fishing season. They must make the most of the few weeks while it lasts, so they never fail to have all their nets ready as soon as the shad begin to "run"—as they call it when the fish commence to swim up the rivers.

There are two ways of catching shad—by small nets set on poles, and with "seine" nets. Most of the fish we see in the markets are taken in the small nets, as the poles are always used in the rivers where the current runs too fast for the "seines." These poles are simply long saplings, like telegraph poles, with their lower ends sharpened so as to stick up in the muddy bottom. The fishermen pick out some part of the river where their nets are not likely to be torn and broken up by passing boats, and then drive down their poles in long rows.

DRIVING A STAKE.

These poles are generally "planted" in water forty or fifty feet deep, so it is not easy to drive them into the bottom so far under the water. Pontoon boats, built by joining two scows or row-boats together, are anchored at the place selected for the row, and the sharpened ends of the long saplings are pushed into the ground. A crossbar is fastened to one of the poles, high out of water, and the fishermen jump up and down on this until the sapling is driven down firmly into the mud. There are anywhere from twenty to forty of these poles in a row, and they are placed about thirty feet from each other.

At the first sign of the fish the nets are set out on these poles. These shad-nets are like enormous fly-traps, open at one end. The meshes are large enough to let the shad put their foolish heads in the nooses, but not big enough to let their shoulders through. The top and bottom of each net are fastened to two long ropes, and the ends of these ropes are tied to wooden rings like barrel hoops, slid over the poles, and sunk down under the surface of the water by weights. So the open end of each net is stretched between two poles, and the meshes belly out with the swift current like a big bag. All along the row these nets are fixed by the fishermen soon after the tide has turned, and then they go ashore to wait for the next tide.

DRAGGING THE NETS.

Along comes Mr. Stupid Shaddie, swimming rapidly with the current. Suddenly he runs against the net, and before he knows what has happened his head is thrust through one of the openings in its meshes. Mr. Shaddie foolishly tries to push through the barrier, and soon finds his gills tangled up with the thin cords that hold him. He has not sense enough to turn around when he first finds himself in the net and swim out again the way he came in. The door is still open, but he hates to swim against the tide, so he goes on trying to push ahead until he is hopelessly caught in the net, and the more he struggles the tighter he is held. Mr. Shaddie's brothers, too, are equally stupid. They follow his silly example, and soon there are a number of them struggling in each net.

The fishermen in the mean time have waited patiently on shore. Just before the tide turns again they row out to their nets and haul them up. If they waited too long, Mr. Shaddie and his foolish friends would get out, for the turn of the tide would swing the net in the opposite direction and soon release the struggling fish. The long fishing-boat is manned by four men, and they row out to the nets. The boat is tied at each end to one of the poles, and the "haul" begins. Long notched sticks or boat-hooks are thrust down under the water beside the poles, and the net-ropes pulled up to the surface.

THE FIRST CATCH OF THE SEASON.

Slowly and cautiously the fishermen, two at each end, pull in the ropes that hold the net. They soon reach the mouth of the bag, and pulling this over the edge of the boat, they quickly haul up the rest of the meshes; for it is then too late for any of the fish to get away. As the net comes up to the surface, Mr. Shaddie and his companions seem too stupid or too much dazed to struggle. When they are jerked out of the water, however, and into the boat, they hop around excitedly for a few minutes, but it is then too late to escape. The fishermen throw their catch into the bottom of the boat, and cast the net back into the water. Then they push along to the next poles, and repeat the same work with the next net.

Down the long row they go, the boat's bottom gradually filling up with the big shad. Sometimes a net will have only one or two in it, while fifteen or twenty are occasionally caught in a single net when the season is at its height. A good haul will often yield three hundred shad, and the fishermen hurry ashore to pack them off to the markets. But shad are not the only fish they get in the nets. Catfish are often pulled up with shad, as well as many other varieties. Some of them are taken ashore and cooked, and others are thrown back into the water.

Then, too, there are the "blackfish," as the fishermen jokingly call the pieces of drift-wood that get tangled up in the meshes. Sometimes these are so heavy as to tear open the nets, and then the shad escape with the "blackfish." Careless captains of passing boats often tear them, too, and occasionally pull down the poles in steering through the fishermen's rows. Extra nets are always carried in the fishing-boats, and when a torn one is found it is taken ashore to be mended, and a whole net is put in its place.

The shad-fisherman's life is not an easy one. During the short season when his trade is profitable he works both night and day. He must live close by the water, and sleep only between the tides. When the boat first comes in after hauling the nets, the men must take out their fish and pack them for the market. Then there are the torn nets to be mended; and when all this is finished, and the meals are cooked and eaten, the fishermen may get a few hours' sleep, perhaps; but they never lie down without first setting an alarm-clock for an hour before the tide turns again. For, rain or shine, by night and by day, those nets must be hauled up at every turn of the tide, and the tide turns every six hours. "Time and tide wait for no man."

[PARTS OF A FLOWER.]

Whenever we study science we have some hard names to learn. One advantage that scientific people have over others is that they know how to apply precise names to things. A botanist, for example, does not speak of flower leaves. He says sepals if he means the outside green leaves; petals, if the inside, colored. A complete flower has four distinct parts or organs.

In early spring the big trees and little plants awake out of a long nap and bestir themselves to grow. They have a good deal to do, and they set to work very industriously. Ants and bees are not busier than plants in spring. At first the awakened plant thinks only of forming fresh branches and lovely expanding green leaves. But after a time it seems to say to itself, "I must not forget to make seed, so that if I should die in the autumn my race may not die with me, but live on and on."

The plant may not be going to die in autumn. It may be a perennial, living year after year. But it always acts as if it might perish, and provides against contingencies. Plants which live one year only are called annuals.

In order to produce a flower, the branch stops growing in length. The end becomes a receptacle. First, upon the receptacle comes a circle of small green leaves, called a calyx; separately, sepals. Sometimes the calyx is not cut up into sepals, but makes a little round vase, notched or pointed, in which the rest of the flower is held. Inside the calyx, and just a bit higher up, appear the colored petals, the beautiful and fragrant parts of a flower. It is the corolla. Like the calyx, sometimes the corolla is a vase or cup, and it is a monopetalous corolla.

If you want to speak of both calyx and corolla in one word, you may say perianth. Floral envelopes mean the same thing. The purpose of these parts of a flower is, mainly, to cover and protect the seed while ripening. A second purpose, and probably the reason why they are so prettily colored and sweetly fragrant, is to attract insects. This we will talk about later. But we shall smell of a rose and admire it just as much, as if it were made for our special enjoyment. All the same, if the plant did not protect its seed, and invite insects to crawl into its tubes, I fear all flowers would be like the lizardtail to secure which I once nearly fell into the water. I had to cross an old rotten mill-dam, over and through which water was trickling, step on slippery stones, catch hold of a tree with one hand, and reach away down with the other. One foot got wet, but that was a trifle. I plucked my lizardtail, and have it now in my herbarium. It has no calyx and corolla, only the two organs essential to making seed, called stamens and pistils.

Next to the petals, and slightly higher, the stamens stand like little soldiers with caps on, in a circle, or two or more circles. The stem is called filament, a word meaning thread-like. The cap is an anther, containing in one or two pockets a fine yellow or brown dust—the pollen. You may get pollen on your nose if you smell of a lily; for when the anther-pockets split open, the pollen lies around loose, and gets on anything that touches it. Bees collect it in pouches on their legs, and make bread of it for their winter use.

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

BY MARION HARLAND.

CHAPTER X.

Felicia Grigsby sat alone by the fire in her room on the afternoon of December 24. A book was open upon her lap, but she was not reading. Her hands were thin and white; her gray eyes were unnaturally large and dark in a face that had wasted until it looked like an elf's. She had lain in bed for six weeks, and was still so weak that her father had carried her up and down stairs to her meals.

He had been very kind to her throughout her illness, but never tender, and he was always grave nowadays. Flea was thinking of these and other puzzling things this afternoon. While she thought, two tears arose and enlarged in her eyes, until their weight carried them over the lower lids, and they plashed down upon the book. The first snow-storm of the season was driving at a sharp slant past the windows; the wind cried in the chimney in a low-spirited, feeble-minded way; the fire kept up heart, and spat snappishly as stray hailstones and snowflakes flew down the throat of the chimney.

Flea kicked one foot out of the blanket shawl laid over her lap, and moaned fretfully: "I don't care for anything or anybody, and nobody cares whether I live or die!"

The door opened and her father came in. He looked unusually grave even for him. He laid more logs on the fire, and stirred the coals below the blazing fore-stick. "Is it too hot for you?" he asked, as the fire leaped up with a greedy roar.

"A little," Flea said, shielding her eyes with her hand.

Her father took hold of her rocking-chair with one hand, the cricket on which her feet rested with the other, and lifted her away from the flaring flames. Then he rearranged the covering over her knees and feet. It was a checked blanket shawl, red and green, that belonged to Mrs. Grigsby. It was always brought out when an invalid was able to sit up, or not quite ill enough to be put to bed. In Flea's mind it was joined with the remembered taste of jalap, Epsom-salts, castor oil, and tansy tea. The checks were just two inches square. She had measured them a hundred times. Her mother used to give her medicine; her father read aloud to her when she had the measles, and chills and fever after the measles.

She got hold of his hand and laid her face against it with a sob that seemed to bring her heart up with it.

"Father! you haven't called me 'lassie' all the time I've been sick. Don't you love me any more?"

He let her keep his hand, but he did not press hers. He stood bolt-upright, his eyes upon the driving snow; his tone was constrained: "A father never stops loving his children, my daughter, let them do what they may."

Flea twisted around to get a good view of his face.

"Have I done anything to displease you, father? Maybe 'twas some silly thing I said when I was out of my head. Mother says I talked dreadfully sometimes. You know I didn't mean it. Won't you forgive it, and let me be your own lassie again?"

She was crying fast, clinging to his hand and covering it with kisses. He drew it away gently, and put his thumb and finger into the pocket of his waistcoat, bringing out with them a paper, creased and worn by much handling.

"Look at that!" he said, in a tone that arrested her tears.

FLEA UNFOLDED IT AND GAVE A CRY OF SURPRISE.

Flea unfolded it, and gave a cry of surprise.

"My report! Where did it come from?"

"You ought to know."

"But I don't! We looked for it all the way to school that last day. I thought likely that I had dropped it on the step of the old cabin—the haunted house, you know. I sat down there the day before to look at the report, and staid there ever so long. When I saw what was in it I just hated to bring it home. I didn't think how late it was, until Mrs. Fogg—the old Mrs. Fogg—came round the corner of the house and scared me. I scared her too"—laughing nervously at the recollection; "and although I was sure that I had put the paper back into my geography, it wasn't there when I got home. We hunted all about the door-step—Dee and I—next morning, but couldn't find it. We supposed the wind must have blown it away, if I dropped it there."

Her father drew up a chair and sat down beside her, a little back of her, so she could not study his face. He tried to speak carelessly.

"What was Mrs. Fogg doing there at that time of day?"

"I don't know, I am sure. She is a funny old woman, always turning up just where you wouldn't expect to see her."

"Did she go into the house?"

"Why, no, sir. It's nailed up, I think—windows and doors too. She said that she mistook me for a ghost—h'ant,' she called it. Father!"

She had his hand again, and again raised it to her cheek. Her voice was tremulous.

"Well?" watching her out of the corners of his eyes.

"I did something wrong and foolish that day. I told her once that I'd ask Major Duncombe to let her grandchildren go to school. I was sorry for the little fellows. I told her that day that she'd better send them to the Old Harry than to Mr. Tayloe. You see, I was as mad as fire about my report."

"And then?"

"I ran home, and left her there sitting on the step."

"Did you ever see her again?"

She hesitated visibly; the color came and went in the thin sensitive face. She dropped her voice:

"She came to the spring next day. Mr. Tayloe sent me for a bucket of water—after school, you know. He said you did help me with that awful sum, and made me stay in and do it all over again. I never felt so angry before. I wished that I could kill him. And Mrs. Fogg began palavering, and I tried to get away from her. She would help me up the hill with the bucket, and I wasn't decently polite to her. When I got into the school-house, there was my slate on the bench where Mr. Tayloe had put it while I was gone, and he had rubbed out the sum I had done. Then—I think it was like being possessed of a devil, for my head went round and round, and I got hot all over. For there he sat, with that horrid smile on his face, as if he were making fun of me, when I had done my very best, and been disgraced for nothing at all. I jumped up and threw the bucket on him, and ran away as fast as I could. That's all. Oh, father, please don't let us talk any more about that horrible day!" Her voice arose into a piteous cry.

"No, lassie, never again!"

He gathered her into his arms, and held her there as he had in that wonderful ride through the woods the night he found her asleep in the school-house, and she sobbed herself calm upon the heart where there was always love for his children, and where she knew at last the warmest place was for her.

When he appeared belowstairs he found his sister in the chamber alone, but for the sleeping baby whom she had offered to look after, while the other children in a gale of spirits superintended and hindered the frying of the doughnuts.

"Does that amuse you, David?" asked Mis. McLaren, smiling at the pains he took to tear a scrap of white paper into bits, all exactly the same size, and to throw them one by one into the fire. Each was seized by the hot draught and whirled up the chimney.

"It pleases me—mightily!" he rejoined, his face as sunny as hers. "I am disposing of the last objection I had to putting my bit lassie into your hands. I can trust her the world over now."

He sat down by his sister, stretching his long legs in front of him, and locking his hands at the back of his head, with the air of one who has shaken off a burden.

"I've had a long talk with the bairnie, Jean. I'm willing to trust her away from me. You'll do better for her than I can."

"It will be a trial to your mother and myself to let you go," he said to Flea on Christmas day, in telling her of Aunt Jean's wish to take her and Dee home with her. "We will bear it for the sake of the good you'll get."

What the trial was to himself nobody comprehended. All through the quiet winter that shut down upon the river-lands early in January the most momentous events to the father's heart were the weekly arrival of the letters from his daughter. They were long and, to him, wonderful. He was kept in touch with her home life, her school, her reading, her sight-seeing, her growth in knowledge and her burning thirst for more knowledge. She sent him books now and then; his sister provided him with two weekly papers and a monthly magazine, but the short days and long evenings wore away tediously.

The months seemed like as many years in looking back upon them on a certain June morning, when he and Flea set out for a ride on horseback. She had been at home but eighteen hours, and he had still to persuade himself from time to time that he was not dreaming.

He looked her over pridefully as they rode off from the house.

"You are more like yourself this morning, lassie. Last night you were paler and quieter than seemed just natural. I suppose you were tired after the journey."

Flea blushed and averted her face. "I feel beautifully rested out to-day," she said. Honest as ever, she could not say more without revealing what would have pained his loyal heart.

I have made no secret of her faults, and I do not excuse what her father was never allowed to guess. Her homecoming had been a dismay as well as a disappointment to her. Nothing had come to pass as she had expected and planned, except the look on her father's face when he had espied her on the deck of the boat, waving her hand to him on the wharf, and the long, silent hug she received as she sprang into his arms. She had never heard the word "disillusion," or she would have known better what the next few hours meant. Mr. Grigsby had come to the landing in a blue-bodied "carryall." A plank laid across the front served him for a seat. Two splint-bottomed chairs were set for the children, leaving room behind them for their trunks. It was not heroineic, but it was natural that, seeing her late fellow-passengers eying the equipage from the boat, Flea grew hot with embarrassment, and wished that her father had thought of borrowing a better-looking vehicle from Greenfield.

The road over which they jolted was rutty and straggling, the fences ungainly. Nothing was trimmed and well-kept to eyes used, for five months, to spick-and-span Philadelphia. Her own home was sadly unlike her recollection of it. It had been newly whitewashed in honor of her coming, but she had forgotten that there never were shutters at the windows. They stared at her like eyes without lids and lashes. The calico half-curtains were "poor-white-folksy," the furniture was scanty and common. Her mother wore a purple calico. She was "partial to purple calico"; it kept its color, did not show dirt, and looked so clean when it was clean. She did not bethink herself, or she had never known, that purple is, of all colors, most trying to women of no particular complexion. Her hair was pulled back tightly from her temples, and done at the back of her head in a knot that would not come undone of itself in a week. On her head was a cap of rusty black cotton lace. Bea had bedecked her fair self in a light blue lawn, short-sleeved, and low upon the shoulders. A double string of wax beads was about her neck, and a single string upon each wrist. Her yellow hair was braided and tucked up. Bea was fifteen, and quite the young lady now. About her head was a narrow band of black velvet, fastened above her forehead with a breast-pin containing a green glass stone. Bea thought it was an emerald. Flea knew that it was not, yet felt horribly ashamed that she could notice all these things and that they dampened her spirits.

They had a "big supper," to which Dee's boyish appetite did abundant justice. Flea berated and despised herself for seeing that the coffee-pot was tin and was the boiler in which the coffee had been made, and that the handles of the two-tined forks were of bone; that her mother poured her coffee into her saucer to cool before drinking it, and that everything—fried chicken, ham, fish, preserves, cake, pudding, pie, frozen custard, and waffles—was put on the table at once.

It was unkind, ungrateful, undaughterly, and every other "un" she could think of, to let such trifles destroy the comfort of the first evening at home.

Her pillow was moistened with remorseful tears, and the more she hated herself for such meanness, fickleness, and ingratitude, the more plentiful was the flow of briny drops.

Things were more tolerable in the morning. With the elasticity of youth she adjusted ideas and feelings to suit her circumstances, or, as she put it to herself, she "came to her senses." She donned the neat habit her Aunt Jean had ordered for her, and tripped down stairs when the horses were ready, radiant with pleasurable anticipation. The habit found little favor in the sight of her mother and sister. They called the gray linen braided with black "Quakerish." To her father's eyes she looked the little lady from crown to toe.

The clover-fields were aflush with bobbing blooms, and a thousand bees were swinging and humming above these; the hay was ripe for cutting; the corn-fields shook glossy lances in the face of the sun; in the woods every bird that could sing was swelling his throat and heart with music; hares scampered fearlessly in the open road under the horses' feet; and striped ground-squirrels raced on the top rails of the fences for a mile at a time, just ahead of the riders.

"I must have been tired last night," repeated Flea, filling her lungs with the scented air. "I didn't feel a bit like myself. I am all right again. How dear and beautiful everything is to-day! There's nothing like the country, after all, especially the country in Old Virginia."

With that her tongue was loosened, and she opened to her indulgent confidante her hopes, aspirations, and plans. Aunt Jean was as gentle and tender as a mother to her; her teachers were wisdom and goodness personified; she was doing well in all her classes, and had taken two prizes on Examination day, the first for composition, the second for history.

"It's like a fairy-tale," she prattled on, happily. "When I was young and foolish I used to dream of such things as are coming to pass every day, and I take them as a matter of course, until I stop to think how wonderful and nice it all is. I often call Aunt Jean my fairy godmother.'"

In return, her father talked of his hope of being his own master and a land-owner by the time her school days should be over, hopes he had shared with no one else, he said, not even her mother, who might be disappointed if they came to nothing. "My canny little lassie can always be trusted," he said, with fondness.

Happy, honored little Flea! Riding close beside him, his hand on the neck of her horse, her eyes, moist and beaming, upturned to his, she would not have exchanged places with a princess of the blood. The weakness and false pride of yesterday were recalled only to brighten by contrast the joys of to-day.

As the day neared noon the bird-music ceased, and the stir of green leaves in the weak wind did not rise above the thud of hoofs upon the dead leaves that had fallen and lain on the bridle-road for fifty winters. The crash of a falling tree, that might have been a mile away, boomed and echoed like the report of a cannon, and was a long time in dying upon the distant hills. From the virgin forest, where oaks and hickories locked arms above their heads, they emerged upon a swampy spot through which a fire had swept in April, leaving a deserted track behind it. Ferns and wild flowers were springing up as though eager to hide the blackened ruins.

"The Major is having this swamp cleared," remarked Mr. Grigsby. "The men are about other work to-day, but they have been cutting in here all the week."

Rounding an evergreen thicket, they saw a horse harnessed to a low gig, which the riders recognized at once. The carriage was empty, and the gray mare was tethered to the stump of a sapling. She neighed long and wistfully at sight of Mr. Grigsby. He patted her in passing.

"The Major cannot be far off," he said. "He is looking to see what we have been doing, I suppose. I am glad to see him show interest in plantation work once more. He never opens his lips to me on the subject, of course, but there is something heavy on his mind. The gossips say that he is bitterly opposed to Miss Emily's marrying Mr. Tayloe."

[to be continued.]

[RICK DALE.]

BY KIRK MUNROE.

CHAPTER XXVII.

BONNY COMMANDS THE SITUATION.

ur lads had barely time to do up the tents and blankets they had used for bedding into compact bundles before M. Filbert arrived, with his servant François, and a carriage full of packages, including a bundle of iron-shod alpenstocks. He was clad in what appeared to Bonny and the idlers gathered about the station a very curious costume, though to Alaric, who had often seen its like in Switzerland, it did not seem at all out of the way. It consisted of a coat and knee-breeches of dark green velveteen, a waistcoat of scarlet cloth, stout yarn stockings patterned in green and scarlet and folded over at the knees, the heaviest of laced walking-boots with hobnailed soles, and a soft Tyrolese hat, in which was stuck a jaunty cock's feather.

He was full of excited bustle, and the moment he caught sight of Alaric, began to shower questions and directions upon him with bewildering rapidity. At length, thanks to Alaric's clear head and Bonny's practical common-sense, confusion was reduced to order, and everything was got on board the train that was to carry the expedition to Yelm Prairie—a station about twenty miles south of Tacoma, from which the real start was to be made.

The arrival at Yelm Prairie produced an excitement equal to that of a circus, and our friends had hardly alighted from the train before they were surrounded by a clamorous throng of would-be guides, packers, teamsters, owners of saddle-animals or pack-ponies, and a score of others, who were loud in declaring that without their services the expedition would surely come to grief.

In vain did the bewildered Frenchman storm and rave, and stamp his feet and gesticulate. Not one word that he said could be understood by the crowd, who, in their efforts to attract his attention, only shouted the louder and pressed about him more closely. Finally the poor man, turning to Alaric and saying, "Do what you will. Everything I leave to you," clapped his hands to his ears, broke through the uproarious throng, and started on a run for the open prairie.

"He leaves everything to us," said Alaric, who was almost as bewildered by the clamor and novelty of the situation as was M. Filbert himself.

"Good enough!" cried Bonny. "Now we will be able to do something. I take it that on this cruise you are first mate and I am second. So if you'll just give the word to go ahead, I'll settle the business in a hurry."

"I only wish you would," returned Alaric, "for it looks as though we were going to be mobbed."

Armed with this authority, Bonny sprang on a packing-case that lifted him well above his surroundings, and shouted, "Fellow-citizens!"

Instantly there came a hush of curious expectancy.

"I reckon all you men are looking for a job?"

"That's about the size of it," answered several voices.

"Very well; I'll give you one that'll prove just about the biggest contract ever let out in Yelm Prairie. It is to shut your mouths and keep quiet."

Here the speaker was greeted by angry murmurs and cries of "None of yer chaff, yung feller!" "What are you giving us?" and the like.

Nothing daunted, Bonny continued: "I'm not fooling. I'm in dead earnest. What we are after is quiet, and the Prince out there, whom you have scared away with your racket, is so bound to have it that he's willing to pay handsomely for it. He's got the money, too, and don't you forget it. He wants to hire several guides and packers, also a lot of saddle-horses and ponies, but a noisy, loud-talking chap he can't abide, and won't have round. He has left the whole business to my partner here and me to settle, seeing that we are his interpreters, and we are going to do it the way he pays us to do it and wants it done. So, according to the rule we've laid down in all our travellings and mountain-climbings up to date, the man who speaks last will be hired first, and the fellow who makes the most noise won't be given any show at all. Sabe? As an example, we want a team to take our dunnage to the river, and I'm going to give the job to that fellow sitting in the wagon, who hasn't so far spoken a word."

"Good reason why! He's deaf and dumb," shouted a voice.

"All the better," replied Bonny, in no wise abashed. "That's the kind we want. There are two more chaps who haven't said anything that I've heard, and I'm going to give them the job of pitching camp for us. I mean those two Siwash at the end of the platform."

"They are quiet because they can't speak any English," remonstrated some of those who stood near by.

"We don't mind that, though we are French," replied Bonny, cheerfully. "You see, the Prince looked out for such things when he engaged us interpreters, and now we are ready to talk to every man in his own language, including Chinook and United States. Now the only other thing I've got to say is that we won't be ready to consider any further business proposals until two o'clock this afternoon, and anybody coming to our camp before that time will lose his chance. After that we shall be glad to see you all, and the fellows that make the least talk will stand the best show of getting a job."

The effect of this bold proposition was surprising. Instead of exciting wrath and causing hostile demonstrations, as Alaric feared, its quieting influence was magical. Times were hard in Yelm Prairie, and a well-paid trip up the mountain, or the chance to obtain a dollar a day for the hire of a pony, was not to be despised.

So Bonny was allowed to engage the deaf-and-dumb teamster by signs, and the two Indians by a few words of Chinook, without hinderance. All these worked with such intelligence and expedition that within an hour one of the neatest camps ever seen in that section was ready for occupancy beside the white waters of the glacier-fed Nisqually.

When M. Filbert, who spied it from afar, came in soon afterwards, with hands and pockets full of floral specimens, he found a comfortably arranged tent and a bountiful camp dinner awaiting him. At sight of these things his peace of mind was fully restored, and he congratulated himself on having secured such skilful interpreters of both his words and wishes as the lads through whom they had been accomplished.

Promptly at the hour named by Bonny a motley but orderly throng of men, mules, and ponies presented themselves at the camp, and the whole afternoon was spent in making a selection of animals and testing the skill of packers. Both Alaric and Bonny were inexperienced riders, but neither of them hesitated when invited to mount and try the steeds offered for their use. A moment later Bonny was sprawling on the ground, with his pony gazing at him derisively, while Alaric was flying over the prairie at a speed that quickly carried him out of sight. It was nearly an hour before he returned, dishevelled and flushed with excitement, but triumphant, and with his pony cured of his desire for bolting, at least for a time.

By nightfall the selections and engagements had been made, and the expedition was strengthened by the addition of two white men to act as packers, two Indians who were to serve as guides and hunters, five saddle-ponies, and as many pack-animals.

That night our lads slept under canvas for the first time, and as they lay on their blankets discussing the novelty of the situation, Bonny said:

"I tell you what, Rick, this mountain-climbing is a more serious business than some folks think. When you first told me what our job was to be I had a sort of an idea that we could get to the top of old Rainier easy enough in one day and come back the next. So I couldn't imagine why Mr. Bear should want to engage us by the month. Now, though, it begins to look as though we were in for something of a cruise."

"I should say so," laughed Alaric, who had learned a great deal about mountain-climbing in Switzerland. "It would probably take the best part of a week to go from here straight to the summit and back again. But we shall be gone much longer than that, for we are to make a camp somewhere near the snow-line, and spend a fortnight or so up there collecting flowers and things."

"Flowers?" said Bonny, inquiringly.

"Yes. M. Filbert is a botanist, you know, and makes a specialty of mountain flora. But I say, Bonny, what makes you call him 'Mr. Bear'?"

"Because I thought that was his name. I know you call him 'Phil Bear,' but I never was one to become familiar with a Cap'n on short acquaintance."

"Ho! ho!" laughed Alaric; "that's a good one. Why, Bonny, Filbert is his surname. F-i-l-b-e-r-t—the same as the nut, you know, only the French pronounce things differently from what we do."

"I should say they did if that's a specimen, and I'm glad I'm not expected to talk in any such language. Plain Chinook and every-day North American are good enough for me. I suppose he would say 'Rainy' for Rainier?"

"Something very like it. I see you are catching the accent. We'll make a Frenchman of you yet before this trip is ended."

"Humph!" ejaculated Bonny. "Not if I know it, you won't."

Sunrise of the following morning found the horsemen of the expedition galloping over the brown sward of the park-like prairie toward the forest that for hundreds of miles covers the whole western slope of the Cascade Range like a vast green blanket. The road soon entered the timber and began a gradual ascent, winding among the trunks of stately firs and gigantic cedars that often shot upward for more than one hundred feet before a branch broke their columnlike regularity.

By noon they were at Indian Henry's, twenty miles on their way, and at the end of the wagon-road. That night camp was pitched in the dense timber, and our lads had their first taste of life in the forest. How snugly they were walled in by those close-crowding tree-trunks, and how they revelled in the roaring camp-fire, with its leaping flames, showers of dancing sparks, and perfume of burning cedar! What a delight it was to lie on their blankets just within its circle of light and warmth, listening to its crisp cracklings! Mingled with these was the cheery voice of a tumbling stream that came from the blackness beyond, and the soft murmurings of night winds among the branches far above them.

Another day's journey through the same grand forest, only broken by the verdant length of Succotash Valley, and by the rocky beds of many streams, brought them to Longmire's Springs and the log cabins of the hardy settler who had given them his name. At this point, though they had been steadily ascending ever since leaving Yelm Prairie, they were still less than three thousand feet above the sea, and the real work of climbing was not yet begun. After an evening spent in listening to Longmire's thrilling descriptions of the difficulties and dangers awaiting them, Bonny admitted to Alaric that he had never before entertained even a small idea of what a mountain really was.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

ON THE EDGE OF PARADISE VALLEY.

From the springs a four-mile scramble through the woods and up the rocky beds of ancient waterways brought the party to a place where the Nisqually River must be crossed. Here a single giant tree had been felled so as to span the torrent, and its upper surface roughly hewn to a level. A short distance above the rude bridge rose the frowning front of a glacier. Although its ice was mud-stained and honeycombed by countless rivulets that ponied from its upper surface in tiny cascades, it still formed an inspiring spectacle, and one that filled Bonny with wondering admiration, for it was his first glacier.

From an arched ice cavern at its base poured the milk-white river, with a hollow roaring, and such force that fair-sized bowlders were swept down its channel as though they were so many sticks of wood. The whole scene was of such fascinating interest that it very nearly brought poor Bonny to grief.

BONNY WAS JERKED VIOLENTLY BACKWARD.

He had dismounted, and was preparing to follow M. Filbert and Alaric, who had already led their ponies in safety across the narrow bridge. These animals had crossed so readily that he supposed his would do the same, and, as he stepped out on the great log, was paying far more attention to the glacier than to it. Suddenly he was jerked violently backward, pitched headlong down the bank, and barely saved himself from the icy torrent by clutching at a friendly bush. At the same moment his pony, who had no confidence in mountain bridges, dashed into the roaring stream, was instantly swept from his footing, rolled over and over, and borne struggling away toward what seemed certain destruction. By the good fortune that attends all fools, animals as well as human, he managed to escape both drowning and broken bones, and finally regained his feet on a friendly reef that projected into the river a quarter of a mile below the bridge. There he stood trembling, bruised, and dripping when Bonny and one of the Indians, who had hastened down the bank to discover his fate, found him a few minutes later. From that time forth he was the meekest and most docile pony imaginable, suffering himself not only to be led over the log bridge without remonstrance, but wherever else his young master desired.

High above this lovely valley, and close to the line where snow and timber met, M. Filbert called a halt, and ordered the permanent camp to be pitched. Although this point was less than half-way to the top of the mountain, or only 6500 feet above sea-level, the ponies could climb no higher, and, after being unladen, were sent back in charge of the packers into Paradise Valley, where they might fatten on its juicy grasses until needed for the return trip.

From here, then, the ragged slope of ice, snow, and rock that stretched indefinitely upward toward the far-away shining summit must be traversed on foot or not at all. But this was not to be done now nor for days to come, during which the camp just pitched was to be the base of a widespread series of explorations. A few straggling hemlocks, so bent by the ice-laden winds that swept down the mountain-side in winter that they looked like decrepit old men, furnished shelter, fuel, and bedding.

"It beats the sloop away out of sight," remarked Bonny.

"Or Skookum John's," said Alaric.

"Yes, or being chased and starved."

"The best of it all is that up here I seem to amount to something," added Alaric.

This was, after all, the true secret of our lads' content; for, in spite of its novelty, the present situation would quickly have grown wearisome had they not been constantly and happily occupied. Every day that the weather would permit they tramped from early morning until dark over snow-fields and glaciers, sealed cliffs, scrambled down into valleylike meadows set like green jewels in the grim mountain-side, threaded their way amid the fantastic forms of stunted forests, toiled slowly up lofty heights, or slid with the speed of toboggans down gleaming slopes. Each day they gained in agility and daring, and each night they returned to that cheery camp with its light, warmth, and abounding comforts, so healthfully tired and so ravenously hungry that it is no wonder they grew to look upon it as a home and a very pleasant one.

Both lads developed specialties in which they became expert. Alaric's was photography, an art that he had acquired in France, and had practised at intervals for more than a year. As soon as M. Filbert discovered this knowledge on the part of his young interpreter, he entrusted him with the camera, and never had the lad devoted himself to anything with such enthusiasm, as he now did to the capturing of views. His greatest triumph came through hours of tedious and noiseless creeping over a rough icefield that finally placed him within twenty yards of a couple of mountain-goats.

Although the wind was blowing strongly from them to him, the timid creatures were already alarmed, and were sniffing the air suspiciously, when a click of the camera's shutter sent them off like a flash. But the shot had been successful, as was shown by the development of a perfect plate that evening. M. Filbert was jubilant over this feat, which he said had never before been accomplished, and complimented the lad in flattering terms upon the skilful patience that had led to it.

Bonny's specialty lay in the collecting of flowers, to which he had devoted himself assiduously ever since learning that they were what the little Frenchman most desired. Keen-eyed, nimble-footed, and tireless, he discovered and secured many a rare specimen that but for him would have been passed unnoticed.

Thus the leader of the expedition found reason to value the good qualities of his young assistants more highly with each day, and was already planning to have them accompany him on his entire American tour, during which he proposed to ascend at least a dozen more mountains. Bonny was jubilant over the prospect of such a trip, and was now as eager to learn French, in order to qualify himself for it, as he had formerly been scornful of the language.

With all this open-air life and splendid physical exercise the one-time pale-faced and slender Alaric was broadening and developing beyond belief. His cheeks were now a ruddy brown, his eyes were clear, his muscles hard, and his step as springy as that of a mountain-goat. Above everything else in his own estimation he was learning to swing an axe with precision, and could now chop a log in two almost as neatly as Bonny himself.

For all that they were so constantly and agreeably occupied, the boys were possessed of a great and ever-increasing longing to stand on the lofty but still distant summit, with the general aspect of which they had become so familiar during their stay in the timber-line camp. Thus, when one evening M. Filbert decided to make a start toward it on the morrow, they hailed the announcement with joy. One of the Indians was to accompany them as guide, while his fellow was to be left with François to keep camp.

The greater part of the following morning was devoted to making preparations for the climb and what was thought might prove a three days' absence from camp. The hobnails of their walking-boots, worn smooth by friction, were replaced by a fresh set. Alpenstocks were tested until it was certain that each of those to be taken would bear the weight of the heaviest of the party. Provisions were cooked and packs laid out. Each was to carry a canvas-covered blanket sleeping-bag, inside of which would be rolled provisions for three days, a tin plate, and a cup. Each was also provided with a sheath-knife and a supply of matches. Besides these things M. Filbert was to carry a barometer, a thermometer, a compass, and a collecting-case. Alaric was entrusted with the camera and two dozen plates. Bonny's extras were a hatchet and a fifty-foot coil of stout rope; while the Indian was to carry an ice-axe, and pack a burden of fire-wood.

It was nearly noon when, fortified by a hearty lunch, they left their homelike camp, and facing resolutely upward, began a tedious climb over the limitless expanse of snow that they struck within the first hundred yards. The climb of that afternoon was hot, in spite of the snow that crunched beneath their feet, tedious, and only mildly exciting, for all the perils of the ascent were to come on the morrow. Shortly before the sun sank into the sea of cloud that spread in fleecy undulations beneath them, they reached the base of the Cleaver, a gigantic ridge that seemed to bar their further progress. Here, on a small plat of nearly level ground from which they dug away the snow, they made a fire over which to boil water for a pot of tea, ate supper, and prepared to pass the night. They were four thousand feet above timber-line, and two miles higher than the waters of Puget Sound.

As soon as supper was over the entire party crawled into their sleeping-bags for protection against the bitter cold of the night, and for a while the two boys, nestling together, talked in low tones.

[to be continued.]

[SOLVING A GEOGRAPHICAL CONUNDRUM.]

THE LONG-VEXED QUESTION OF THE MOBANGI-MAKUA RIVER.

BY CYRUS C. ADAMS.

f you were to select a bit of the earth's surface to illustrate the slow and painful steps by which geographical knowledge often grows, you could do no better than to point to the Mobangi-Makua River, the largest Congo tributary. No other subordinate river in Africa has ever been the theme of so much mistaken guess-work, or has cost the labor of so many explorers. For many years this was the largest river in the world that was in dispute. Even the name by which it was long known was a blunder. When Schweinfurth asked its name, the natives answered, "Welle." But Welle simply means "river," and is not the name of the stream.

If all African tribes were great travellers, as some of them are, and were gifted, like the Eskimos, with keen geographical instinct, they would save explorers no end of blunders, guess-work, and toil. But often they do not know rivers, lakes, or mountains beyond their own frontiers, and each tribe has its own names, or no names at all, for the geographical aspects around them. When an explorer asked the name of a great lake, the natives shouted, "Nyassa!" which means simply "lake": and so we have the name Lake Nyassa on the maps to-day. Nearly every tribe along the Mobangi-Makua has its own name for the river, which, being disguised as the Kibali, the Makua, the Dua, the Mobangi, and so on, was hard to recognize as one and the same great river under many aliases.

Schweinfurth says it was a thrilling moment when first he stood upon the bank of the "noble river, which rolled its deep dark flood majestically to the west." At a glance he settled one important question. He had heard of the river, and thought it might be a tributary of the Nile. But on that spring day in 1870 he saw its flood drifting into the great unknown to the west. One point was settled. It was not a Nile affluent; and the explorer, listening to all the natives could tell him, studying all our meagre information about water systems to the west, convinced himself that he had discovered the upper part of the Shari River, which pours into Lake Tchad, on the edge of the Sahara Desert. For years most geographers agreed with him, and map-makers traced the supposed course of Schweinfurth's Welle to the edge of the great northern desert.

But when Stanley floated down the Congo in 1877, he saw great rivers entering it from the north. It occurred to him, and to the explorers who followed him, that one of them was probably the lower course of Schweinfurth's Welle. For years this and that river was talked about as the possible outlet of the Welle.

Stanley thought it was very likely identical with the Aruwimi, and he published his hypothesis in his book The Congo in 1885. He had never seen the mighty flood that the Mobangi pours into the Congo, hundreds of miles below the Aruwimi confluence.

Nobody knew, until after Stanley's book was published, that one of the greatest and most modest of explorers, the late Dr. Wilhelm Junker, had already traced the Welle—or the Makua, as he called it—for hundreds of miles, to a point far west of the Aruwimi, proving that it could not possibly be that river. For nearly seven years (1879-86) this man of science lived alone near the upper waters of the mysterious river, studying Nature and Nature's children, eating the food his black friends sold him, including fried ants and other relishes and dainties not known in our cuisine, and wandering through the land with only a cane in his hand, and a few black servants to carry his baggage. At the frontier of a new district he always pitched his camp, sent his presents forward to the chief, made his peaceful purpose known, and asked permission to go on. In all these years he never fired a hostile shot; and late in 1882 he set out down the river to find if it really flowed to Lake Tchad.

But Junker's heart was heavy within him. How could he map the unknown region he was entering? His scientific equipment was worthless. Some instruments had been broken during mouths of incessant travel. Others had been ruined by the humid climate. He had absolutely nothing except a compass to aid in determining his positions. Destitute of scientific outfit he determined to make up for it, as far as he could, by scrupulous care, and the most minute exactitude he could attain in his route survey.

JUNKER TRUDGED ALONG, COMPASS IN HAND.

So Dr. Junker trudged along through the grass, that was often higher than his head, compass in hand, counting every step. Every fifteen minutes he stopped and jotted down in his note-book the distance and the mean direction travelled in the preceding quarter of an hour. He noted all the little streams, the names of villages, the hill features, and so on; and at night he drew on his route map, with the greatest care, the journey of the day, and all the data that may be recorded on a map. Geographers still examine with great interest these neat and methodical map sheets. But they did not know, till years after Junker had returned home, that he had achieved, as we shall see, one of the most remarkable geographical feats on record.

Junker kept up this trying routine through all the weeks of his long journey. Compelled at last to turn back, when nearly four hundred miles on his way, by news that the Mahdists might destroy all the collections he had left behind, he computed the latitude and longitude of his farthest point. All the facts for this computation were his note-book records and the known position of his starting-point. When he returned home, he and Dr. Hassenstein, a famous German cartographer, sat down and laboriously dug through Dr. Junker's records again. The result was almost the same that Junker himself had reached.

The time came when Lieutenant Le Marinel, ascending the great river from the Congo, reached Dr. Junker's farthest. With his instruments he fixed the geographical position of this point, and found that it was practically just where Junker and Hassenstein said it was. Junker's determination, made without instruments, at the end of a long journey, was not more than a mile or two out of the way.

Did you ever hear of a steamboat losing its way and getting into the wrong river by mistake? This actually happened on the Congo, and the blunder hastened the day when the world was to know all about the destination of the Makua River. One day, in 1885, Mr. George Grenfell was steaming along on the Peace, and thought he was making excellent progress up the Congo. But one thing perplexed him. He could not find Libongo, on the Congo's right bank. He had been there before, and knew where the town ought to be. He began to wonder if he was on the Congo, after all. He discovered that he had passed the first parallel of north latitude, and then he knew that he had ascended, for one hundred miles, a mighty tributary that seemed as large as the Congo itself. It was the Mobangi. Grenfell's mistake was not so absurd as it appears. The Mobangi has a very wide channel, is thickly strewn with islands, like the Congo, and its lower course, for many miles, runs nearly parallel with the greater river. Its mouth had been discovered the year before, but nothing was known of the river.

Grenfell had other work to do just then, and so he lost no time in getting out of the Mobangi; but later in the same year he entered its mouth again, determined to go wherever it led him. His little party on the steamer were in great straits for food one day, and they could not buy provisions. The Mobangi natives had decided that their strange visitors were ghosts, and who ever heard of ghosts needing food? As usual, Grenfell tried argument and persuasion instead of force.

"Look here," he said. "We are men like you. If we do not eat we cannot live. We sleep as you do. We have the same number of fingers and toes that you have. You never saw ghosts who were like you as we are."

It took a good deal of this sort of talk to convince the native mind, but at last the explorer went on his way, with as much food as his boat could carry, leaving friends behind.

THEY ASSAILED THE "PEACE" WITH FLIGHTS OF POISONED ARROWS.

Up the Mobangi steamed the Peace, over three hundred miles north of the equator, and Grenfell had travelled four hundred miles on the river, when rapids barred the way, and he turned back. It had been an exciting trip, for thousands of natives lined the banks, convinced that the times were out of joint indeed if these remarkable strangers with their puffing smoke boat must needs be inflicted upon them. Near the most northern point attained Grenfell saw houses built in the branches of tall straight-stemmed trees. The houses were forty to fifty feet in the air, and from them dangled rope-ladders reaching to the ground. A strange and animated spectacle was witnessed when these aerial structures came into view; for men, women, and children were clambering up the rope-ladders as fast as their arms and legs could carry them, and taking refuge in the houses. From these points of vantage they assailed the Peace with flights of poisoned arrows, which nobody on board minded a whit, for the party were well protected by the arrow-proof wire netting that shielded the deck. Savage fears were finally allayed, and the refugees sought terra firma again. Everybody welcomed Grenfell as he steamed down the river, and the only trouble was that he could not stay long enough to satisfy the newly made friends, who had been his enemies a little before.

Thus the mystery was gradually clearing up. Even before the news from Grenfell reached Europe, the Belgian geographer Wauters declared that Schweinfurth's Welle must be a Congo tributary, and the Mobangi its lower course. What a shout of protest the French geographers raised! They laughed at the idea, and said it was extremely absurd. The trouble with them was that if Schweinfurth's river was in the Congo basin, it could not belong wholly to France, and so they were determined that its waters should not join the Congo if they could help it. They wanted nearly every foot of the waterway to be traversed before they were willing to surrender. But as soon as Grenfell's great discovery was reported, all other theories melted into air, and Lake Tchad ceased to figure as the outlet of the Makua.

But poor Dr. Junker did not know how grandly he had helped to solve the problem. His letters had reached the outside world, but no letters from home had come to him. Months after Grenfell's ascent of the Mobangi, Junker reached the sea. "I still believe," he said, "that the Makua goes to Lake Tchad." He was told of Grenfell's discovery, and he thought it over for a while before he made reply. Then he simply said: "That settles it. The Makua goes to the Congo."

But several hundred miles of unexplored river still stretched between the points attained by Grenfell and Junker, and it was 1890 before this gap was completely filled by the expeditions of Van Gèle and Le Marinel. Time and again Van Gèle pulled his little steamer through the rapids that had barred Grenfell's advance. One of them will always bear the name of Elephant Rapid, because there the explorer killed an elephant, whose flesh was smoked, and supplied food to forty black helpers for two months. New vistas of Africa opened along the half-mile-wide river above the rapids. Plantations of maize and bananas stretched for miles away. Many villages dotted the hill-sides, posts of observation were seen high up in the branches of lofty cottonwood-trees, and, strange to relate, many women had black hair hanging down their backs in braids, some of which were so very long that they were tied around the arms to keep them from trailing on the ground. European anthropologists rubbed their eyes and read again. But how many stories are spoiled by a little investigation! It was discovered at last that all these tresses were false, and of vegetable origin.

Most of the natives were friendly, and their fleets of thirty or forty canoes, filled with food for sale, often surrounded the steamer; and so, after twenty years of theory, guess-work, discussion, and exploration, the great river was at last revealed, from the mountains near the Nile that gave it birth to the place where it mingles with the Congo.

[THE ARMENIAN RELIEF COMMITTEE OF]

WASHINGTON SQUARE.

A Comedietta in One Act.

BY EDITH V. BRANDER MATTHEWS.

Characters:

Time.—Present.

Place.—Miss Silvia Brown's home, overlooking Washington Square.

Scene.—Parlor. Fireplace in flat centre. Door in right upper corner. Low table to left of fireplace. Six chairs arranged in a semicircle in centre of stage. At rise of curtain Silvia is discovered seated in a big arm-chair to left centre, busy reading.

Silvia (dropping book in her lap as the curtain rolls up). Oh, dear! I do wish those girls would come! I begin to feel nervous. (Fretfully.) I don't see what good we girls can do, anyhow. We can't prevent those hideous old Turks from scratching the eyes out of the poor Armenians. Oh, why did Miss Peabody suggest that we girls of the graduating class of the Peabody School (mimicking) should form ourselves into some sort of a society in order to keep up the pleasant friendships begun at school? She might have known Catharine Cruger would want us to undertake some outlandish thing or other. (Sarcastically.) Of course dear Catharine no sooner returned to town this fall than she reminded us of Miss Peabody's parting injunction, and proposed we should try to relieve the unfortunate Armenians. It will be so easy, so simple. (Angrily.) To think that I was idiot enough to offer to have the meeting here! But I won't have anything to do with the matter, no noth—

Rose (entering door right upper corner). Good-afternoon, dear. I hope I am not late?

Silvia (shaking hands, but still somewhat ruffled). Oh no, dear! it's only three-quarters of an hour past the time.

Rose (serenely). Oh, I am so glad I am the first, for I haven't had time to look up where Armenia is, so do tell me, dear, before the girls come (taking off her veil). I really meant to have been here earlier, but as I passed Madame Jacquin's I saw such a love of a theatre hat I simply couldn't resist going in to try it on.

Silvia (with interest). What was it like?

Rose. A soft crown of gold-brown velvet, with the cutest little net-work of gold beads, held on with little loops of blue—

Harriet (appearing in the doorway). Oh, girls, I have hurried so, and I can't stay but a few minutes, for I promised to meet mamma at Mrs. Draper's in half an hour! It's a musical, you know, and I've simply got to tell Kitty Draper all about the Leap-Year Ball.

Grace (entering hastily, and out of breath, addressing Harriet). I saw you ahead of me and tried to catch up, but you walked like a steam-engine. (To Silvia.) Why, where are the rest?

Silvia. I don't know. Pauline promised to be here early, and she is an hour late now.

Pauline (coming in as Silvia utters the last words, laughingly). Now do have the grace to say "better late than never."

Silvia (smiling). "Eavesdroppers never hear any good of themselves" would be a more suitable proverb. But are we really all here? (Looks around.) No, Catharine is missing.

Grace (mischievously). Absent would be a better word.

Rose. Well, do let's begin. I can't stay more than fifteen minutes. I ought to be trying on my new mousseline de soie this minute. (Becoming enthusiastic.) Really, Madam Mosset has outdone herself. Why, she has put the dearest, little folds of—

Harriet (interrupting, wearily). What are we to do, anyway?

All. I don't know.

Grace (pulling out a letter from her pocket, and reading). Catharine says we are an Armenian Relief Committee. (Helplessly.) What do we have to do?

All (wailingly). I don't know.

Grace. Let Silvia tell us; she's hostess.

Silvia (despairingly). I haven't the faintest idea what we can do. Catharine suggested this meeting, and she ought to be here to help us.

Harriet (gloomily). If Catharine were here she would make us do just as she pleases. (With awe.) She has been studying parliamentary law.

All (much impressed). No! Really?

Grace. Well, suppose we think hard for a few minutes, and then tell our ideas. [Silence.]

Pauline (suddenly). Couldn't we— No, that wouldn't do.

Harriet. Perhaps we might— No, I'm afraid that wouldn't do, either.

Rose. Do they need clothes? We might send them a trunkful or two.

Silvia (doubtfully). No, I don't believe they need clothes particularly. (Then quickly.) I've heard that they suffer horribly from hunger.

Harriet. Splendid! Then we can send them some canned soups and potted meats and—

Pauline (sarcastically). And lobster salad and fried oysters. No, girls; really, I think if we got our brothers to give us their old guns and bought a few new ones it would be the best thing. My brother said last evening they were unarmed, and couldn't defend themselves.

Grace (humming to the air of "If you want to know the time, ask a policeman"). Won't you come and have a Gatling-gun with me?

Pauline (ruffled). Well, then, suggest something better yourself; only my brother said—

Harriet (energetically). I know one sure thing. I will have nothing to do with any fair. I'll do almost anything else you girls want, but after standing five hours steadily, and only selling four dollars' worth of rubbish last year at the Golden Rule Fair, I made a solemn vow I would scrub before doing such a thing again.

Silvia. I quite agree with you, my dear. Fairs are immoral. I've told more lies at my last fair trying to get people to buy things they didn't want than I ever expect to be guilty of again till—(hesitating)—till the next one.

Rose (thoughtfully). Fairs are tiresome, but a costume fair would be lovely.

Grace (shaking her head). No fairs for me. I spent six months for the last one doing drawn-work on twelve doilies, and then Mrs. Miller bought them at twenty-five cents apiece for handkerchiefs for her little girl's doll!

Pauline (importantly). Well, my brother says he thinks lotteries and fairs are all on a par, for at the former you lose your dollars, and at the latter you lose your sense.

All (groaning). Oh, Pauline!

Grace. Well, at least we have settled what we won't do, so let's think up something we can do. Come, Silvia, you suggest something.

Silvia. Why can't we give tableaux-vivants, and send the money we get to our ambassador at Constantinople for distribution?