STORIES FOR BOYS




[Illustration: “I never saw a King,” Gordon remarked, “and I’m sure I
never expected to see one sitting on a log in the rain.”]




  STORIES FOR BOYS

  BY
  RICHARD HARDING DAVIS

  _ILLUSTRATED_

  NEW YORK
  CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS
  1915




  COPYRIGHT, 1891, BY
  CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS.

  [Illustration]




  THIS BOOK OF BOYS’ STORIES IS DEDICATED
  TO MY BROTHER

  C. BELMONT DAVIS

  WHO WAS A BOY ABOUT THE SAME TIME I WAS




CONTENTS.


                                           PAGE

  THE REPORTER WHO MADE HIMSELF KING          1

  MIDSUMMER PIRATES                          88

  RICHARD CARR’S BABY                       117

  THE GREAT TRI-CLUB TENNIS TOURNAMENT      130

  THE JUMP AT COREY’S SLIP                  166

  THE VAN BIBBER BASEBALL CLUB              177

  THE STORY OF A JOCKEY                     184




LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.


  “I NEVER SAW A KING,” GORDON REMARKED,
  “AND I’M SURE I NEVER EXPECTED TO SEE
  ONE SITTING ON A LOG IN THE RAIN,”      _Frontispiece_

                                                    PAGE

  “ABOUT TIME TO BEGIN ON THE GOATS!”                 44

  TO THE NORTH TOWERED THREE MAGNIFICENT
  HULLS OF THE WHITE SQUADRON,                        86

  “WHICH DO I THINK WILL WIN?” SAID THE
  VETERAN BOAT-BUILDER OF MANASQUAN,                  96

  AS THE TWO PRESCOTTS SCRAMBLED UP ON THE
  GUNWALE OF THEIR BOAT, THE DEFEATED
  CREW SALUTED THEM WITH CHEERS,                     112

  HE TOOK A LARGE ROLL OF BILLS FROM HIS
  POCKET AND COUNTED THEM,                           198




THE REPORTER WHO MADE HIMSELF KING.


The Old Time Journalist will tell you the best reporter is the one
who works his way up. He will hold that the only way to start is as a
printer’s devil, or as an office boy, to learn in time to set type, to
graduate from a compositor into a stenographer, and as a stenographer
take down speeches at public meetings, and so finally grow into a real
reporter, with a fire badge on your left suspender, and a speaking
acquaintance with all the greatest men in the city, not even excepting
Police Captains.

That is the old time journalist’s idea of it. That is the way he was
trained, and that is why he is reporting still. If you train up a youth
in this way, he will go into reporting with too full a knowledge of
the newspaper business, with no illusions concerning it, and with no
ignorant enthusiasms, but with a keen and justifiable impression that
he is not paid enough for what he does. And he will only do what he
is paid to do. Now, you cannot pay a good reporter for what he does,
because he does not work for pay. He works for his paper. He gives his
time, his health, his brains, his sleeping hours, and his eating hours,
and life sometimes, to get news for it. He thinks the sun rises only
that men may have light by which to read it. But if he has been in a
newspaper office from his youth up, he finds out before he becomes a
reporter that this is not so, and loses his real value. He should come
right out of the University where he has been doing “campus notes”
for the college weekly, and be pitchforked out into city work without
knowing whether the Battery is at Harlem or Hunter’s Point, and with
the idea that he is a Moulder of Public Opinion and that the Power of
the Press is greater than the Power of Money, and that the few lines
he writes are of more value in the Editor’s eyes than the column of
advertising on the last page, which they are not. After three years--it
is sometimes longer, sometimes not so long--he finds out that he has
given his nerves and his youth and his enthusiasm in exchange for a
general fund of miscellaneous knowledge, the opportunity of personal
encounter with all the greatest and most remarkable men and events that
have risen in those three years, and a great readiness of resource,
and patience. He will find that he has crowded the experiences of the
lifetime of the ordinary young business man, doctor, or lawyer, or man
about town, into three short years; that he has learnt to think and to
act quickly, to be patient and unmoved when every one else has lost his
head, actually or figuratively speaking; to write as fast as another
man can talk, and to be able to talk with authority on matters of which
other men do not venture even to think until they have read what he has
written with a copy-boy at his elbow on the night previous.

It is necessary for you to know this, that you may understand what
manner of young man young Albert Gordon was.

Young Gordon had been a reporter just three years. He had left Yale
when his last living relative died, and taken the morning train for
New York, where they had promised him reportorial work on one of the
innumerable Greatest New York Dailies. He arrived at the office at
noon, and was sent back over the same road on which he had just come,
to Spuyten Duyvil, where a train had been wrecked and about everybody
of consequence to suburban New York killed. One of the old reporters
hurried him to the office again with his “copy,” and after he had
delivered that, he was sent to the Tombs to talk French to a man in
Murderer’s Row, who could not talk anything else, but who had shown
some international skill in the use of a jimmy. And at eight, he
covered a flower show in Madison Square Garden; and at eleven was sent
over the Brooklyn Bridge in a cab to watch a fire and make guesses at
the insurance.

He went to bed at one, and dreamt of shattered locomotives, human
beings lying still with blankets over them, rows of cells, and banks of
beautiful flowers nodding their heads to the tunes of the brass band
in the gallery. He decided when he awoke the next morning that he had
entered upon a picturesque and exciting career, and as one day followed
another, he became more and more convinced of it, and more and more
devoted to it. He was eighteen then, and he was now twenty-one, and in
that time had become a great reporter, and had been to Presidential
conventions in Chicago, revolutions in Hayti, Indian outbreaks on the
Plains, and midnight meetings of moonlighters in Tennessee, and had
seen what work earthquakes, floods, fire, and fever could do in great
cities, and had contradicted the President, and borrowed matches from
burglars. And now he thought he would like to rest and breathe a bit,
and not to work again unless as a war correspondent or as a novelist.
He had always had enough money of his own to keep him alive, and so he
was in consequence independent of what the paper gave him. The only
obstacle to his becoming a great war correspondent lay in the fact that
there was no war, and a war correspondent without a war is about as
absurd an individual as a general without an army. He read the papers
every morning on the elevated trains for war clouds; but though there
were many war clouds, they always drifted apart, and peace smiled
again. This was very disappointing to young Gordon, and he was more and
more keenly discouraged.

And then as war work was out of the question, he decided to write his
novel. It was to be a novel of New York life, and he wanted a quiet
place in which to work on it. He was already making inquiries among
the suburban residents of his acquaintance for just such a quiet spot,
when he received an offer to go to the Island of Opeki in the South
Pacific Ocean, as secretary to the American consul to that place. The
gentleman who had been appointed by the President to act as consul
at Opeki, was Captain Leonard T. Travis, a veteran of the Civil War,
who had contracted a severe attack of rheumatism while camping out at
night in the dew, and who on account of this souvenir of his efforts
to save the Union had allowed the Union he had saved to support him in
one office or another ever since. He had met young Gordon at a dinner,
and had had the presumption to ask him to serve as his secretary, and
Gordon, much to his surprise, had accepted his offer. The idea of a
quiet life in the tropics with new and beautiful surroundings, and with
nothing to do and plenty of time in which to do it, and to write his
novel besides, seemed to Albert to be just what he wanted; and though
he did not know or care much for his superior officer, he agreed to go
with him promptly, and proceeded to bid good by to his friends and to
make his preparations. Captain Travis was so delighted with getting
such a clever young gentleman for his secretary, that he referred to
him to his friends as “my attaché of legation”; nor did he lessen
that gentleman’s dignity by telling any one that the attaché’s salary
was to be $500 a year. His own salary was only $1500; and though his
brother-in-law, Senator Rainsford, tried his best to get it raised,
he was unsuccessful. The consulship to Opeki was instituted early in
the ’50’s, to get rid of and reward a third or fourth cousin of the
President’s, whose services during the campaign were important, but
whose after-presence was embarrassing. He had been created consul to
Opeki as being more distant and unaccessible than any other known
spot, and had lived and died there; and so little was known of the
island, and so difficult was communication with it, that no one knew
he was dead, until Captain Travis, in his hungry haste for office,
had uprooted the sad fact. Captain Travis, as well as Albert, had a
secondary reason for wishing to visit Opeki. His physician had told him
to go to some warm climate for his rheumatism, and in accepting the
consulship his object was rather to follow out his doctor’s orders at
his country’s expense, than to serve his country at the expense of his
rheumatism.

Albert could learn but very little of Opeki; nothing, indeed, but that
it was situated about one hundred miles from the Island of Octavia,
which island, in turn, was simply described as a coaling-station three
hundred miles from the coast of California. Steamers from San Francisco
to Yokohama stopped every third week at Octavia, and that was all
either Captain Travis or his secretary could learn of their new home.
This was so very little, that Albert stipulated to stay only as long
as he liked it, and to return to the States within a few months if he
found such a change of plan desirable.

As he was going to what was an almost undiscovered country, he thought
it would be a good plan to furnish himself with a supply of articles
with which to trade with the native Opekians, and for this purpose he
purchased a large quantity of brass rods, because he had read that
Stanley did so, and added to these, brass curtain chains and about
two hundred leaden medals similar to those sold by street pedlers
during the Constitutional Centennial celebration in New York City,
and which were cheap. He also collected even more beautiful but less
expensive decorations for Christmas trees, at a wholesale house on Park
Row. These he hoped to exchange for furs or feathers or weapons, or
for whatever other curious and valuable trophies the Island of Opeki
boasted. He already pictured his room on his return hung fantastically
with crossed spears and boomerangs, feather head-dresses, and ugly
idols. His friends told him he was doing a very foolish thing, and
argued that once out of the newspaper world, it would be hard to regain
his place in it. But he thought the novel he would write while lost to
the world at Opeki would serve to make up for his temporary absence
from it, and he expressly and impressively stipulated that the editor
should wire him if there was a war.

Captain Travis and his secretary crossed the continent without
adventure, and took passage from San Francisco on the first steamer
that touched Octavia. They reached that island in three days, and
learned with some concern that there was no regular communication with
Opeki, and that it would be necessary to charter a sail-boat for the
trip. Two fishermen agreed to take them and their trunks, and to get
them to their destination within sixteen hours if the wind held good.
It was a most unpleasant sail. The rain fell with calm, relentless
persistence from what was apparently a clear sky; the wind tossed the
waves as high as the mast and made Captain Travis ill. There was no
deck to the big boat, and they were forced to huddle up under pieces of
canvas, and talked but little. Captain Travis complained of frequent
twinges of rheumatism, and gazed forlornly over the gunwale at the
empty waste of water.

“If I’ve got to serve a term of imprisonment on a rock in the middle
of the ocean for four years,” he said, “I might just as well have done
something first, to deserve it. This is a pretty way to treat a man
who bled for his country. This is gratitude, this is.” Albert pulled
heavily on his pipe, and wiped the rain and spray from his face and
smiled.

“Oh, it won’t be so bad when we get there,” he said; “they say these
Southern people are always hospitable, and the whites will be glad to
see any one from the States.”

“There will be a round of diplomatic dinners,” said the consul, with an
attempt at cheerfulness. “I have brought two uniforms to wear at them.”

It was seven o’clock in the evening when the rain ceased, and one of
the black, half-naked fishermen nodded and pointed at a little low line
on the horizon.

“Opeki,” he said. The line grew in length until it proved to be an
island with great mountains rising to the clouds, and as they drew
nearer and nearer, showed a level coast running back to the foot of
the mountains and covered with a forest of palms. They next made out a
village of thatched huts around a grassy square, and at some distance
from the village a wooden structure with a tin roof.

“I wonder where the town is,” asked the consul, with a nervous glance
at the fishermen. One of them told him that what he saw was the town.

“That?” gasped the consul; “is that where all the people on the island
live?” The fisherman nodded; but the other added that there were other
natives up in the mountains, but that they were bad men who fought
and ate each other. The consul and his attaché of legation gazed at
the mountains with unspoken misgivings. They were quite near now, and
could see an immense crowd of men and women, all of them black, and
clad but in the simplest garments, waiting to receive them. They seemed
greatly excited and ran in and out of the huts, and up and down the
beach, as wildly as so many black ants. But in the front of the group
they distinguished three men who they could see were white, though
they were clothed like the others, simply in a shirt and a short pair
of trousers. Two of these three suddenly sprang away on a run and
disappeared among the palm trees; but the third one, who had recognized
the American flag in the halyards, threw his straw hat in the water and
began turning handsprings over the sand.

“That young gentleman, at least,” said Albert, gravely, “seems pleased
to see us.”

A dozen of the natives sprang into the water and came wading and
swimming towards them, and grinning and shouting and swinging their
arms.

“I don’t think it’s quite safe, do you?” said the consul, looking out
wildly to the open sea. “You see, they don’t know who I am.”

A great black giant threw one arm over the gunwale and shouted
something that sounded as if it were spelt Owah, Owah, as the boat
carried him through the surf.

“How do you do?” said Gordon, doubtfully. The boat shook the giant
off under the wave and beached itself so suddenly that the American
consul was thrown forward to his knees. Gordon did not wait to pick him
up, but jumped out and shook hands with the young man who had turned
handsprings, while the natives gathered about them in a circle and
chatted and laughed in delighted excitement.

“I’m awful glad to see you,” said the young man, eagerly. “My name’s
Stedman. I’m from New Haven, Connecticut. Where are you from?”

“New York,” said Albert. “This,” he added, pointing solemnly to Captain
Travis, who was still on his knees in the boat, “is the American consul
to Opeki.” The American consul to Opeki gave a wild look at Mr. Stedman
of New Haven and at the natives.

“See here, young man,” he gasped, “is this all there is of Opeki?”

“The American consul?” said young Stedman, with a gasp of amazement,
and looking from Albert to Captain Travis. “Why, I never supposed they
would send another here; the last one died about fifteen years ago, and
there hasn’t been one since. I’ve been living in the consul’s office
with the Bradleys, but I’ll move out, of course. I’m sure I’m awfully
glad to see you. It’ll make it more pleasant for me.”

“Yes,” said Captain Travis, bitterly, as he lifted his rheumatic leg
over the boat; “that’s why we came.”

Mr. Stedman did not notice this. He was too much pleased to be anything
but hospitable. “You are soaking wet, aren’t you?” he said; “and
hungry, I guess. You come right over to the consul’s office and get on
some other things.”

He turned to the natives and gave some rapid orders in their language,
and some of them jumped into the boat at this, and began lifting out
the trunks, and others ran off towards a large, stout old native, who
was sitting gravely on a log, smoking, with the rain beating unnoticed
on his gray hair.

“They’ve gone to tell the King,” said Stedman; “but you both better get
something to eat first, and then I’ll be happy to present you properly.”

“The King,” said Captain Travis, with some awe; “is there a king?”

“I never saw a king,” Gordon remarked, “and I’m sure I never expected
to see one sitting on a log in the rain.”

“He’s a very good King,” said Stedman, confidentially; “and though
you mightn’t think it to look at him, he’s a terrible stickler for
etiquette and form. After supper he’ll give you an audience; and if you
have any tobacco, you had better give him some as a present, and you’d
better say it’s from the President: he doesn’t like to take presents
from common people, he’s so proud. The only reason he borrows mine is
because he thinks I’m the President’s son.”

“What makes him think that?” demanded the consul, with some shortness.
Young Mr. Stedman looked nervously at the consul and at Albert, and
said that he guessed some one must have told him. The consul’s office
was divided into four rooms with an open court in the middle, filled
with palms, and watered somewhat unnecessarily by a fountain.

“I made that,” said Stedman, in a modest off-hand way. “I made it out
of hollow bamboo reeds connected with a spring. And now I’m making one
for the King. He saw this and had a lot of bamboo sticks put up all
over the town, without any underground connections, and couldn’t make
out why the water wouldn’t spurt out of them. And because mine spurts,
he thinks I’m a magician.”

“I suppose,” grumbled the consul, “some one told him that, too.”

“I suppose so,” said Mr. Stedman, uneasily.

There was a veranda around the consul’s office, and inside, the walls
were hung with skins, and pictures from illustrated papers, and there
was a good deal of bamboo furniture, and four broad, cool-looking beds.
The place was as clean as a kitchen. “I made the furniture,” said
Stedman, “and the Bradleys keep the place in order.”

“Who are the Bradleys?” asked Albert.

“The Bradleys are those two men you saw with me,” said Stedman; “they
deserted from a British man-of-war that stopped here for coal, and
they act as my servants. One is Bradley, Sr., and the other, Bradley,
Jr.”

“Then vessels do stop here, occasionally?” the consul said, with a
pleased smile.

“Well, not often,” said Stedman. “Not so very often; about once a year.
The _Nelson_ thought this was Octavia, and put off again as soon as
she found out her mistake, and the Bradleys took to the bush, and the
boat’s crew couldn’t find them. When they saw your flag, they thought
you might mean to send them back, so they ran off to hide again:
they’ll be back, though, when they get hungry.”

The supper young Stedman spread for his guests, as he still treated
them, was very refreshing and very good. There was cold fish and pigeon
pie, and a hot omelet filled with mushrooms and olives and tomatoes
and onions all sliced up together, and strong black coffee. After
supper, Stedman went off to see the King and came back in a little
while to say that his Majesty would give them an audience the next day
after breakfast. “It is too dark now,” Stedman explained; “and it’s
raining so that they can’t make the street lamps burn. Did you happen
to notice our lamps? I invented them; but they don’t work very well,
yet. I’ve got the right idea, though, and I’ll soon have the town
illuminated all over, whether it rains or not.”

The consul had been very silent and indifferent, during supper, to all
around him. Now he looked up with some show of interest.

“How much longer is it going to rain, do you think?” he asked.

“Oh, I don’t know,” said Stedman, critically. “Not more than two
months, I should say.” The consul rubbed his rheumatic leg and sighed,
but said nothing.

The Bradleys turned up about ten o’clock, and came in very sheepishly,
pulling at their forelocks and scraping with their left foot. The
consul had gone off to pay the boatmen who had brought them, and
Albert in his absence assured the sailors that there was not the
least danger of their being sent away. Then he turned into one of the
beds, and Stedman took one in another room, leaving the room he had
occupied heretofore, for the consul. As he was saying good night,
Albert suggested that he had not yet told them how he came to be on
a deserted island; but Stedman only laughed and said that that was a
long story, and that he would tell him all about it in the morning. So
Albert went off to bed without waiting for the consul to return, and
fell asleep, wondering at the strangeness of his new life, and assuring
himself that if the rain only kept up, he would have his novel finished
in a month.

The sun was shining brightly when he awoke, and the palm trees outside
were nodding gracefully in a warm breeze. From the court came the
odor of strange flowers, and from the window he could see the ocean
brilliantly blue, and with the sun coloring the spray that beat against
the coral reefs on the shore.

“Well, the consul can’t complain of this,” he said, with a laugh of
satisfaction; and pulling on a bath-robe, he stepped into the next room
to awaken Captain Travis. But the room was quite empty, and the bed
undisturbed. The consul’s trunk remained just where it had been placed
near the door, and on it lay a large sheet of foolscap, with writing on
it, and addressed at the top to Albert Gordon. The handwriting was the
consul’s. Albert picked it up and read it with much anxiety. It began
abruptly:--

  “The fishermen who brought us to this forsaken spot tell me that it
  rains here six months in the year, and that this is the first month.
  I came here to serve my country, for which I fought and bled, but I
  did not come here to die of rheumatism and pneumonia. I can serve my
  country better by staying alive; and whether it rains or not, I don’t
  like it. I have been grossly deceived, and I am going back. Indeed,
  by the time you get this, I will be on my return trip, as I intend
  leaving with the men who brought us here as soon as they can get the
  sail up. My cousin, Senator Rainsford, can fix it all right with the
  President, and can have me recalled in proper form after I get back.
  But of course it would not do for me to leave my post with no one to
  take my place, and no one could be more ably fitted to do so than
  yourself; so I feel no compunctions at leaving you behind. I hereby,
  therefore, accordingly appoint you my substitute with full power to
  act, to collect all fees, sign all papers, and attend to all matters
  pertaining to your office as American consul, and I trust you will
  worthily uphold the name of that country and government which it has
  always been my pleasure and duty to serve.

  “Your sincere friend and superior officer,

                                                     “LEONARD T. TRAVIS.

  “P.S. I did not care to disturb you by moving my trunk, so I left it,
  and you can make what use you please of whatever it contains, as I
  shall not want tropical garments where I am going. What you will need
  most, I think, is a waterproof and umbrella.

  “P.S. Look out for that young man Stedman. He is too inventive. I
  hope you will like your high office; but as for me, I am satisfied
  with little old New York. Opeki is just a bit too far from
  civilization to suit me.”

Albert held the letter before him and read it over again before he
moved. Then he jumped to the window. The boat was gone, and there was
not a sign of it on the horizon.

“The miserable old hypocrite!” he cried, half angry and half laughing.
“If he thinks I am going to stay here alone he is very greatly
mistaken. And yet, why not?” he asked. He stopped soliloquizing and
looked around him, thinking rapidly. As he stood there, Stedman came in
from the other room, fresh and smiling from his morning’s bath.

“Good morning,” he said, “where’s the consul?”

“The consul,” said Albert, gravely, “is before you. In me you see the
American consul to Opeki.

“Captain Travis,” Albert explained, “has returned to the United States.
I suppose he feels that he can best serve his country by remaining on
the spot. In case of another war, now, for instance, he would be there
to save it again.”

“And what are you going to do?” asked Stedman, anxiously. “You will not
run away too, will you?”

Albert said that he intended to remain where he was and perform his
consular duties, to appoint him his secretary of legation, and to
elevate the United States in the opinion of the Opekians above all
other nations.

“They may not think much of the United States in Russia,” he said; “but
we are going to teach Opeki that America is first on the map, and there
is no second.”

“I’m sure it’s very good of you to make me your secretary,” said
Stedman, with some pride. “I hope I won’t make any mistakes. What are
the duties of a consul’s secretary?”

“That,” said Albert, “I do not know. But you are rather good at
inventing, so you can invent a few. That should be your first duty, and
you should attend to it at once. I will have trouble enough finding
work for myself. Your salary is $500 a year; and now,” he continued,
briskly, “we want to prepare for this reception. We can tell the King
that Travis was just a guard of honor for the trip, and that I have
sent him back to tell the President of my safe arrival. That will
keep the President from getting anxious. There is nothing,” continued
Albert, “like a uniform to impress people who live in the tropics, and
Travis, it so happens, has two in his trunk. He intended to wear them
on State occasions, and as I inherit the trunk and all that is in it, I
intend to wear one of the uniforms, and you can have the other. But I
have first choice, because I am consul.”

Captain Travis’s diplomatic outfit consisted of one full dress and
one undress United States uniform. Albert put on the dress coat over
a pair of white flannel trousers, and looked remarkably brave and
handsome. Stedman, who was only eighteen and quite thin, did not appear
so well, until Albert suggested his padding out his chest and shoulders
with towels. This made him rather warm, but helped his general
appearance.

“The two Bradleys must dress up too,” said Albert. “I think they ought
to act as a guard of honor, don’t you? The only things I have are
blazers and jerseys; but it doesn’t much matter what they wear, as long
as they dress alike.”

He accordingly called in the two Bradleys, and gave them each a pair of
the captain’s rejected white duck trousers, and a blue jersey apiece,
with a big white Y on it.

“The students of Yale gave me that,” he said to the younger Bradley,
“in which to play foot-ball, and a great man gave me the other. His
name is Walter Camp; and if you rip or soil that jersey, I’ll send you
back to England in irons; so be careful.”

Stedman gazed at his companions in their different costumes,
doubtfully. “It reminds me,” he said, “of private theatricals. Of the
time our church choir played ‘Pinafore.’”

“Yes,” assented Albert; “but I don’t think we look quite gay enough. I
tell you what we need,--medals. You never saw a diplomat without a lot
of decorations and medals.”

“Well, I can fix that,” Stedman said. “I’ve got a bag full. I used to
be the fastest bicycle-rider in Connecticut, and I’ve got all my prizes
with me.”

Albert said doubtfully that that wasn’t exactly the sort of medal he
meant.

“Perhaps not,” returned Stedman, as he began fumbling in his trunk;
“but the King won’t know the difference. He couldn’t tell a cross of
the Legion of Honor from a medal for the tug of war.”

So the bicycle medals, of which Stedman seemed to have an innumerable
quantity, were strung in profusion over Albert’s uniform, and in a
lesser quantity over Stedman’s; while a handful of leaden ones, those
sold on the streets for the Constitutional Centennial, with which
Albert had provided himself, were wrapped up in a red silk handkerchief
for presentation to the King: with them Albert placed a number of brass
rods and brass chains, much to Stedman’s delighted approval.

“That is a very good idea,” he said. “Democratic simplicity is the
right thing at home, of course; but when you go abroad and mix with
crowned heads, you want to show them that you know what’s what.”

“Well,” said Albert, gravely, “I sincerely hope this crowned head don’t
know what’s what. If he reads ‘Connecticut Agricultural State Fair.
One-mile bicycle race. First Prize,’ on this badge, when we are trying
to make him believe it’s a war medal, it may hurt his feelings.”

Bradley, Jr., went ahead to announce the approach of the American
embassy, which he did with so much manner that the King deferred the
audience a half-hour, in order that he might better prepare to receive
his visitors. When the audience did take place, it attracted the entire
population to the green spot in front of the King’s palace, and their
delight and excitement over the appearance of the visitors was sincere
and hearty. The King was too polite to appear much surprised, but he
showed his delight over his presents as simply and openly as a child.
Thrice he insisted on embracing Albert, and kissing him three times
on the forehead, which, Stedman assured him in a side whisper, was a
great honor; an honor which was not extended to the secretary, although
he was given a necklace of animals’ claws instead, with which he was
better satisfied.

After this reception, the embassy marched back to the consul’s office,
surrounded by an immense number of the natives, some of whom ran ahead
and looked back at them, and crowded so close on them that the two
Bradleys had to poke at the nearest ones with their guns. The crowd
remained outside the office even after the procession of four had
disappeared, and cheered. This suggested to Gordon that this would
be a good time to make a speech, which he accordingly did, Stedman
translating it, sentence by sentence. At the conclusion of this
effort, Albert distributed a number of brass rings among the married
men present, which they placed on whichever finger fitted best, and
departed delighted.

Albert had wished to give the rings to the married women, but Stedman
pointed out to him that it would be much cheaper to give them to the
married men; for while one woman could only have one husband, one man
could have at least six wives.

“And now, Stedman,” said Albert, after the mob had gone, “tell me what
you are doing on this island.”

“It’s a very simple story,” Stedman said. “I am the representative,
or agent, or operator, for the Yokohama Cable Company. The Yokohama
Cable Company is a company started in San Francisco, for the purpose
of laying a cable to Yokohama. It is a stock company; and though
it started out very well, the stock has fallen very low. Between
ourselves, it is not worth over three or four cents. When the officers
of the company found out that no one would buy their stock, and that no
one believed in them or their scheme, they laid a cable to Octavia, and
extended it on to this island. Then they said they had run out of ready
money, and would wait until they got more before laying their cable
any further. I do not think they ever will lay it any further, but
that is none of my business. My business is to answer cable messages
from San Francisco, so that the people who visit the home office can
see at least a part of the cable is working. That sometimes impresses
them, and they buy stock. There is another chap over in Octavia, who
relays all my messages and all my replies to those messages that come
to me through him from San Francisco. They never send a message unless
they have brought some one to the office whom they want to impress,
and who, they think, has money to invest in the Y. C. C. stock, and so
we never go near the wire, except at three o’clock every afternoon.
And then generally only to say ‘How are you?’ or ‘It’s raining,’ or
something like that. I’ve been saying ‘It’s raining’ now for the last
three months, but to-day I will say that the new consul has arrived.
That will be a pleasant surprise for the chap in Octavia, for he must
be tired hearing about the weather. He generally answers ‘Here too,’
or ‘So you said,’ or something like that. I don’t know what he says to
the home office. He’s brighter than I am, and that’s why they put him
between the two ends. He can see that the messages are transmitted more
fully and more correctly, in a way to please possible subscribers.”

“Sort of copy editor,” suggested Albert.

“Yes, something of that sort, I fancy,” said Stedman.

They walked down to the little shed on the shore, where the Y. C. C.
office was placed, at three that day, and Albert watched Stedman send
off his message with much interest. The “chap at Octavia,” on being
informed that the American consul had arrived at Opeki, inquired
somewhat disrespectfully, “Is it a life sentence?”

“What does he mean by that?” asked Albert.

“I suppose,” said his secretary, doubtfully, “that he thinks it a sort
of a punishment to be sent to Opeki. I hope you don’t grow to think so.”

“Opeki is all very well,” said Gordon, “or it will be when we get
things going our way.”

As they walked back to the office, Albert noticed a brass cannon,
perched on a rock at the entrance to the harbor. This had been put
there by the last consul, but had not been fired for many years. Albert
immediately ordered the two Bradleys to get it in order, and to rig up
a flag-pole beside it, for one of his American flags, which they were
to salute every night when they lowered it at sundown.

“And when we are not using it,” he said, “the King can borrow it to
celebrate with, if he doesn’t impose on us too often. The royal salute
ought to be twenty-one guns, I think; but that would use up too much
powder, so he will have to content himself with two.”

“Did you notice,” asked Stedman that night, as they sat on the veranda
of the consul’s house, in the moonlight, “how the people bowed to us as
we passed?”

“Yes,” Albert said he had noticed it. “Why?”

“Well, they never saluted me,” replied Stedman. “That sign of respect
is due to the show we made at the reception.”

“It is due to us, in any event,” said the consul, severely. “I tell
you, my secretary, that we, as the representatives of the United States
government, must be properly honored on this island. We must become a
power. And we must do so without getting into trouble with the King. We
must make them honor him, too, and then as we push him up, we will push
ourselves up at the same time.”

“They don’t think much of consuls in Opeki,” said Stedman, doubtfully.
“You see the last one was a pretty poor sort. He brought the office
into disrepute, and it wasn’t really until I came and told them what a
fine country the United States was, that they had any opinion of it at
all. Now we must change all that.”

“That is just what we will do,” said Albert. “We will transform Opeki
into a powerful and beautiful city. We will make these people work.
They must put up a palace for the King, and lay out streets, and build
wharves, and drain the town properly, and light it. I haven’t seen this
patent lighting apparatus of yours, but you had better get to work at
it at once, and I’ll persuade the King to appoint you commissioner of
highways and gas, with authority to make his people toil. And I,” he
cried, in free enthusiasm, “will organize a navy and a standing army.
Only,” he added, with a relapse of interest, “there isn’t anybody to
fight.”

“There isn’t?” said Stedman, grimly, with a scornful smile. “You just
go hunt up old Messenwah and the Hillmen with your standing army once,
and you’ll get all the fighting you want.”

“The Hillmen?” said Albert.

“The Hillmen are the natives that live up there in the hills,” Stedman
said, nodding his head towards the three high mountains at the other
end of the island, that stood out blackly against the purple, moonlit
sky. “There are nearly as many of them as there are Opekians, and they
hunt and fight for a living and for the pleasure of it. They have an
old rascal named Messenwah for a king, and they come down here about
once every three months, and tear things up.” Albert sprang to his feet.

“Oh, they do, do they?” he said, staring up at the mountain tops.
“They come down here and tear up things, do they? Well, I think we’ll
stop that, I think we’ll stop that! I don’t care how many there
are. I’ll get the two Bradleys to tell me all they know about the
drilling, to-morrow morning, and we’ll drill these Opekians, and have
sham battles, and attacks, and repulses, until I make a lot of wild,
howling Zulus out of them. And when the Hillmen come down to pay their
quarterly visit, they’ll go back again on a run. At least some of them
will,” he added ferociously. “Some of them will stay right here.”

“Dear me, dear me!” said Stedman, with awe; “you are a born fighter,
aren’t you?”

“Well, you wait and see,” said Gordon; “may be I am. I haven’t studied
tactics of war and the history of battles, so that I might be a great
war correspondent, without learning something. And there is only one
king on this island, and that is old Ollypybus himself. And I’ll go
over and have a talk with him about it to-morrow.”

Young Stedman walked up and down the length of the veranda, in and out
of the moonlight, with his hands in his pockets, and his head on his
chest. “You have me all stirred up, Gordon,” he said; “you seem so
confident and bold, and you’re not so much older than I am, either.”

“My training has been different; that’s all,” said the reporter.

“Yes,” Stedman said bitterly; “I have been sitting in an office ever
since I left school, sending news over a wire or a cable, and you have
been out in the world, gathering it.”

“And now,” said Gordon, smiling, and putting his arm around the other
boy’s shoulders, “we are going to make news ourselves.”

“There is one thing I want to say to you before you turn in,” said
Stedman. “Before you suggest all these improvements on Ollypybus, you
must remember that he has ruled absolutely here for twenty years,
and that he does not think much of consuls. He has only seen your
predecessor and yourself. He likes you because you appeared with such
dignity, and because of the presents; but if I were you, I wouldn’t
suggest these improvements as coming from yourself.”

“I don’t understand,” said Gordon; “who could they come from?”

“Well,” said Stedman, “if you will allow me to advise,--and you see I
know these people pretty well,--I would have all these suggestions come
from the President direct.”

“The President!” exclaimed Gordon; “but how? what does the President
know or care about Opeki? and it would take so long--oh, I see, the
cable. Is that what you have been doing?” he asked.

“Well, only once,” said Stedman, guiltily; “that was when he wanted
to turn me out of the consul’s office, and I had a cable that very
afternoon, from the President, ordering me to stay where I was.
Ollypybus doesn’t understand the cable, of course, but he knows that
it sends messages; and sometimes I pretend to send messages for him to
the President; but he began asking me to tell the President to come and
pay him a visit, and I had to stop it.”

“I’m glad you told me,” said Gordon. “The President shall begin to
cable to-morrow. He will need an extra appropriation from Congress to
pay for his private cablegrams alone.”

“And there’s another thing,” said Stedman. “In all your plans, you’ve
arranged for the people’s improvement, but not for their amusement; and
they are a peaceful, jolly, simple sort of people, and we must please
them.”

“Have they no games or amusements of their own?” asked Gordon.

“Well, not what we would call games.”

“Very well, then, I’ll teach them base-ball. Foot-ball would be too
warm. But that plaza in front of the King’s bungalow, where his palace
is going to be, is just the place for a diamond. On the whole, though,”
added the consul, after a moment’s reflection, “you’d better attend to
that yourself. I don’t think it becomes my dignity as American consul,
to take off my coat and give lessons to young Opekians in sliding to
bases; do you? No; I think you’d better do that. The Bradleys will help
you, and you had better begin to-morrow. You have been wanting to know
what a secretary of legation’s duties are, and now you know. It’s to
organize base-ball nines. And after you get yours ready,” he added, as
he turned into his room for the night, “I’ll train one that will sweep
yours off the face of the island. For _this_ American consul can pitch
three curves.”

The best-laid plans of men go far astray, sometimes, and the great and
beautiful city that was to rise on the coast of Opeki was not built in
a day. Nor was it ever built. For before the Bradleys could mark out
the foul-lines for the base-ball field on the plaza, or teach their
standing army the goose step, or lay bamboo pipes for the water-mains,
or clear away the cactus for the extension of the King’s palace, the
Hillmen paid Opeki their quarterly visit.

Albert had called on the King the next morning, with Stedman as his
interpreter, as he had said he would, and with maps and sketches, had
shown his Majesty what he proposed to do towards improving Opeki and
ennobling her king, and when the King saw Albert’s free-hand sketches
of wharves with tall ships lying at anchor, and rows of Opekian
warriors with the Bradleys at their head, and the design for his new
palace, and a royal sedan chair, he believed that these things were
already his, and not still only on paper, and he appointed Albert
his Prime Minister of War, Stedman his Minister of Home Affairs, and
selected two of his wisest and oldest subjects to serve them as joint
advisers. His enthusiasm was even greater than Gordon’s, because he did
not appreciate the difficulties. He thought Gordon a semi-god, a worker
of miracles, and urged the putting up of a monument to him at once
in the public plaza, to which Albert objected, on the ground that it
would be too suggestive of an idol; and to which Stedman also objected,
but for the less unselfish reason that it would “be in the way of the
pitcher’s box.”

They were feverishly discussing all these great changes, and Stedman
was translating as rapidly as he could translate, the speeches of four
different men,--for the two counsellors had been called in, all of whom
wanted to speak at once,--when there came from outside, a great shout,
and the screams of women, and the clashing of iron, and the pattering
footsteps of men running.

As they looked at one another in startled surprise, a native ran into
the room, followed by Bradley, Jr., and threw himself down before the
King. While he talked, beating his hands and bowing before Ollypybus,
Bradley, Jr., pulled his forelock to the consul, and told how this man
lived on the far outskirts of the village; how he had been captured
while out hunting, by a number of the Hillmen; and how he had escaped
to tell the people that their old enemies were on the war path again,
and rapidly approaching the village.

Outside, the women were gathering in the plaza, with the children about
them, and the men were running from hut to hut, warning their fellows,
and arming themselves with spears and swords, and the native bows and
arrows.

“They might have waited until we had that army trained,” said Gordon,
in a tone of the keenest displeasure. “Tell me, quick, what do they
generally do when they come?”

“Steal all the cattle and goats, and a woman or two, and set fire to
the huts in the outskirts,” replied Stedman.

“Well, we must stop them,” said Gordon, jumping up. “We must take out
a flag of truce and treat with them. They must be kept off until I
have my army in working order. It is most inconvenient. If they had
only waited two months, now, or six weeks even, we could have done
something; but now we must make peace. Tell the King we are going out
to fix things with them, and tell him to keep off his warriors until he
learns whether we succeed or fail.”

“But, Gordon!” gasped Stedman. “Albert! You don’t understand. Why,
man, this isn’t a street fight or a cane rush. They’ll stick you
full of spears, dance on your body, and eat you, maybe. A flag of
truce!--you’re talking nonsense. What do they know of a flag of truce?”

“You’re talking nonsense, too,” said Albert, “and you’re talking to
your superior officer. If you are not with me in this, go back to your
cable, and tell the man in Octavia that it’s a warm day, and that the
sun is shining; but if you’ve any spirit in you,--and I think you
have,--run to the office and get my Winchester rifles, and the two
shot-guns, and my revolvers, and my uniform, and a lot of brass things
for presents, and run all the way there and back. And make time. Play
you’re riding a bicycle at the Agricultural Fair.”

Stedman did not hear this last; for he was already off and away,
pushing through the crowd, and calling on Bradley, Sr., to follow him.
Bradley, Jr., looked at Gordon with eyes that snapped like a dog that
is waiting for his master to throw a stone.

“I can fire a Winchester, sir,” he said. “Old Tom can’t. He’s no good
at long range ’cept with a big gun, sir. Don’t give him the Winchester.
Give it to me, please, sir.”

Albert met Stedman in the plaza, and pulled off his blazer, and put on
Captain Travis’s--now his--uniform coat, and his white pith helmet.

“Now, Jack,” he said, “get up there and tell these people that we
are going out to make peace with these Hillmen, or bring them back
prisoners-of-war. Tell them we are the preservers of their homes and
wives and children; and you, Bradley, take these presents, and young
Bradley, keep close to me, and carry this rifle.”

Stedman’s speech was hot and wild enough to suit a critical and
feverish audience before a barricade in Paris. And when he was through,
Gordon and Bradley punctuated his oration by firing off the two
Winchester rifles in the air, at which the people jumped and fell on
their knees, and prayed to their several gods. The fighting men of the
village followed the four white men to the outskirts, and took up their
stand there as Stedman told them to, and the four walked on over the
roughly hewn road, to meet the enemy.

Gordon walked with Bradley, Jr., in advance. Stedman and old Tom
Bradley followed close behind, with the two shot-guns, and the presents
in a basket.

“Are these Hillmen used to guns?” asked Gordon. Stedman said no, they
were not.

“This shot-gun of mine is the only one on the island,” he explained,
“and we never came near enough them, before, to do anything with it.
It only carries a hundred yards. The Opekians never make any show of
resistance. They are quite content if the Hillmen satisfy themselves
with the outlying huts, as long as they leave them and the town alone;
so they seldom come to close quarters.”

The four men walked on for a quarter of an hour or so, in silence,
peering eagerly on every side; but it was not until they had left the
woods and marched out into the level stretch of grassy country, that
they came upon the enemy. The Hillmen were about forty in number, and
were as savage and ugly-looking giants as any in a picture book. They
had captured a dozen cows and goats, and were driving them on before
them, as they advanced further upon the village. When they saw the four
men, they gave a mixed chorus of cries and yells, and some of them
stopped, and others ran forward, shaking their spears, and shooting
their broad arrows into the ground before them. A tall, gray-bearded,
muscular old man, with a skirt of feathers about him, and necklaces of
bones and animals’ claws around his bare chest, ran in front of them,
and seemed to be trying to make them approach more slowly.

“Is that Messenwah?” asked Gordon.

“Yes,” said Stedman; “he is trying to keep them back. I don’t believe
he ever saw a white man before.”

“Stedman,” said Albert, speaking quickly, “give your gun to Bradley,
and go forward with your arms in the air, and waving your handkerchief,
and tell them in their language that the King is coming. If they go at
you, Bradley and I will kill a goat or two, to show them what we can do
with the rifles; and if that don’t stop them, we will shoot at their
legs; and if that don’t stop them--I guess you’d better come back, and
we’ll all run.”

Stedman looked at Albert, and Albert looked at Stedman, and neither of
them winced or flinched.

“Is this another of my secretary’s duties?” asked the younger boy.

“Yes,” said the consul; “but a resignation is always in order. You
needn’t go if you don’t like it. You see, you know the language and I
don’t, but I know how to shoot, and you don’t.”

“That’s perfectly satisfactory,” said Stedman, handing his gun to old
Bradley. “I only wanted to know why I was to be sacrificed, instead
of one of the Bradleys. It’s because I know the language. Bradley, Sr.,
you see the evil results of a higher education. Wish me luck, please,”
he said, “and for goodness’ sake,” he added impressively, “don’t waste
much time shooting goats.”

[Illustration: “About time to begin on the goats!”]

The Hillmen had stopped about two hundred yards off, and were drawn up
in two lines, shouting, and dancing, and hurling taunting remarks at
their few adversaries. The stolen cattle were bunched together back
of the King. As Stedman walked steadily forward with his handkerchief
fluttering, and howling out something in their own tongue, they stopped
and listened. As he advanced, his three companions followed him at
about fifty yards in the rear. He was one hundred and fifty yards from
the Hillmen, before they made out what he said, and then one of the
young braves, resenting it as an insult to his chief, shot an arrow at
him. Stedman dodged the arrow, and stood his ground without even taking
a step backwards, only turning slightly to put his hands to his mouth,
and to shout something which sounded to his companions like, “About
time to begin on the goats.” But the instant the young man had fired,
King Messenwah swung his club and knocked him down, and none of the
others moved. Then Messenwah advanced before his men to meet Stedman,
and on Stedman’s opening and shutting his hands to show that he was
unarmed, the King threw down his club and spears, and came forward as
empty-handed as himself.

“Ah,” gasped Bradley, Jr., with his finger trembling on his lever, “let
me take a shot at him now.” Gordon struck the man’s gun up, and walked
forward in all the glory of his gold and blue uniform; for both he and
Stedman saw now that Messenwah was more impressed by their appearance,
and in the fact that they were white men, than with any threats of
immediate war. So when he saluted Gordon haughtily, that young man
gave him a haughty nod in return, and bade Stedman tell the King that
he would permit him to sit down. The King did not quite appear to like
this, but he sat down, nevertheless, and nodded his head gravely.

“Now tell him,” said Gordon, “that I come from the ruler of the
greatest nation on earth, and that I recognize Ollypybus as the only
King of this island, and that I come to this little three-penny King
with either peace and presents, or bullets and war.”

“Have I got to tell him he’s a little three-penny King?” said Stedman,
plaintively.

“No; you needn’t give a literal translation; it can be as free as you
please.”

“Thanks,” said the secretary, humbly.

“And tell him,” continued Gordon, “that we will give presents to him
and his warriors if he keeps away from Ollypybus, and agrees to keep
away always. If he won’t do that, try to get him to agree to stay away
for three months at least, and by that time we can get word to San
Francisco, and have a dozen muskets over here in two months; and when
our time of probation is up, and he and his merry men come dancing
down the hillside, we will blow them up as high as his mountains. But
you needn’t tell him that, either. And if he is proud and haughty, and
would rather fight, ask him to restrain himself until we show what we
can do with our weapons at two hundred yards.”

Stedman seated himself in the long grass in front of the King, and
with many revolving gestures of his arms, and much pointing at Gordon,
and profound nods and bows, retold what Gordon had dictated. When he
had finished, the King looked at the bundle of presents, and at the
guns, of which Stedman had given a very wonderful account, but answered
nothing.

“I guess,” said Stedman, with a sigh, “that we will have to give him a
little practical demonstration to help matters. I am sorry, but I think
one of those goats has got to die. It’s like vivisection. The lower
order of animals have to suffer for the good of the higher.”

“Oh,” said Bradley, Jr., cheerfully, “I’d just as soon shoot one of
those niggers as one of the goats.”

So Stedman bade the King tell his men to drive a goat towards them, and
the King did so, and one of the men struck one of the goats with his
spear, and it ran clumsily across the plain.

“Take your time, Bradley,” said Gordon. “Aim low, and if you hit it,
you can have it for supper.”

“And if you miss it,” said Stedman, gloomily, “Messenwah may have us
for supper.”

The Hillmen had seated themselves a hundred yards off, while the
leaders were debating, and they now rose curiously and watched
Bradley, as he sank upon one knee, and covered the goat with his rifle.
When it was about one hundred and fifty yards off, he fired, and the
goat fell over dead.

And then all the Hillmen, with the King himself, broke away on a run,
towards the dead animal, with much shouting. The King came back alone,
leaving his people standing about and examining the goat. He was much
excited, and talked and gesticulated violently.

“He says--” said Stedman; “He says--”

“What? yes; go on.”

“He says--goodness me!--what do you think he says?”

“Well, what does he say?” cried Gordon, in a great state of nerves.
“Don’t keep it all to yourself.”

“He says,” said Stedman, “that we are deceived. That he is no longer
King of the Island of Opeki, that he is in great fear of us, and that
he has got himself into no end of trouble. He says he sees that we are
indeed mighty men, that to us he is as helpless as the wild boar before
the javelin of the hunter.”

“Well, he’s right,” said Gordon. “Go on.”

“But that which we ask is no longer his to give. He has sold his
kingship and his right to this island to another king, who came to him
two days ago in a great canoe, and who made noises as we do,--with
guns, I suppose he means,--and to whom he sold the island for a watch
that he has in a bag around his neck. And that he signed a paper, and
made marks on a piece of bark, to show that he gave up the island
freely and forever.”

“What does he mean?” said Gordon. “How can he give up the island.
Ollypybus is the king of half of it, anyway, and he knows it.”

“That’s just it,” said Stedman. “That’s what frightens him. He said
he didn’t care about Ollypybus, and didn’t count him in when he made
the treaty, because he is such a peaceful chap that he knew he could
thrash him into doing anything he wanted him to do. And now that you
have turned up and taken Ollypybus’s part, he wishes he hadn’t sold the
island, and wishes to know if you are angry.”

“Angry? of course I’m angry,” said Gordon, glaring as grimly at the
frightened monarch as he thought was safe. “Who wouldn’t be angry? Who
do you think these people were who made a fool of him, Stedman? Ask him
to let us see this watch.”

Stedman did so, and the King fumbled among his necklaces until he
had brought out a leather bag tied round his neck with a cord, and
containing a plain stem-winding silver watch marked on the inside
“Munich.”

“That doesn’t tell anything,” said Gordon. “But it’s plain enough. Some
foreign ship of war has settled on this place as a coaling-station,
or has annexed it for colonization, and they’ve sent a boat ashore,
and they’ve made a treaty with this old chap, and forced him to sell
his birthright for a mess of porridge. Now, that’s just like those
monarchical pirates; imposing upon a poor old black.”

Old Bradley looked at him impudently.

“Not at all,” said Gordon; “it’s quite different with us; we don’t want
to rob him or Ollypybus, or to annex their land. All we want to do is
to improve it, and have the fun of running it for them and meddling in
their affairs of state. Well, Stedman,” he said, “what shall we do?”

Stedman said that the best and only thing to do was to threaten to take
the watch away from Messenwah, but to give him a revolver instead,
which would make a friend of him for life, and to keep him supplied
with cartridges only as long as he behaved himself, and then to make
him understand that as Ollypybus had not given his consent to the loss
of the island, Messenwah’s agreement, or treaty, or whatever it was,
did not stand, and that he had better come down the next day, early
in the morning, and join in a general consultation. This was done,
and Messenwah agreed willingly to their proposition, and was given
his revolver and shown how to shoot it, while the other presents were
distributed among the other men, who were as happy over them as girls
with a full dance-card.

“And now, to-morrow,” said Stedman, “understand, you are all to come
down unarmed, and sign a treaty with great Ollypybus, in which he will
agree to keep to one half of the island, if you keep to yours, and
there must be no more wars or goat stealing, or this gentleman on my
right and I will come up and put holes in you just as the gentleman on
the left did with the goat.”

Messenwah and his warriors promised to come early, and saluted
reverently as Gordon and his three companions walked up together very
proudly and stiffly.

“Do you know how I feel?” said Gordon.

“How?” asked Stedman.

“I feel as I used to do in the city, when the boys in the street were
throwing snow-balls, and I had to go by with a high hat on my head and
pretend not to know they were behind me. I always felt a cold chill
down my spinal column, and I could feel that snow-ball, whether it came
or not, right in the small of my back. And I can feel one of those men
pulling his bow, now, and the arrow sticking out of my right shoulder.”

“Oh, no, you can’t,” said Stedman. “They are too afraid of those
rifles. But I do feel sorry for any of those warriors whom old man
Messenwah doesn’t like, now that he has that revolver. He isn’t the
sort to practise on goats.”

There was great rejoicing when Stedman and Gordon told their story
to the King, and the people learned they were not to have their huts
burned and their cattle stolen. The armed Opekians formed a guard
around the ambassadors and escorted them to their homes with cheers
and shouts, and the women ran at their side and tried to kiss Gordon’s
hand.

“I’m sorry I can’t speak the language, Stedman,” said Gordon, “or
I would tell them what a brave man you are. You are too modest to
do it yourself, even if I dictated something for you to say. As for
me,” he said, pulling off his uniform, “I am thoroughly disgusted and
disappointed. It never occurred to me until it was all over, that this
was my chance to be a war correspondent. It wouldn’t have been much of
a war, but then I would have been the only one on the spot, and that
counts for a great deal. Still, my time may come.”

“We have a great deal on hand for to-morrow,” said Gordon that evening,
“and we had better turn in early.”

And so the people were still singing and rejoicing down in the village,
when the two conspirators for the peace of the country went to sleep
for the night. It seemed to Gordon as though he had hardly turned his
pillow twice to get the coolest side, when some one touched him, and he
saw, by the light of the dozen glowworms in the tumbler by his bedside,
a tall figure at its foot.

“It’s me--Bradley,” said the figure.

“Yes,” said Gordon, with the haste of a man to show that sleep has no
hold on him; “exactly; what is it?”

“There is a ship of war in the harbor,” said Bradley, in a whisper.
“I heard her anchor chains rattle when she came to, and that woke me.
I could hear that if I were dead. And then I made sure by her lights;
she’s a great boat, sir, and I can know she’s a ship of war by the
challenging, when they change the watch. I thought you’d like to know,
sir.”

Gordon sat up and clutched his knees with his hands. “Yes, of course,”
he said; “you are quite right. Still, I don’t see what there is to do.”

He did not wish to show too much youthful interest, but though fresh
from civilization, he had learnt how far from it he was, and he was
curious to see this sign of it that had come so much more quickly than
he had anticipated.

“Wake Mr. Stedman, will you?” said he, “and we will go and take a look
at her.”

“You can see nothing but the lights,” said Bradley, as he left the
room; “it’s a black night, sir.”

Stedman was not new from the sight of men and ships of war, and came in
half dressed and eager.

“Do you suppose it’s the big canoe Messenwah spoke of?” he said.

“I thought of that,” said Gordon.

The three men fumbled their way down the road to the plaza, and saw,
as soon as they turned into it, the great outlines and the brilliant
lights of an immense vessel, still more immense in the darkness, and
glowing like a strange monster of the sea, with just a suggestion here
and there, where the lights spread, of her cabins and bridges. As they
stood on the shore, shivering in the cool night wind, they heard the
bells strike over the water.

“It’s two o’clock,” said Bradley, counting.

“Well, we can do nothing, and they cannot mean to do much to-night,”
Albert said. “We had better get some more sleep, and, Bradley, you keep
watch and tell us as soon as day breaks.”

“Aye, aye, sir,” said the sailor.

“If that’s the man-of-war that made the treaty with Messenwah, and
Messenwah turns up to-morrow, it looks as if our day would be pretty
well filled up,” said Albert, as they felt their way back to the
darkness.

“What do you intend to do?” asked his secretary, with a voice of some
concern.

“I don’t know,” Albert answered gravely, from the blackness of the
night. “It looks as if we were getting ahead just a little too fast;
doesn’t it? Well,” he added, as they reached the house, “let’s try to
keep in step with the procession, even if we can’t be drum-majors and
walk in front of it.” And with this cheering tone of confidence in
their ears, the two diplomats went soundly asleep again.

The light of the rising sun filled the room, and the parrots were
chattering outside, when Bradley woke him again.

“They are sending a boat ashore, sir,” he said excitedly, and filled
with the importance of the occasion. “She’s a German man-of-war, and
one of the new model. A beautiful boat, sir; for her lines were laid in
Glasgow, and I can tell that, no matter what flag she flies. You had
best be moving to meet them: the village isn’t awake yet.”

Albert took a cold bath and dressed leisurely; then he made Bradley,
Jr., who had slept through it all, get up breakfast, and the two
young men ate it and drank their coffee comfortably and with an air
of confidence that deceived their servants, if it did not deceive
themselves. But when they came down the path, smoking and swinging
their sticks, and turned into the plaza, their composure left them
like a mask, and they stopped where they stood. The plaza was enclosed
by the natives gathered in whispering groups, and depressed by fear
and wonder. On one side were crowded all the Messenwah warriors,
unarmed, and as silent and disturbed as the Opekians. In the middle of
the plaza some twenty sailors were busily rearing and bracing a tall
flag-staff that they had shaped from a royal palm, and they did this as
unconcernedly and as contemptuously, and with as much indifference to
the strange groups on either side of them, as though they were working
on a barren coast, with nothing but the startled sea-gulls about them.
As Albert and Stedman came upon the scene, the flag-pole was in place,
and the halliards hung from it with a little bundle of bunting at the
end of one of them.

“We must find the King at once,” said Gordon. He was terribly excited
and angry. “It is easy enough to see what this means. They are going
through the form of annexing this island to the other lands of the
German government. They are robbing old Ollypybus of what is his. They
have not even given him a silver watch for it.”

The King was in his bungalow, facing the plaza. Messenwah was with him,
and an equal number of each of their councils. The common danger had
made them lie down together in peace; but they gave a gasp of relief as
Gordon strode into the room with no ceremony, and greeted them with a
curt wave of the hand.

“Now then, Stedman, be quick,” he said. “Explain to them what this
means; tell them that I will protect them; that I am anxious to see
that Ollypybus is not cheated; that we will do all we can for them.”

Outside, on the shore, a second boat’s crew had landed a group of
officers and a file of marines. They walked in all the dignity of full
dress across the plaza to the flag-pole, and formed in line on the
three sides of it, with the marines facing the sea. The officers, from
the captain with a prayer book in his hand, to the youngest middy,
were as indifferent to the frightened natives about them as the other
men had been. The natives, awed and afraid, crouched back among their
huts, the marines and the sailors kept their eyes front, and the German
captain opened his prayer book. The debate in the bungalow was over.

“If you only had your uniform, sir,” said Bradley, Sr., miserably.

“This is a little bit too serious for uniforms and bicycle medals,”
said Gordon. “And these men are used to gold lace.”

He pushed his way through the natives, and stepped confidently across
the plaza. The youngest middy saw him coming, and nudged the one next
him with his elbow, and he nudged the next, but none of the officers
moved, because the captain had begun to read.

“One minute, please,” called Gordon.

He stepped out into the hollow square formed by the marines, and raised
his helmet to the captain.

“Do you speak English or French?” Gordon said in French; “I do not
understand German.”

The captain lowered the book in his hands and gazed reflectively at
Gordon through his spectacles, and made no reply.

“If I understand this,” said the younger man, trying to be very
impressive and polite, “you are laying claim to this land, in behalf of
the German government.”

The captain continued to observe him thoughtfully, and then said, “That
iss so,” and then asked, “Who are you?”

“I represent the King of this island, Ollypybus, whose people you see
around you. I also represent the United States government that does not
tolerate a foreign power near her coast, since the days of President
Monroe and before. The treaty you have made with Messenwah is an
absurdity. There is only one king with whom to treat, and he--”

The captain turned to one of his officers and said something, and then,
after giving another curious glance at Gordon, raised his book and
continued reading, in a deep, unruffled monotone. The officer whispered
an order, and two of the marines stepped out of line, and dropping the
muzzles of their muskets, pushed Gordon back out of the enclosure,
and left him there with his lips white, and trembling all over with
indignation. He would have liked to have rushed back into the lines and
broken the captain’s spectacles over his sun-tanned nose and cheeks,
but he was quite sure this would only result in his getting shot, or in
his being made ridiculous before the natives, and that was almost as
bad, so he stood still for a moment, with his blood choking him, and
then turned and walked back where the King and Stedman were whispering
together. Just as he turned, one of the men pulled the halliards, the
ball of bunting ran up into the air, bobbed, twitched, and turned, and
broke into the folds of the German flag. At the same moment the marines
raised their muskets and fired a volley, and the officers saluted and
the sailors cheered.

“Do you see that?” cried Stedman, catching Gordon’s humor, to
Ollypybus; “that means that you are no longer king, that strange
people are coming here to take your land, and to turn your people into
servants, and to drive you back into the mountains. Are you going to
submit? are you going to let that flag stay where it is?”

Messenwah and Ollypybus gazed at one another with fearful, helpless
eyes. “We are afraid,” Ollypybus cried; “we do not know what we should
do.”

“What do they say?” asked Gordon.

“They say they do not know what to do.”

“I know what I’d do,” cried Gordon. “If I were not an American consul,
I’d pull down their old flag, and put a hole in their boat and sink
her.”

“Well, I’d wait until they get under way, before you do either of those
things,” said Stedman soothingly. “That captain seems to be a man of
much determination of character.”

“But I will pull it down,” cried Gordon. “I will resign, as Travis did.
I am no longer consul. You can be consul if you want to. I promote you.
I am going up a step higher. I mean to be king. Tell those two,” he
ran on excitedly, “that their only course and only hope is in me; that
they must make me ruler of the island until this thing is over; that I
will resign again as soon as it is settled, but that some one must act
at once, and if they are afraid to, I am not, only they must give me
authority to act for them. They must abdicate in my favor.”

“Are you in earnest?” gasped Stedman.

“Don’t I talk as if I was?” demanded Gordon, wiping the perspiration
from his forehead.

“And can I be consul?” said Stedman, cheerfully.

“Of course. Tell them what I propose to do.”

Stedman turned and spoke rapidly to the two kings. The people gathered
closer to hear.

The two rival monarchs looked at one another in silence for a moment,
and then both began to speak at once, their consular interrupting them
and mumbling their guttural comments with anxious earnestness. It did
not take them very long to see that they were all of one mind, and then
they both turned to Gordon and dropped on one knee, and placed his
hands on their foreheads, and Stedman raised his cap.

“They agree,” he explained, for it was but pantomime to Albert. “They
salute you as a ruler; they are calling you Tellaman, which means
peacemaker. The Peacemaker, that is your title. I hope you will deserve
it, but I think they might have chosen a more appropriate one.”

“Then I’m really King?” demanded Albert, decidedly, “and I can do what
I please? They give me full power. Quick, do they?”

“Yes, but don’t do it,” begged Stedman, “and just remember I am
American consul now, and that is a much superior being to a crowned
monarch; you said so yourself.”

Albert did not reply to this, but ran across the plaza followed by the
two Bradleys. The boats had gone.

“Hoist that flag beside the brass cannon,” he cried, “and stand ready
to salute it when I drop this one.”

Bradley, Jr., grasped the halliards of the flag, which he had forgotten
to raise and salute in the morning in all the excitement of the
man-of-war’s arrival. Bradley, Sr., stood by the brass cannon, blowing
gently on his lighted fuse. The Peacemaker took the halliards of the
German flag in his two hands, gave a quick, sharp tug, and down came
the red, white, and black piece of bunting, and the next moment young
Bradley sent the stars and stripes up in their place. As it rose,
Bradley’s brass cannon barked merrily like a little bull-dog, and the
Peacemaker cheered.

“Why don’t you cheer, Stedman?” he shouted. “Tell those people to cheer
for all they are worth. What sort of an American consul are you?”

Stedman raised his arm half-heartedly to give the time, and opened
his mouth; but his arm remained fixed and his mouth open, while his
eyes stared at the retreating boat of the German man-of-war. In the
stern sheets of this boat, the stout German captain was struggling
unsteadily to his feet; he raised his arm and waved it to some one on
the great man-of-war, as though giving an order. The natives looked
from Stedman to the boat, and even Gordon stopped in his cheering and
stood motionless, watching. They had not very long to wait. There was
a puff of white smoke, and a flash, and then a loud report, and across
the water came a great black ball skipping lightly through and over the
waves, as easily as a flat stone thrown by a boy. It seemed to come
very slowly. At least it came slowly enough for every one to see that
it was coming directly towards the brass cannon. The Bradleys saw this
certainly, for they ran as fast as they could, and kept on running.
The ball caught the cannon under its mouth, and tossed it in the air,
knocking the flag-pole into a dozen pieces, and passing on through two
of the palm-covered huts.

“Great Heavens, Gordon!” cried Stedman; “they are firing on us.”

But Gordon’s face was radiant and wild.

“Firing on _us_!” he cried. “On _us_! Don’t you see? Don’t you
understand? What do _we_ amount to? They have fired on the American
flag. Don’t you see what that means? It means war. A great
international war. And I am a war correspondent at last!” He ran up to
Stedman and seized him by the arm so tightly that it hurt.

“By three o’clock,” he said, “they will know in the office what has
happened. The country will know it to-morrow when the paper is on the
street; people will read it all over the world. The Emperor will hear
of it at breakfast; the President will cable for further particulars.
He will get them. It is the chance of a lifetime, and we are on the
spot.”

Stedman did not hear this; he was watching the broadside of the ship
to see another puff of white smoke, but there came no such sign. The
two row-boats were raised, there was a cloud of black smoke from the
funnel, a creaking of chains sounding faintly across the water, and the
ship started at half speed and moved out of the harbor. The Opekians
and the Hillmen fell on their knees, or to dancing, as best suited
their sense of relief, but Gordon shook his head.

“They are only going to land the marines,” he said; “perhaps they
are going to the spot they stopped at before, or to take up another
position further out at sea. They will land men and then shell the
town, and the land forces will march here and co-operate with the
vessel, and everybody will be taken prisoner or killed. We have the
centre of the stage, and we are making history.”

“I’d rather read it than make it,” said Stedman. “You’ve got us in a
senseless, silly position, Gordon, and a mighty unpleasant one. And for
no reason that I can see, except to make copy for your paper.”

“Tell those people to get their things together,” said Gordon, “and
march back out of danger into the woods. Tell Ollypybus I am going to
fix things all right; I don’t know just how yet, but I will, and now
come after me as quickly as you can to the cable office. I’ve got to
tell the paper all about it.”

It was three o’clock before the “chap at Octavia” answered Stedman’s
signalling. Then Stedman delivered Gordon’s message, and immediately
shut off all connection, before the Octavia operator could question
him. Gordon dictated his message in this way:--

“Begin with the date line, ‘Opeki, June 22.’

“At seven o’clock this morning, the captain and officers of the German
man-of-war _Kaiser_, went through the ceremony of annexing this island
in the name of the German Emperor, basing their right to do so on
an agreement made with a leader of a wandering tribe, known as the
Hillmen. King Ollypybus, the present monarch of Opeki, delegated his
authority, as also did the leader of the Hillmen, to King Tellaman, or
the Peacemaker, who tore down the German flag, and raised that of the
United States in its place. At the same moment the flag was saluted by
the battery. This salute, being mistaken for an attack on the _Kaiser_,
was answered by that vessel. Her first shot took immediate effect,
completely destroying the entire battery of the Opekians, cutting down
the American flag, and destroying the houses of the people--”

“There was only one brass cannon and two huts,” expostulated Stedman.

“Well, that was the whole battery, wasn’t it?” asked Gordon, “and
two huts is plural. I said houses of the people. I couldn’t say two
house of the people. Just you send this as you get it. You are not
an American consul at the present moment. You are an under-paid
agent of a cable company, and you send my stuff as I write it. The
American residents have taken refuge in the consulate--that’s us,”
explained Gordon, “and the English residents have sought refuge in
the woods--that’s the Bradleys. King Tellaman--that’s me--declares
his intention of fighting against the annexation. The forces of the
Opekians are under the command of Captain Thomas Bradley--I guess I
might as well made him a colonel--of Colonel Thomas Bradley, of the
English army.

“The American consul says--Now, what do you say, Stedman? Hurry up,
please,” asked Gordon, “and say something good and strong.”

“You get me all mixed up,” complained Stedman, plaintively. “Which am I
now, a cable operator or the American consul?”

“Consul, of course. Say something patriotic and about your
determination to protect the interests of your government, and all
that.” Gordon bit the end of his pencil impatiently, and waited.

“I won’t be anything of the sort, Gordon,” said Stedman; “you are
getting me into an awful lot of trouble, and yourself too. I won’t say
a word.”

“The American consul,” read Gordon, as his pencil wriggled across
the paper, “refuses to say anything for publication until he has
communicated with the authorities at Washington, but from all I can
learn he sympathizes entirely with Tellaman. Your correspondent has
just returned from an audience with King Tellaman, who asks him to
inform the American people that the Monroe doctrine will be sustained
as long as he rules this island. I guess that’s enough to begin with,”
said Gordon. “Now send that off quick, and then get away from the
instrument before the man in Octavia begins to ask questions. I am
going out to precipitate matters.”

Gordon found the two kings sitting dejectedly side by side, and gazing
grimly upon the disorder of the village, from which the people were
taking their leave as quickly as they could get their few belongings
piled upon the ox-carts. Gordon walked amongst them, helping them in
every way he could, and tasting, in their subservience and gratitude,
the sweets of sovereignty. When Stedman had locked up the cable office
and rejoined him, he bade him tell Messenwah to send three of his
youngest men and fastest runners back to the hills to watch for the
German vessel and see where she was attempting to land her marines.

“This is a tremendous chance for descriptive writing, Stedman,” said
Gordon, enthusiastically, “all this confusion and excitement, and the
people leaving their homes and all that. It’s like the people getting
out of Brussels before Waterloo, and then the scene at the foot of the
mountains, while they are camping out there, until the Germans leave. I
never had a chance like this before.”

It was quite dark by six o’clock, and none of the three messengers had
as yet returned. Gordon walked up and down the empty plaza and looked
now at the horizon for the man-of-war, and again down the road back of
the village. But neither the vessel nor the messengers, bearing word
of her, appeared. The night passed without any incident, and in the
morning Gordon’s impatience became so great that he walked out to where
the villagers were in camp and passed on half-way up the mountain, but
he could see no sign of the man-of-war. He came back more restless than
before, and keenly disappointed.

“If something don’t happen before three o’clock, Stedman,” he said,
“our second cablegram will have to consist of glittering generalities
and a lengthy interview with King Tellaman, by himself.”

Nothing did happen. Ollypybus and Messenwah began to breathe more
freely. They believed the new king had succeeded in frightening the
German vessel away forever. But the new king upset their hopes by
telling them that the Germans had undoubtedly already landed, and had
probably killed the three messengers.

“Now, then,” he said, with pleased expectation, as Stedman and he
seated themselves in the cable office at three o’clock, “open it up and
let’s find out what sort of an impression we have made.”

Stedman’s face, as the answer came in to his first message of greeting,
was one of strangely marked disapproval.

“What does he say?” demanded Gordon, anxiously.

“He hasn’t done anything but swear yet,” answered Stedman, grimly.

“What is he swearing about?”

“He wants to know why I left the cable yesterday. He says he has been
trying to call me up for the last twenty-four hours. Ever since I sent
my message at three o’clock. The home office is jumping mad, and want
me discharged. They won’t do that, though,” he said, in a cheerful
aside, “because they haven’t paid me my salary for the last eight
months. He says--great Scott! this will please you, Gordon--he says
there have been over two hundred queries for matter from papers all
over the United States, and from Europe. Your paper beat them on the
news, and now the home office is packed with San Francisco reporters,
and the telegrams are coming in every minute, and they have been
abusing him for not answering them, and he says that I’m a fool. He
wants as much as you can send, and all the details. He says all the
papers will have to put ‘By Yokohama Cable Company’ on the top of
each message they print, and that that is advertising the company,
and is sending the stock up. It rose fifteen points on ’change in San
Francisco to-day, and the president and the other officers--”

“Oh, I don’t want to hear about their old company,” snapped out Gordon,
pacing up and down in despair. “What am I to do? that’s what I want to
know. Here I have the whole country stirred up and begging for news. On
their knees for it, and a cable all to myself and the only man on the
spot, and nothing to say. I’d just like to know how long that German
idiot intends to wait before he begins shelling this town and killing
people. He has put me in a most absurd position.”

“Here’s a message for you, Gordon,” said Stedman, with business-like
calm. “Albert Gordon, Correspondent,” he read: “Try American consul.
First message O.K.; beat the country; can take all you send. Give
names of foreign residents massacred, and fuller account blowing up
palace. Dodge.”

The expression on Gordon’s face as this message was slowly read off
to him, had changed from one of gratified pride to one of puzzled
consternation.

“What’s he mean by foreign residents massacred, and blowing up of
palace?” asked Stedman, looking over his shoulder anxiously. “Who is
Dodge?”

“Dodge is the night editor,” said Gordon, nervously. “They must have
read my message wrong. You sent just what I gave you, didn’t you?” he
asked.

“Of course I did,” said Stedman, indignantly.

“I didn’t say anything about the massacre of anybody, did I?” asked
Gordon. “I hope they are not improving on my account. What _am_ I to
do? This is getting awful. I’ll have to go out and kill a few people
myself. Oh, why don’t that Dutch captain begin to do something! What
sort of a fighter does he call himself? He wouldn’t shoot at a school
of porpoises. He’s not--”

“Here comes a message to Leonard T. Travis, American consul, Opeki,”
read Stedman. “It’s raining messages to-day. ‘Send full details of
massacre of American citizens by German sailors.’ Secretary of--great
Scott!” gasped Stedman, interrupting himself and gazing at his
instrument with horrified fascination--“the Secretary of State.”

“That settles it,” roared Gordon, pulling at his hair and burying his
face in his hands. “I have _got_ to kill some of them now.”

“Albert Gordon, Correspondent,” read Stedman, impressively, like the
voice of Fate. “Is Colonel Thomas Bradley commanding native forces
at Opeki, Colonel Sir Thomas Kent-Bradley of Crimean war fame?
Correspondent London _Times_, San Francisco Press Club.”

“Go on, go on!” said Gordon, desperately. “I’m getting used to it now.
Go on!”

“American consul, Opeki,” read Stedman. “Home Secretary desires you to
furnish list of names English residents killed during shelling of Opeki
by ship of war _Kaiser_, and estimate of amount property destroyed.
Stoughton, Office of English consul, San Francisco.”

“Stedman!” cried Gordon, jumping to his feet, “there’s a mistake here
somewhere. These people cannot all have made my message read like that.
Some one has altered it, and now I have got to make these people here
live up to that message, whether they like being massacred and blown
up or not. Don’t answer any of those messages, except the one from
Dodge; tell him things have quieted down a bit, and that I’ll send four
thousand words on the flight of the natives from the village, and their
encampment at the foot of the mountains, and of the exploring party we
have sent out to look for the German vessel; and now I am going out to
make something happen.”

Gordon said he would be gone for two hours at least, and as Stedman did
not feel capable of receiving any more nerve-stirring messages, he cut
off all connection with Octavia, by saying, “Good by for two hours,”
and running away from the office. He sat down on a rock on the beach,
and mopped his face with his handkerchief.

“After a man has taken nothing more exciting than weather reports from
Octavia for a year,” he soliloquized, “it’s a bit disturbing to have
all the crowned heads of Europe and their secretaries calling upon you
for details of a massacre that never came off.”

At the end of two hours Gordon came back from the consulate with a mass
of manuscript in his hand.

“Here’s three thousand words,” he said desperately. “I never wrote more
and said less in my life. It will make them weep at the office. I had
to pretend that they knew all that had happened so far; they apparently
do know more than we do, and I have filled it full of prophesies
of more trouble ahead, and with interviews with myself and the two
ex-Kings. The only news element in it is, that the messengers have
returned to report that the German vessel is not in sight, and that
there is no news. They think she has gone for good. Suppose she has,
Stedman,” he groaned, looking at him helplessly, “what _am_ I going to
do?”

“Well, as for me,” said Stedman, “I’m afraid to go near that cable.
It’s like playing with a live wire. My nervous system won’t stand many
more such shocks as those they gave us this morning.”

Gordon threw himself down dejectedly in a chair in the office, and
Stedman approached his instrument gingerly, as though it might explode.

“He’s swearing again,” he explained sadly, in answer to Gordon’s look
of inquiry. “He wants to know when I am going to stop running away from
the wire. He has a stack of messages to send, he says, but I guess he’d
better wait and take your copy first; don’t you think so?”

“Yes, I do,” said Gordon. “I don’t want any more messages than I’ve
had. That’s the best I can do,” he said, as he threw his manuscript
down beside Stedman. “And they can keep on cabling until the wire burns
red hot, and they won’t get any more.”

There was silence in the office for some time, while Stedman looked
over Gordon’s copy, and Gordon stared dejectedly out at the ocean.

“This is pretty poor stuff, Gordon,” said Stedman. “It’s like giving
people milk when they want brandy.”

“Don’t you suppose I know that?” growled Gordon. “It’s the best I can
do, isn’t it? It’s not my fault that we are not all dead now. I can’t
massacre foreign residents if there are no foreign residents, but I
can commit suicide though, and I’ll do it if something don’t happen.”

There was a long pause, in which the silence of the office was only
broken by the sound of the waves beating on the coral reefs outside.
Stedman raised his head wearily.

“He’s swearing again,” he said; “he says this stuff of yours is all
nonsense. He says stock in the Y. C. C. has gone up to one hundred and
two, and that owners are unloading and making their fortunes, and that
this sort of descriptive writing is not what the company wants.”

“What’s he think I’m here for?” cried Gordon. “Does he think I pulled
down the German flag and risked my neck half a dozen times and had
myself made King just to boom his Yokohama cable stock? Confound him!
You might at least swear back. Tell him just what the situation is in
a few words. Here, stop that rigmarole to the paper, and explain to
your home office that we are awaiting developments, and that, in the
meanwhile, they must put up with the best we can send them. Wait; send
this to Octavia.”

Gordon wrote rapidly, and read what he wrote as rapidly as it was
written.

“Operator, Octavia. You seem to have misunderstood my first message.
The facts in the case are these. A German man-of-war raised a flag on
this island. It was pulled down and the American flag raised in its
place and saluted by a brass cannon. The German man-of-war fired once
at the flag and knocked it down, and then steamed away and has not
been seen since. Two huts were upset, that is all the damage done; the
battery consisted of the one brass cannon before mentioned. No one,
either native or foreign, has been massacred. The English residents
are two sailors. The American residents are the young man who is
sending you this cable and myself. Our first message was quite true in
substance, but perhaps misleading in detail. I made it so because I
fully expected much more to happen immediately. Nothing has happened,
or seems likely to happen, and that is the exact situation up to date.
Albert Gordon.”

“Now,” he asked after a pause, “what does he say to that?”

“He doesn’t say anything,” said Stedman. “I guess he has fainted. Here
it comes,” he added in the same breath. He bent toward his instrument,
and Gordon raised himself from his chair and stood beside him as he
read it off. The two young men hardly breathed in the intensity of
their interest.

“Dear Stedman,” he slowly read aloud. “You and your young friend are
a couple of fools. If you had allowed me to send you the messages
awaiting transmission here to you, you would not have sent me such a
confession of guilt as you have just done. You had better leave Opeki
at once or hide in the hills. I am afraid I have placed you in a
somewhat compromising position with the company, which is unfortunate,
especially as, if I am not mistaken, they owe you some back pay. You
should have been wiser in your day, and bought Y. C. C. stock when it
was down to five cents, as yours truly did. You are not, Stedman, as
bright a boy as some. And as for your friend, the war correspondent,
he has queered himself for life. You see, my dear Stedman, after I
had sent off your first message, and demands for further details came
pouring in, and I could not get you at the wire to supply them, I took
the liberty of sending some on myself.”

“Great Heavens!” gasped Gordon.

Stedman grew very white under his tan, and the perspiration rolled on
his cheeks.

“Your message was so general in its nature, that it allowed my
imagination full play, and I sent on what I thought would please the
papers, and what was much more important to me, would advertise the Y.
C. C. stock. This I have been doing while waiting for material from
you. Not having a clear idea of the dimensions or population of Opeki,
it is possible that I have done you and your newspaper friend some
injustice. I killed off about a hundred American residents, two hundred
English, because I do not like the English, and a hundred French. I
blew up old Ollypybus and his palace with dynamite, and shelled the
city, destroying some hundred thousand dollars’ worth of property,
and then I waited anxiously for your friend to substantiate what I
had said. This he has most unkindly failed to do. I am very sorry,
but much more so for him than for myself, for I, my dear friend, have
cabled on to a man in San Francisco, who is one of the directors of
the Y. C. C., to sell all my stock, which he has done at one hundred
and two, and he is keeping the money until I come. And I leave Octavia
this afternoon to reap my just reward. I am in about $20,000 on your
little war, and I feel grateful. So much so that I will inform you that
the ship of war _Kaiser_ has arrived at San Francisco, for which port
she sailed directly from Opeki. Her captain has explained the real
situation, and offered to make every amend for the accidental indignity
shown to our flag. He says he aimed at the cannon, which was trained
on his vessel, and which had first fired on him. But you must know, my
dear Stedman, that before his arrival, war vessels belonging to the
several powers mentioned in my revised dispatches, had started for
Opeki at full speed, to revenge the butchery of the foreign residents.
A word, my dear young friend, to the wise is sufficient. I am indebted
to you to the extent of $20,000, and in return I give you this kindly
advice. Leave Opeki. If there is no other way, swim. But leave Opeki.”

The sun, that night, as it sank below the line where the clouds seemed
to touch the sea, merged them both into a blazing, blood-red curtain,
and colored the most wonderful spectacle that the natives of Opeki had
ever seen. Six great ships of war, stretching out over a league of sea,
stood blackly out against the red background, rolling and rising, and
leaping forward, flinging back smoke and burning sparks up into the air
behind them, and throbbing and panting like living creatures in their
race for revenge. From the south, came a three-decked vessel, a great
island of floating steel, with a flag as red as the angry sky behind
it, snapping in the wind. To the south of it plunged two long low-lying
torpedo boats, flying the French tri-color, and still further to the
north towered three magnificent hulls of the White Squadron. Vengeance
was written on every curve and line, on each straining engine rod, and
on each polished gun muzzle.

[Illustration: To the North towered three magnificent hulls of the
White Squadron.]

And in front of these, a clumsy fishing boat rose and fell on each
passing wave. Two sailors sat in the stern, holding the rope and
tiller, and in the bow, with their backs turned forever toward Opeki,
stood two young boys, their faces lit by the glow of the setting sun
and stirred by the sight of the great engines of war plunging past them
on their errand of vengeance.

“Stedman,” said the elder boy, in an awe-struck whisper, and with a
wave of his hand, “we have not lived in vain.”




MIDSUMMER PIRATES.


The boys living at the Atlantic House, and the boys boarding
at Chadwick’s, held mutual sentiments of something not unlike
enmity--feelings of hostility from which even the older boarders were
not altogether free. Nor was this unnatural under the circumstances.

When Judge Henry S. Carter and his friend Dr. Prescott first discovered
Manasquan, such an institution as the Atlantic House seemed an
impossibility, and land improvement companies, Queen Anne cottages, and
hacks to and from the railroad station, were out of all calculation. At
that time “Captain” Chadwick’s farmhouse, though not rich in all the
modern improvements of a seaside hotel, rejoiced in a table covered
three times a day with the good things from the farm. The river back of
the house was full of fish, and the pine woods along its banks were
intended by nature expressly for the hanging of hammocks.

The chief amusements were picnics to the head of the river (or as near
the head as the boats could get through the lily-pads), crabbing along
the shore, and races on the river itself, which, if it was broad, was
so absurdly shallow that an upset meant nothing more serious than a
wetting and a temporary loss of reputation as a sailor.

But all this had been spoiled by the advance of civilization and the
erection of the Atlantic House.

The railroad surveyors, with their high-top boots and transits, were
the first signs of the approaching evils. After them came the Ozone
Land Company, which bought up all the sand hills bordering on the
ocean, and proceeded to stake out a flourishing “city by the sea” and
to erect sign-posts in the marshes to show where they would lay out
streets named after the directors of the Ozone Land Company and the
Presidents of the United States.

It was not unnatural, therefore, that the Carters, and the Prescotts,
and all the judge’s clients, and the doctor’s patients, who had been
coming to Manasquan for many years, and loved it for its simplicity
and quiet, should feel aggrieved at these great changes. And though
the young Carters and Prescotts endeavored to impede the march of
civilization by pulling up the surveyor’s stakes and tearing down the
Land Company’s sign-posts, the inevitable improvements marched steadily
on.

I hope all this will show why it was that the boys who lived at the
Atlantic House--and dressed as if they were still in the city, and had
“hops” every evening--were not pleasing to the boys who boarded at
Chadwick’s, who never changed their flannel suits for anything more
formal than their bathing-dresses, and spent the summer nights on the
river.

This spirit of hostility and its past history were explained to the
new arrival at Chadwick’s by young Teddy Carter, as the two sat under
the willow tree watching a game of tennis. The new arrival had just
expressed his surprise at the earnest desire manifest on the part of
the entire Chadwick establishment to defeat the Atlantic House people
in the great race which was to occur on the day following.

“Well, you see, sir,” said Teddy, “considerable depends on this race.
As it is now, we stand about even. The Atlantic House beat us playing
base-ball,--though they had to get the waiters to help them,--and we
beat them at tennis. Our house is great on tennis. Then we had a boat
race, and our boat won. They claimed it wasn’t a fair race, because
their best boat was stuck on the sand-bar, and so we agreed to sail it
over again. The second time the wind gave out, and all the boats had
to be poled home. The Atlantic House boat was poled in first, and her
crew claimed the race. Wasn’t it silly of them? Why, Charley Prescott
told them, if they’d only said it was to be a _poling_ match, he’d have
entered a mud-scow and left his sail-boat at the dock!”

“And so you are going to race again to-morrow?” asked the new arrival.

“Well, it isn’t exactly a race,” explained Teddy. “It’s a game we boys
have invented. We call it ‘Pirates and Smugglers.’ It’s something like
tag, only we play it on the water, in boats. We divide boats and boys
up into two sides; half of them are pirates or smugglers, and half of
them are revenue officers or man-o’-war’s-men. The ‘Pirate’s Lair’ is
at the island, and our dock is ‘Cuba.’ That’s where the smugglers run
in for cargoes of cigars and brandy. Mr. Moore gives us his empty cigar
boxes, and Miss Sherrill (the lady who’s down here for her health) let
us have all the empty Apollinaris bottles. We fill the bottles with
water colored with crushed blackberries, and that answers for brandy.

“The revenue officers are stationed at Annapolis (that’s the Atlantic
House dock), and when they see a pirate start from the island, or from
our dock, they sail after him. If they can touch him with the bow of
their boat, or if one of their men can board him, that counts one
for the revenue officers; and they take down his sail and the pirate
captain gives up his tiller as a sign of surrender.

“Then they tow him back to Annapolis, where they keep him a prisoner
until he is exchanged. But if the pirate can dodge the Custom House
boat, and get to the place he started for, without being caught, that
counts one for him.”

“Very interesting, indeed,” said the new arrival; “but suppose the
pirate won’t be captured or give up his tiller, what then?”

“Oh, well, in that case,” said Teddy, reflectively, “they’d cut
his sheet-rope, or splash water on him, or hit him with an oar, or
something. But he generally gives right up. Now to-morrow the Atlantic
House boys are to be the revenue officers and we are to be the pirates.
They have been watching us as we played the game, all summer, and they
think they understand it well enough to capture our boats without any
trouble at all.”

“And what do you think?” asked the new arrival.

“Well, I can’t say, certainly. They have faster boats than ours, but
they don’t know how to sail them. If we had their boats, or if they
knew as much about the river as we do, it would be easy enough to name
the winners. But as it is, it’s about even.”

       *       *       *       *       *

Every one who owned a boat was on the river the following afternoon,
and these who didn’t own a boat hired or borrowed one--with or without
the owner’s permission.

The shore from Chadwick’s to the Atlantic House dock was crowded with
people. All Manasquan seemed to be ranged in line along the river’s
bank. Crab-men and clam-diggers mixed indiscriminately with the summer
boarders; and the beach-wagons and stages from Chadwick’s grazed the
wheels of the dog-carts and drags from the Atlantic’s livery stables.

It does not take much to overthrow the pleasant routine of
summer-resort life, and the state of temporary excitement existing at
the two houses on the eve of the race was not limited to the youthful
contestants.

The proprietor of the Atlantic House had already announced an elaborate
supper in honor of the anticipated victory, and every father and mother
whose son was to take part in the day’s race felt the importance of the
occasion even more keenly than the son himself.

“Of course,” said Judge Carter, “it’s only a game, and for my part,
so long as no one is drowned, I don’t really care who wins; _but_,
if our boys” (“our boys” meaning all three crews) “allow those young
whipper-snappers from the Atlantic House to win the pennant, they
deserve to have their boats taken from them and exchanged for hoops and
marbles!”

Which goes to show how serious a matter was the success of the Chadwick
crews.

At three o’clock the amateur pirates started from the dock to take up
their positions at the island. Each of the three small cat-boats, held
two boys: one at the helm and one in charge of the centre-board and
sheet-rope. Each pirate wore a jersey striped with differing colors,
and the head of each bore the sanguinary red knitted cap, in which all
genuine pirates are wont to appear. From the peaks of the three boats
floated black flags, bearing the emblematic skull and bones of Captain
Kidd’s followers.

As they left the dock the Chadwick’s people cheered with delight
at their appearance and shouted encouragement, while the remaining
youngsters fired salutes with a small cannon, which added to the uproar
as well as increased the excitement of the moment by its likelihood to
explode.

At the Atlantic House dock, also, the excitement was at fever heat.

Clad in white flannel suits and white duck yachting-caps with gilt
buttons, the revenue officers strolled up and down the pier with an air
of cool and determined purpose such as Decatur may have worn as he
paced the deck of his man-of-war and scanned the horizon for Algerine
pirates. The stars and stripes floated bravely from the peaks of the
three cat-boats, soon to leap in pursuit of the pirate craft which were
conspicuously making for the starting-point at the island.

At half-past three the judge’s steam-launch, the _Gracie_, made for the
middle of the river, carrying two representatives from both houses and
a dozen undergraduates from different colleges, who had chartered the
boat for the purpose of following the race and seeing at close quarters
all that was to be seen.

They enlivened the occasion by courteously and impartially giving the
especial yell of each college of which there was a representative
present, whether they knew him or not, or whether he happened to be
an undergraduate, a professor, or an alumnus. Lest some one might
inadvertently be overlooked, they continued to yell throughout the
course of the afternoon, giving, in time, the shibboleth of every known
institution of learning.

[Illustration: “Which do I think is going to win?” said the veteran
boat-builder of Manasquan.]

“Which do I think is going to win?” said the veteran boat-builder of
Manasquan to the inquiring group around his boat-house. “Well, I
wouldn’t like to say. You see, I built every one of those boats that
sails to-day, and every time I make a boat I make it better than the
last one. Now, the Chadwick boats I built near five years ago, and the
Atlantic House boats I built last summer, and I’ve learned a good deal
in five years.”

“So you think our side will win?” eagerly interrupted an Atlantic House
boarder.

“Well, I didn’t say so, did I?” inquired the veteran, with crushing
slowness of speech. “I didn’t say so. For though these boats the
Chadwick’s boys have is five years old, they’re good boats still;
and those boys know every trick and turn of ’em--and they know every
current and sand-bar just as though it was marked with a piece of
chalk. So if the Atlantic folks win, it’ll be because they’ve got the
best boats; and if the Chadwick boys win, they’ll win because they’re
better sailors.”

In the fashion of all first-class aquatic contests, it was fully half
an hour after the time appointed for the race to begin before the first
pirate boat left the island.

The _Ripple_, with Judge Carter’s two sons in command, was the leader;
and when her sail filled and showed above the shore, a cheer from the
Chadwick’s dock was carried to the ears of the pirate crew who sat
perched on the rail as she started on her first long tack.

In a moment, two of the Atlantic House heroes tumbled into the
_Osprey_, a dozen over-hasty hands had cast off her painter, had shoved
her head into the stream, and the great race was begun.

The wind was down the river, or toward the island, so that while
the _Osprey_ was sailing before the wind, the _Ripple_ had her sail
close-hauled and was tacking.

“They’re after us!” said Charley Carter, excitedly. “It’s the _Osprey_;
but I can’t make out who’s handling her. From the way they are
pointing, I think they expect to reach us on this tack as we go about.”

The crew of the _Osprey_ evidently thought so too, for her bow was
pointed at a spot on the shore, near which the _Ripple_ must turn if
she continued much longer on the same tack.

“Do you see that?” gasped Charley, who was acting as lookout. “They’re
letting her drift in the wind so as not to get there before us. I tell
you what it is, Gus, they know what they’re doing, and I think we’d
better go about now.”

“Do you?” inquired the younger brother, who had a lofty contempt for
the other’s judgment as a sailor. “Well, I don’t. My plan is simply
this: I am going to run as near the shore as I can, then go about
sharp, and let them drift by us by a boat’s length. A boat’s length is
as good as a mile, and then, when we are both heading the same way, I
would like to see them touch us!”

“What’s the use of taking such risks?” demanded the elder brother. “I
tell you, we can’t afford to let them get so near as that.”

“At the same time,” replied the man at the helm, “that is what we are
going to do. I am commanding this boat, please to remember, and if I
take the risks I am willing to take the blame.”

“You’ll be doing well, if you get off with nothing but blame,” growled
the elder brother. “If you let those kids catch us, I’ll throw you
overboard!”

“I’ll put you in irons for threatening a superior officer if you don’t
keep quiet,” answered the younger Carter, with a grin, and the mutiny
ended.

It certainly would have been great sport to have run almost into the
arms of the revenue officers, and then to have turned and led them
a race to the goal, but the humor of young Carter’s plan was not so
apparent to the anxious throng of sympathizers on Chadwick’s dock.

“What’s the matter with the boys? Why don’t they go about?” asked
Captain Chadwick, excitedly. “One would think they were trying to be
caught.”

As he spoke, the sail of the _Ripple_ fluttered in the wind, her head
went about sharply, and, as her crew scrambled up on the windward rail,
she bent and bowed gracefully on the homeward tack.

But, before the boat was fully under way, the _Osprey_ came down upon
her with a rush. The Carters hauled in the sail until their sheet lay
almost flat with the surface of the river, the water came pouring over
the leeward rail, and the boys threw their bodies far over the other
side, in an effort to right her. The next instant there was a crash,
the despised boat of the Atlantic House struck her fairly in the side,
and one of the Atlantic House crew had boarded the _Ripple_ with a
painter in one hand and his hat in the other.

Whether it was the shock of the collision, or disgust at having been
captured, no one could tell; but when the _Osprey’s_ bow struck the
_Ripple_, the younger Carter calmly let himself go over backward and
remained in the mud with the water up to his chin and without making
an effort to help himself, until the judge’s boat picked him up and
carried him, an ignominious prisoner-of-war, to the Atlantic House dock.

The disgust over the catastrophe to the pirate crew was manifested
on the part of the Chadwick sympathizers by gloomy silence or loudly
expressed indignation. On the whole, it was perhaps just as well that
the two Carters, as prisoners-of-war, were forced to remain at the
Atlantic House dock, for their reception at home would not have been a
gracious one.

Their captors, on the other hand, were received with all the honor due
triumphant heroes, and were trotted off the pier on the shoulders of
their cheering admirers; while the girls in the carriages waved their
parasols and handkerchiefs and the colored waiters on the banks danced
up and down and shouted like so many human calliopes.

The victories of John Paul Jones and the rescue of Lieutenant Greely
became aquatic events of little importance in comparison. Everybody
was so encouraged at this first success, that Atlantic House stock
rose fifty points in as many seconds, and the next crew to sally forth
from that favored party felt that the second and decisive victory was
already theirs.

Again the black flag appeared around the bank of the island, and on
the instant a second picked crew of the Atlantic House was in pursuit.
But the boys who commanded the pirate craft had no intention of taking
or giving any chances. They put their boat about, long before the
revenue officers expected them to do so, and forced their adversaries
to go so directly before the wind that their boat rocked violently. It
was not long before the boats drew nearer together, again, as if they
must certainly meet at a point not more than a hundred yards from the
Atlantic House pier, where the excitement had passed the noisy point
and had reached that of titillating silence.

“Go about sharp!” snapped out the captain of the pirate boat, pushing
his tiller from him and throwing his weight upon it. His first officer
pulled the sail close over the deck, the wind caught it fairly, and
almost before the spectators were aware of it, the pirate boat had gone
about and was speeding away on another tack. The revenue officers were
not prepared for this. They naturally thought the pirates would run as
close to the shore as they possibly could before they tacked, and were
aiming for the point at which they calculated their opponents would go
about, just as did the officers in the first race.

Seeing this, and not wishing to sail too close to them, the pirates
had gone about much farther from the shore than was needful. In order
to follow them the revenue officers were now forced to come about and
tack, which, going before the wind as they were, they found less easy.
The sudden change in their opponents’ tactics puzzled them, and one of
the two boys bungled. On future occasions each confidentially informed
his friends that it was the other who was responsible; but, however
that may have been, the boat missed stays, her sail flapped weakly in
the breeze, and, while the crew were vigorously trying to set her in
the wind by lashing the water with her rudder, the pirate boat was off
and away, one hundred yards to the good, and the remainder of the race
was a procession of two boats with the pirates easily in the lead.

And now came the final struggle. Now came the momentous “rubber,” which
was to plunge Chadwick’s into gloom, or keep them still the champions
of the river. The appetites of both were whetted for victory by the
single triumph each had already won, and their representatives felt
that, for them, success or a watery grave were the alternatives.

The Atlantic House boat, the _Wave_, and the boat upon which the
Chadwick’s hopes were set, the _Rover_, were evenly matched, their
crews were composed of equally good sailors, and each was determined to
tow the other ignominiously into port.

The two Prescotts watched the _Wave_ critically and admiringly, as
she came toward them with her crew perched on her side and the water
showing white under her bow.

“They’re coming entirely too fast to suit me,” said the elder Prescott.
“I want more room, and I have a plan to get it. Stand ready to go
about.” The younger brother stood ready to go about, keeping the
_Rover_ on her first tack until she was clear of the island’s high
banks and had the full sweep of the wind; then, to the surprise of
her pursuers and the bewilderment of the spectators, she went smartly
about, and turning her bow directly away from the goal, started before
the wind back past the island and toward the wide stretch of river on
the upper side.

“What’s your man doing that for?” excitedly asked one of the Atlantic
House people, of the prisoners-of-war.

“I don’t know, certainly,” one of the Carters answered; “but I suppose
he thinks his boat can go faster before the wind than the _Wave_ can,
and he is counting on getting a long lead on her before he turns to
go back. There is much more room up there, and the opportunities for
dodging are about twice as good.”

“Why didn’t _we_ think of that, Gus?” whispered the other Carter.

“We were too anxious to show what smart sailors we were, to think of
anything!” answered his brother, ruefully.

Beyond the island the _Rover_ gained rapidly; but as soon as she
turned and began beating homeward, the _Wave_ showed that tacking was
her strong point and began, in turn, to make up all the advantage the
_Rover_ had gained.

The _Rover’s_ pirate-king cast a troubled eye at the distant goal and
at the slowly but steadily advancing _Wave_.

His younger brother noticed the look.

“If one could only _do_ something,” he exclaimed, impatiently. “That’s
the worst of sailing races. In a rowing race you can pull till you
break your back, if you want to; but here you must just sit still and
watch the other fellow creep up, inch by inch, without doing anything
to help yourself. If I could only get out and push, or pole! It’s this
trying to keep still that drives me crazy.”

“I think we’d better go about now,” said the commander, quietly, “and
instead of going about again when we are off the bar, I intend to try
to cross it.”

“What!” gasped the younger Prescott, “go across the bar at low water?
You can’t do it. We’ll stick sure. Don’t try it. Don’t think of it!”

“It is rather a forlorn hope, I know,” said his brother; “but you can
see, yourself, they’re bound to overhaul us if we keep on--we don’t
draw as much water as they do, and if they try to follow us we’ll leave
them high and dry on the bar.”

The island stood in the centre of the river, separated from the shore
on one side by the channel, through which both boats had already
passed, and on the other by a narrow stretch of water which barely
covered the bar the _Rover_ purposed to cross.

When she pointed for it, the _Wave_ promptly gave up chasing her, and
made for the channel with the intention of heading her off on the other
side of the island in the event of her crossing the bar.

“She’s turned back!” exclaimed the captain of the _Rover_. “Now if we
can only clear it, we’ll have a beautiful start on her. Sit perfectly
still, and if you hear her centre-board scrape, pull it up, and trim
her to keep her keel level.”

Slowly the _Rover_ drifted toward the bar; once her centre-board
touched, and as the boat moved further into the shallow water the waves
rose higher in proportion at the stern.

But her keel did not touch, and as soon as the dark water showed again,
her crew gave an exultant shout and pointed her bow toward the Chadwick
dock, whence a welcoming cheer came faintly over the mile of water.

“I’ll bet they didn’t cheer much when we were crossing the bar!” said
the younger brother, with a grim chuckle. “I’ll bet they thought we
were mighty foolish.”

“We couldn’t have done anything else,” returned the superior officer.
“It was risky, though. If we’d moved an inch she would have grounded,
sure.”

“I was scared so stiff that I couldn’t have moved if I’d tried to,”
testified the younger sailor, with cheerful frankness.

Meanwhile the wind had freshened, and white caps began to show over
the roughened surface of the river, while sharp, ugly flaws struck the
sails of the two contesting boats from all directions, making them bow
before the sudden gusts of wind until the water poured over the sides.

But the sharpness of the wind made the racing only more exciting, and
such a series of manœuvres as followed, and such a naval battle, was
never before seen on the Manasquan River.

The boys handled their boats like veterans, and the boats answered
every movement of the rudders and shortening of the sails as a
thoroughbred horse obeys its bridle. They ducked and dodged, turned
and followed in pursuit, now going free before the wind, now racing,
close-hauled, into the teeth of it. Several times a capture seemed
inevitable, but a quick turn of the tiller would send the pirates out
of danger. And, as many times, the pirate crew almost succeeded in
crossing the line, but before they could reach it the revenue cutter
would sweep down upon them and frighten them away again.

“We can’t keep this up much longer,” said the elder Prescott. “There’s
more water in the boat now than is safe; and every time we go about, we
ship three or four bucketfuls more.”

As he spoke, a heavy flaw keeled the boat over again, and, before her
crew could right her, the water came pouring over the side with the
steadiness of a small waterfall. “That settles it for us,” exclaimed
Prescott, grimly; “we _must_ pass the line on this tack, or we sink.”

“They’re as badly off as we are,” returned his brother. “See how she’s
wobbling--but she’s gaining on us, just the same,” he added.

“Keep her to it, then,” said the man at the helm. “Hold on to that
sheet, no matter how much water she ships.”

“If I don’t let it out a little, she’ll sink!”

“Let her sink, then,” growled the chief officer. “I’d rather upset than
be caught.”

The people on the shore and on the judges’ boat appreciated the
situation fully as well as the racers. They had seen, for some time,
how slowly the boats responded to their rudders and how deeply they
were sunk in the water.

All the manœuvring for the past ten minutes had been off the Chadwick
dock, and the Atlantic House people, in order to get a better view
of the finish, were racing along the bank on foot and in carriages,
cheering their champions as they came.

The _Rover_ was pointed to cross an imaginary line between the judges’
steam-launch and Chadwick’s dock. Behind her, not three boat-lengths
in the rear, so close that her wash impeded their headway, came the
revenue officers, their white caps gone, their hair flying in the wind,
and every muscle strained.

Both crews were hanging far over the sides of the boats, while each
wave washed the water into the already half-filled cockpits.

“Look out!” shouted the younger Prescott, “here comes another flaw!”

“Don’t let that sail out!” shouted back his brother, and as the full
force of the flaw struck her, the boat’s rail buried itself in the
water and her sail swept along the surface of the river.

For an instant it looked as if the boat was swamped, but as the force
of the flaw passed over her, she slowly righted again, and with her
sail dripping and heavy, and rolling like a log, she plunged forward on
her way to the goal.

When the flaw struck the _Wave_, her crew let their sheet go free,
saving themselves the inundation of water which had almost swamped the
_Rover_, but losing the headway, which the _Rover_ had kept.

Before the _Wave_ regained it, the pirate craft had increased her lead,
though it was only for a moment.

“We can’t make it,” shouted the younger Prescott, turning his face
toward his brother so that the wind might not drown his voice.
“They’re almost upon us, and we’re settling fast.”

“So are they,” shouted his brother. “We can’t be far from the line now,
and as soon as we cross that, it doesn’t matter what happens to us!”

As he spoke another heavy gust of wind came sweeping toward them,
turning the surface of the river dark blue as it passed over, and
flattening out the waves.

“Look at that!” groaned the pirate-king, “we’re gone now, surely!” But
before the flaw reached them, and almost before the prophetic words
were uttered, the cannon on the judges’ boat banged forth merrily, and
the crowds on the Chadwick dock answered its signal with an unearthly
yell of triumph.

“We’re across, we’re across!” shouted the younger Prescott, jumping up
to his knees in the water in the bottom of the boat and letting the wet
sheet-rope run freely through his blistered fingers.

But the movement was an unfortunate one.

The flaw struck the boat with her heavy sail dragging in the water, and
with young Prescott’s weight removed from the rail. She reeled under
the gust as a tree bows in a storm, bent gracefully before it, and
then turned over slowly on her side.

[Illustration: As the two Prescotts scrambled up on the gunwale of
their boat, the defeated crew saluted them with cheers.]

The next instant the _Wave_ swept by her, and as the two Prescotts
scrambled up on the gunwale of their boat, the defeated crew saluted
them with cheers, in response to which the victors bowed as gracefully
as their uncertain position would permit.

The new arrival, who had come to Manasquan in the hope of finding
something to shoot, stood among the people on the bank and discharged
his gun until the barrels were so hot that he had to lay the gun down
to cool. And every other man and boy who owned a gun or pistol of any
sort, fired it off and yelled at the same time, as if the contents
of the gun or pistol had entered his own body. Unfortunately, every
boat possessed a tin horn with which the helmsman was wont to signal
the keeper of the drawbridge. One evil-minded captain blew a blast
of triumph on his horn, and in a minute’s time the air was rent with
tootings as vicious as those of the steam whistle of a locomotive.

The _Wave_ just succeeded in reaching the dock before she settled and
sank. A dozen of Chadwick’s boarders seized the crew by their coat
collars and arms, as they leaped from the sinking boat to the pier, and
assisted them to their feet, forgetful in the excitement of the moment
that the sailors were already as wet as sponges on their native rocks.

“I suppose I should have stuck to my ship as Prescott did,” said the
captain of the _Wave_ with a smile, pointing to where the judges’ boat
was towing in the _Rover_ with her crew still clinging to her side;
“but I’d already thrown you my rope, you know, and there really isn’t
anything heroic in sticking to a sinking ship when she goes down in two
feet of water.”

As soon as the Prescotts reached the pier, they pushed their way to
their late rivals and shook them heartily by their hands. Then the
Atlantic House people carried their crew around on their shoulders, and
the two Chadwick’s crews were honored in the same embarrassing manner.
The proprietor of the Atlantic House invited the entire Chadwick
establishment over to a dance and a late supper.

“I prepared it for the victors,” he said, “and though these victors
don’t happen to be the ones I prepared it for, the victors must eat
it.”

The sun had gone down for over half an hour before the boats and
carriages had left the Chadwick dock, and the Chadwick people had an
opportunity to rush home to dress. They put on their very best clothes,
“just to show the Atlantic people that they _had_ something else
besides flannels,” and danced in the big hall of the Atlantic House
until late in the evening.

When the supper was served, the victors were toasted and cheered and
presented with a beautiful set of colors, and then Judge Carter made a
stirring speech.

He went over the history of the rival houses in a way that pleased
everybody, and made all the people at the table feel ashamed of
themselves for ever having been rivals at all.

He pointed out in courtly phrases how excellent and varied were the
modern features of the Atlantic House, and yet how healthful and
satisfying was the old-fashioned simplicity of Chadwick’s. He expressed
the hope that the two houses would learn to appreciate each other’s
virtues, and hoped that in the future they would see more of each
other.

To which sentiment everybody assented most noisily and
enthusiastically, and the proprietor of the Atlantic House said that,
in his opinion, Judge Carter’s speech was one of the finest he had
ever listened to, and he considered that part of it which touched on
the excellent attractions of the Atlantic House as simply sublime,
and that, with his Honor’s permission, he intended to use it in his
advertisements and circulars, with Judge Carter’s name attached.




RICHARD CARR’S BABY.


A few years ago, all the boys living in the town of Princeton who were
at that age when it is easy to remember the fall, winter, spring, and
summer as the foot-ball, coasting, swimming, and base-ball seasons,
regarded Richard Carr as embodying their ideal of human greatness.

When they read in the history primers how George Washington became the
Father of his Country, they felt sure that with a like opportunity
Richard Carr would come to the front and be the stepfather of his
country at least.

They lay in wait for him at the post-office, and as soon as he came in
sight, would ask for his mail and run to give it to him; they would go
ahead of him on the other side of the street, and cross over and meet
him with a very important “How do you do, Mr. Carr?” and were quite
satisfied if he gave them an amused “Hello!” in return.

They hung photographs of him and the woodcuts from the daily papers
around their rooms, and their efforts to imitate his straight, military
walk, with shoulders squared and head erect, were of great benefit to
their lungs and personal appearance.

Those ragged hangers-on of the college, too, who picked up odd dimes
from the students, by carrying baggage and chasing tennis balls, waited
on Richard Carr, and shouted “Hurrah for you, Carr!” whenever that
worthy walked by.

Those who have not already guessed the position which Richard Carr held
in the college will be surprised to learn that he was captain of the
college foot-ball team, and those who cannot understand the admiration
that Arthur Waller, and Willie Beck, and the rest of the small fry of
Princeton felt for this young man would better stop here--for neither
will they understand this story.

Among all these young hero-worshippers, Richard Carr’s most devoted
follower was Arthur Waller--for, while the other boys, looking upon
Carr as their ideal, hoped in time that they might themselves be even
as great as he, Arthur felt that to him, this glorious possibility
must be denied. Arthur was neither strong nor sturdy, and could, he
knew, never hope to be like the captain of the foot-ball team, whose
strength and physique seemed, for this reason, all the grander to him.

He never ran after Carr, nor tried to draw his attention as the others
did; he was content to watch and form his own ideas about his hero from
a distance. Richard Carr was more than the captain of the team to him.
He was the one person who, above all others, had that which Arthur
lacked--strength; and so Arthur did not merely envy him,--he worshipped
him.

Although Arthur Waller was somewhat older in his way of thinking than
his friends, he enjoyed the same games they enjoyed, and would have
liked to play them, if he had been able; but, as he was not, the
boys usually asked him to keep the score, or to referee the matches
they played on the cow pasture with one of the college’s cast-off
foot-balls. On the whole, the boys were very good to Arthur.

It was the first part of the last half of the Yale-Princeton foot-ball
match, played on the Princeton grounds. The modest grand stand was
filled with young ladies and college boys, while all the townspeople
covered the fences and carriages, and crowded closely on the
whitewashed lines, cheering and howling at the twenty-two very dirty,
very determined, and very cool young men who ran, rushed, dodged, and
“tackled” in the open space before them,--the most interested and least
excited individuals on the grounds.

Arthur Waller had crept between the spectators until he had reached the
very front of the crowd, and had stood through the first half of the
game with bated breath, his finger-nails pressed into his palms, and
his eyes following only one of the players. He was entirely too much
excited to shout or call as the others did; and he was perfectly silent
except for the little gasps of fear he gave involuntarily when Richard
Carr struck the ground with more than the usual number of men on top of
him.

Suddenly, Mr. Hobbes, of Yale, kicked the ball, but kicked it sideways;
and so, instead of going straight down the field, it turned and
whirled over the heads of the crowd and settled among the carriages. A
panting little Yale man tore wildly after it, beseeching Mr. Hobbes,
in agonizing tones, to put him “on side.” Mr. Hobbes ran past the spot
where the ball would strike, and the Yale man dashed after it through
the crowd. Behind him, his hair flying, his eyes fixed on the ball
over his head, every muscle on a strain, came Richard Carr. He went
at the people blindly, and they tumbled over one another like a flock
of sheep, in their efforts to clear the way for him. With his head in
the air, he did not see Arthur striving to get out of his way; he only
heard a faint cry of pain when he stumbled for an instant, and, looking
back, saw the crowd closing around a little boy who was lying very
still and white, but who was not crying. Richard Carr stopped as he ran
back, and setting Arthur on his feet, asked, “Are you hurt, youngster?”
But, as Arthur only stared at him and said nothing, the champion
hurried on again into the midst of the fray.

       *       *       *       *       *

“There is one thing we must have before the next match,” said the
manager of the team, as the players were gathered in the dressing-rooms
after the game, “and that is a rope to keep the people back. They
_will_ crowd on the field, and get in the way of the half-backs, and,
besides, it is not safe for them to stand so near. Carr knocked over a
little boy this afternoon, and hurt him quite badly, I believe.”

“What’s that?” said Richard Carr, turning from the group of substitutes
who were explaining how they would have played the game and tendering
congratulations.

“I was saying,” continued the manager, “that we ought to have a rope to
keep the people off the field; they interfere with the game; and they
say that you hurt a little fellow when you ran into the crowd during
the last half.”

“Those boys shouldn’t be allowed to stand in front there,” said Richard
Carr; “but I didn’t know I hurt him. Who was he? where does he live? Do
you know?”

“It was the widow Waller’s son, sir,” volunteered Sam, the colored
attendant. “That’s her house with the trees around it; you can see the
roof from here. I think that’s where they took him.”

“Took him!” exclaimed Richard Carr, catching up his great-coat. “Was he
so badly hurt? You wait until I come back, Sam.”

A pale, gentle-faced woman, who looked as if she had been crying,
came to the door when Richard Carr rang the bell of the cottage which
had been pointed out to him from the athletic grounds. When she saw
his foot-ball costume, the look of welcome on her face died out very
suddenly.

“Does the little boy live here who was hurt on the athletic grounds?”
asked Richard Carr, wondering if it could have been the doctor she was
expecting.

“Yes, sir,” answered the lady, coldly.

“I came to see how he was; I am the man who ran against him. I wish
to explain to you how it happened--I suppose you are Mrs. Waller?”
(Richard Carr hesitated, and bowed, but the lady only bowed her head in
return, and said nothing.) “It was accidental, of course,” continued
Carr. “He was in the crowd when I ran in after the ball; it was flying
over our heads, and I was looking up at it and didn’t see him. I hope
he is all right now.” Before the lady could answer, Richard Carr’s eyes
wandered from her face and caught sight of a little figure lying on a
sofa in the wide hall. Stepping across the floor as lightly as he could
in his heavy shoes, Carr sat down beside Arthur on the sofa. “Well, old
man,” he said, taking Arthur’s hands in his, “I hope I didn’t hurt you
much. No bones broken,--are there? You were very plucky not to cry. It
was a very hard fall, and I’m very, very sorry; but I didn’t see you,
you know.”

“Oh, no, sir,” said Arthur, quickly, with his eyes fixed on Richard
Carr’s face. “I knew you didn’t see me, and I thought maybe you would
come when you heard I was hurt. I don’t mind it a bit, from you.
Because Willie Beck says--he is the captain of our team, you know--that
you wouldn’t hurt any one if you could help it; he says you never hit
a man on the field unless he’s playing foul or trying to hurt some of
your team.”

Richard Carr doubted whether this recital of his virtues would appeal
as strongly to Mrs. Waller as it did to Arthur, so he said, “And who is
Willie Beck?”

“Willie Beck! Why, don’t you know Willie Beck?” exclaimed Arthur, who
was rapidly losing his awe of Richard Carr. “He says he knows you; he
is the boy who holds your coat for you during the practice games.”

Richard Carr saw he was running a risk of hurting some young admirer’s
feelings, so he said, “Oh, yes, the boy who holds my coat for me. And
he is the captain of your team, is he? Well, the next time you play,
you wear this cap and tell Willie Beck and the rest of the boys that I
gave it to you because you were so plucky when I knocked you down.”

With these words he pressed his orange and black cap into Arthur’s hand
and rose to go, but Arthur looked so wistfully at him, and then at the
captain’s cap, that he stopped.

“I’d like to wear it, Mr. Carr,” he said slowly. “I’d like to, ever so
much, Mamma,” he added, turning his eyes to where Mrs. Waller stood
looking out at the twilight and weeping softly,--“but you see, sir, I
don’t play myself. I generally referee. I’m not very strong, sir, not
at present; but I will be some day,--won’t I, Mamma? And the doctor
says I must keep quiet until I am older, and not play games that are
rough. For he says if I got a shock or a fall I might not get over it,
or it might put me back--and I do so want to get well just as soon as
I can. You see, sir, it’s my spine----”

Richard Carr gave a sharp gasp of pain and dropped on his knees beside
the sofa, and buried his face beside the boy’s on the pillow, with his
arms thrown tightly around his shoulder.

For a moment Arthur looked at him startled and distressed, and patted
Richard Carr’s broad back to comfort him; and then he cried:

“Oh, but I didn’t mean to blame _you_, Mr. Carr! I know you didn’t see
me. Don’t you worry about me, Mr. Carr. I’m going to get well some day.
Indeed I am, sir!”

       *       *       *       *       *

Whether it was that the surgeon whom Richard Carr’s father sent on from
New York knew more about Arthur’s trouble than the other doctors did,
or whether it was that Richard Carr saw that Arthur had many medicines,
pleasant and unpleasant, which his mother had been unable to get for
him, I do not know,--but I do know that Arthur got better day by day.

And day after day, Richard Carr stopped on his way to the field,
and on his way back again, to see his “Baby,” as he called him, and
to answer the numerous questions put to him by Arthur’s companions.
They always assembled at the hour of Richard Carr’s arrival in order
to share some of the glory that had fallen on their comrade, and to
cherish and carry away whatever precious thoughts Richard Carr might
let drop concerning foot-ball, or the weather, or any other vital topic
on which his opinion was decisive.

As soon as the doctor said Arthur could be moved, Richard Carr used to
stop for him in a two-seated carriage and drive him in state to the
foot-ball field. And after he had drawn up the carriage where Arthur
could get a good view of the game, he would hand over the reins to one
of those vulture-like individuals who hover around the field of battle,
waiting for some one to be hurt, and who are known as “substitutes.” In
his orange and black uniform, one of these fellows made a very gorgeous
coachman indeed.

And though the students might yell, and the townspeople shout ever so
loudly, Richard Carr only heard one shrill little voice, which called
to him above all the others; and as that voice got stronger day by day,
Richard Carr got back his old spirit and interest in the game, which,
since the Yale match, he seemed to have lost.

The team said Richard Carr’s “Baby” brought them luck, and they called
him their “Mascot,” and presented him with a flag of the college
colors; and when the weather grew colder they used to smother him in
their white woollen jerseys, so that he looked like a fat polar bear.

It was a very pretty sight, indeed, to see how Richard Carr and the
rest of the team, whenever they had scored or had made a good play,
would turn first for their commendation to where Arthur sat perched
above the crowd, waving his flag, his cheeks all aglow, and the
substitute’s arm around him to keep him from falling over in his
excitement. And the other teams who came to play at Princeton soon
learned about the captain’s “Baby,” and inquired if he were on the
field; and if he was, they would go up and gravely shake hands with
him, as with some celebrated individual holding a public reception.

Richard Carr is out West now at the head of a great sheep ranch, and
Arthur Waller enters Princeton next year. I do not know whether he will
be on the team, though he is strong enough; but I am sure he will help
to hand down the fame of Richard Carr, and that he will do it in such
a way that his hero will be remembered as the possessor of certain
qualities, perhaps not so highly prized, but almost as excellent, as
were those which fitted him to be captain of the team.




THE GREAT TRI-CLUB TENNIS TOURNAMENT.


Charles Coleridge Grace, as he was called by the sporting editors,
or Charley Grace, as he was known about college, had held the tennis
championship of his Alma Mater ever since he had been a freshman.

Even before that eventful year he had carried off so many silver cups
and highly ornamented racquets at the different tournaments all over
the country, that his entering college was quite as important an event
to the college as it was to Charles.

His career was not marked by the winning of any scholarships, nor
by any brazen prominence in the way of first honors; and though the
president may have wondered at the frequency of his applications to
attend funerals, marriages, and the family dentist, he was always
careful to look the other way when he met him hurrying to the station
with three racquets in one hand and a travelling bag in the other.

Nor was he greatly surprised to read in the next morning’s paper that
“this brought the winner of the last set and Charles Coleridge Grace
together in the finals, which were won by Mr. Grace, 6-4, 6-4, 6-2.”

It was near the end of the first term in Grace’s junior year, and at
the time when the dates of tournaments and examinations were hopelessly
clashing, that he received another of many invitations to attend an
open tournament. This particular circular announced that the N. L. T.
A. of the United States had given the Hilltown Tennis Club permission
to hold on their own grounds a tournament for the championship of the
State.

Mr. Grace was cordially invited to participate, not only through the
formal wording of the circular, but in a note of somewhat extravagant
courtesy signed by the club’s secretary.

Hilltown is a very pretty place, and some of its people are very
wealthy. They see that it has good roads for their village-carts and
landaus to roll over, and their Queen Anne cottages are distinctly
ornamental to the surrounding landscape.

They have also laid out and inclosed eight tennis-courts of both clay
and turf, to suit every one’s taste, and have erected a club-house
which is apparently fashioned after no one’s. Every year Hilltown
invited the neighboring tennis-clubs of Malvern and Pineville to
compete with them in an interclub tournament, and offered handsome
prizes which were invariably won by representatives of Hilltown.

But this year, owing chiefly to the energies of Mr. C. Percy Clay,
the club’s enthusiastic secretary, Hilltown had been allowed to hold
a tournament on its own tennis-ground for the double and single
championship of the State. This honor necessitated the postponement of
the annual tri-club meeting until ten days after the championship games
had been played.

The team who did the playing for the Hilltown club were two young men
locally known as the Slade brothers.

They were not popular, owing to their assuming an air of superiority
over every one in the town, from their father down to C. Percy Clay.
But as they had won every prize of which the tennis-club could boast,
they of necessity enjoyed a prominence which their personal conduct
alone could not have gained for them.

Charles Grace arrived at Hilltown one Wednesday morning. All but the
final game of the doubles had been played off on the two days previous,
and the singles were to be begun and completed that afternoon. The
grounds were well filled when he reached them, and looked as pretty as
only pretty tennis-grounds can look when they are gay with well-dressed
girls, wonderfully bright blazers, and marquees of vividly brilliant
stripes.

Grace found the list of entries to the singles posted up in the
club-house, and discovered that they were few in number, and that there
was among them only one name that was familiar to him.

As he turned away from the list, two very young and bright-faced boys,
in very well-worn flannels, came up the steps of the club-house just as
one of the Slades was leaving it.

“Hullo,” said Slade, “you back again?”

It was such an unusual and impertinent welcome that Grace paused in
some surprise and turned to listen.

The eldest of the boys laughed good-naturedly and said: “Yes, we’re
here, Mr. Slade. You know we drew a bye, and so we play in the finals.”

“Well, of course you’ll play my brother and myself then. I hope the
novelty of playing in the last round won’t paralyze you. If it doesn’t,
we will,” he added with a short laugh. “I say, Ed,” he continued,
turning to his elder brother, “here are Merton and his partner come all
the way from Malvern to play in the finals. They might have saved their
car-fare, don’t you think?”

The elder brother scowled at the unfortunate representatives of Malvern.

“You don’t really mean to make us stand out here in the hot sun fooling
with you, do you?” he asked impatiently. “You’ll only make a spectacle
of yourselves. Why don’t you drop out? We’ve beaten you often enough
before, I should think, to suit you, and we want to begin the singles.”

But the Malvern youths were not to be browbeaten. They said they knew
they would be defeated, but that the people at Malvern were very
anxious to have them play, and had insisted on their coming up. “They
wish to see what sort of a chance we have for the tri-club tournament,
next week,” they explained.

“Well, we’ll show what sort of chance you have with a vengeance,”
laughed one of the brothers. “But it really is hard on us.”

The two boys flushed, and one of them began hotly, “Let me tell you,
Mr. Slade,”--but the other put his hand on his arm, saying, “What’s the
use?” and pushed him gently toward the grounds.

The Slades went into the club-house grumbling.

“Nice lot, those home players,” soliloquized Grace. “I’ll pound the
life out of them for that!”

He was still more inclined to revenge the Malvern youths later, after
their defeat by the Slades,--which was not such a bad defeat after all,
as they had won one of the four sets, and scored games in the others.
But the Slades, with complete disregard for all rules of hospitality
to say nothing of the etiquette of tennis, kept up a running comment
of ridicule and criticism on their hopeful opponents’ play, and, much
to Grace’s disgust, the spectators laughed and encouraged them. The
visitors struggled hard, but everything was against them; they did not
understand playing as a team, and though they were quick and sure-eyed
enough, and their service was wonderfully strong, the partiality of
the crowd “rattled” them, and the ridicule of their opponents was not
likely to put them more at their ease.

The man who had been asked to umpire with Grace was a college man,
and they both had heard all that went on across the net in the final
round. So when their duties were over, they went up to the defeated
Malvernites and shook hands with them, and said something kind to them
about their playing.

But the cracks did not congratulate the winners. Indeed, they were so
disgusted with the whole affair that they refused to be lionized by
Mr. Clay and the spectators in any way, but went off to the hotel in
the village for luncheon,--which desertion rendered the spread on the
grounds as flat as a coming-of-age dinner with the comer-of-age left
out.

After luncheon, Thatcher, the other collegian, had the pleasure of
defeating the younger Slade in two straight sets, to his own and
Grace’s satisfaction; but Mr. Thatcher’s satisfaction was somewhat
dampened when Grace polished him off in the next round, after a game
which Grace made as close as he could.

Other rounds were going on in the other courts, and at five o’clock
Grace and the elder Slade came together in the finals. Thatcher had
gone home after wishing his conqueror luck, and Grace was left alone.
He was not pleased to see that Slade’s brother was to act as one of
the umpires, as he had noticed that his decisions in other games were
carelessly incorrect.

But he was in no way prepared for what followed.

For the younger Slade’s umpiring in the final game was even more
efficient in gaining points for the Hilltown side than was the elder’s
playing.

It was a matter of principle with Grace, as with all good players,
never to question an umpire’s decision, and he had been taught the good
old rule to “Never kick in a winning game.” But the decisions were
so outrageous that it soon came too close to being a losing game for
him to allow them to continue. So, finally, after a decision of the
brother’s had given Slade the second one of the two sets, Grace went to
the referee and asked that some one be appointed to act in Mr. Slade’s
place, as he did not seem to understand or to pay proper attention to
the game.

“Mr. Slade’s decisions have been simply ridiculous,” said Grace,
“and they have all been against myself. This may be due to ignorance
or carelessness, but in any case I object to him as an umpire most
emphatically.”

“Well, you can object to him all you please,” retorted the elder
brother. “If you don’t like the way this tournament is conducted you
can withdraw. You needn’t think you can come down here and attempt to
run everything to suit yourself, even if you are a crack player. Do you
mean to forfeit the game or not?”

“It seems to me, gentlemen,” stammered Mr. Percy Clay, excitedly, “that
if Mr. Grace desires another umpire--”

“Oh, you keep out of this, will you!” retorted the omnipotent Slade,
and Mr. Clay retreated hurriedly.

Grace walked back into the court, and nodded to the referee that he was
ready to go on.

He was too angry to speak, but he mentally determined to beat his
opponent so badly, umpire or no umpire, that his friends would avoid
tennis as a topic of conversation for months to come.

This incendiary spirit made him hammer the innocent rubber balls to
such purpose that the elder Slade was almost afraid of his life, and
failed to return more than a dozen of the opponent’s strokes in the
next two sets.

His brother’s decisions were now even more ridiculous than before, but
Grace pretended not to notice them.

The game now stood two straight sets in Grace’s favor, and one set 6-5
in Slade’s--or in favor of both the Slades, for they had both helped to
win it.

Grace had four games love, in the final set, when in running back after
a returned ball he tripped and fell over an obstacle, spraining his
right ankle very badly. The obstacle proved to be the leg of one of the
Hilltown youths who was lying in the grass with his feet stuck out so
far that they touched the line.

Grace got up and tried to rest his weight on his leg, and then sat down
again very promptly.

He shut his teeth and looked around him.

Nobody moved except Mr. Clay, who asked anxiously if Grace were hurt.
Grace said that he was; that he had sprained his ankle.

The young gentleman over whom he had fallen had by this time curled his
legs up under him, but made no proffer of assistance or apology.

“Oh, that’s an old trick!” Grace heard the younger Slade say, in a tone
which was meant to reach him. “Some men always sprain their ankles when
they are not sure of winning. I guess he’ll be able to walk before the
year’s out.”

Grace would have got up then and there and thrashed the younger Slade,
ankle or no ankle, if he had not been pounced upon by the two Malvern
boys, who pushed their way through the crowd with a pail of lemonade
and a half dozen towels that they had picked up in the club-house. They
slipped off his shoe and stocking, and dipping a towel in the iced
lemonade, bound it about his ankle and repeated the operation several
times, much to Grace’s relief.

“This lemonade was prepared for drinking purposes, I fancy,” said one
of them, “but we couldn’t find anything else. I never heard of its
being good for sprains, but it will have to do. How do you feel now?”

“All right, thank you,” said Grace. “I’ve only these two games to play
now, and it’s my serve. I needn’t run around much in that. Just give me
a lift, will you? Thanks.”

But as soon as Grace touched his foot to the ground, the boys saw that
he was anything but all right. His face grew very white, and his lips
lost their color. Whenever he moved he drew in his breath in short,
quick gasps, and his teeth were clinched with pain.

He lost his serve, and the next game as well, and before five minutes
had passed he was two games to the bad in the last set.

The Malvern boys came to him and told him to rest; that he was not
only going to lose the game, but that he might be doing serious injury
as well to his ankle, which was already swelling perceptibly. But
Grace only unlaced his shoe the further and set his teeth. One of the
Malvernites took upon himself to ask the referee if he did not intend
giving Mr. Grace a quarter of an hour’s “time” at least.

The referee said that the rules did not say anything about sprained
ankles.

“Why, I know of tennis matches,” returned the Malvernite champion
excitedly, “that have been laid over for hours because of a sprained
ankle. It will be no glory to Mr. Slade to win from a man who has to
hop about on one foot, and no credit either.”

“Mr. Grace is a crack player, and I’m not,” said Slade; “but I asked no
favors of him on that account, and I don’t expect him to ask any of me.”

“I haven’t asked any of you!” roared Grace, now wholly exasperated with
anger and pain, “and you’ll wait some time before I do. Go on with the
game.”

The ankle grew worse, but Grace’s playing improved, notwithstanding.
He felt that he would rather beat “that Slade man” than the champion
himself; and he won each of his serves, not one of the balls being
returned.

They were now “five all,” and the expressed excitement was uproarious
in its bitterness and intensity.

Slade had the serve, and it was with a look of perfect
self-satisfaction that he pounded the first ball across the net. Grace
returned it, and the others that followed brought the score up to
’vantage in Slade’s favor, so that he only needed one more point to win.

The people stood up in breathless silence. Grace limped into position
and waited, Slade bit his under lip nervously, and served the ball
easily, and his opponent sent it back to him like an arrow; it struck
within a foot of the serving line on the inside, making the score
“deuce.”

“Outside! Game and set in favor of Mr. Slade,” chanted the younger
Slade with an exultant cry.

“What!” shouted Grace and the two Malvernites in chorus.

But the crowd drowned their appeal in exclamations of
self-congratulation and triumph.

“Did you see that ball?” demanded Grace of the referee.

“I did,” said that young man.

“And do you mean to tell me it was out?”

“It was--I do,” stammered the youth. “You heard what Mr. Slade said.”

“I don’t care what Mr. Slade said. I appeal to you against the most
absurd decision ever heard or given on a tennis-field.”

“And I support Mr. Slade,” replied the referee.

“Oh, very well!” said Grace, with sudden quietness. “Come,” he
whispered to his two lieutenants, “let’s get out of this. They’ll
take our watches next!” And the three slowly made their way to the
club-house.

They helped Grace into his other clothes and packed up his
tennis-flannels for him. He was very quiet and seemed more concerned
about his ankle than over the loss of the State championship.

Grace and his two supporters were so long in getting to the station, no
one having offered Grace a carriage, that he missed his train.

He was very much annoyed, for he was anxious to shake the dust of
Hilltown from his feet, and he was more than anxious about his ankle.

“Mr. Grace,” said Merton, “Prior and I were wondering if you would
think we were presuming on our short acquaintance if we asked you to
come home with us to Malvern. You can’t get back to college to-night
from here, and Malvern is only ten miles off. My father is a doctor and
could tell you what you ought to do about your ankle, and we would be
very much pleased if you would stay with us.”

“Yes, indeed, we would, Mr. Grace,” echoed the younger lad.

“Why, it’s very kind of you; you’re very good indeed!” stammered Grace;
“but I am afraid your family are hardly prepared to receive patients at
all hours, and to have the house turned into a hospital.”

Merton protested with dignity that he had asked Grace as a guest, not
as a patient; and they finally compromised upon Grace’s consenting to
go on to Malvern, but insisting on going to the hotel.

Grace had not been at the Malvern Hotel, which was the only one in the
place, and more of an inn than a hotel, for over ten minutes before
Dr. Merton arrived in an open carriage and carried him off, whether
he would or no, to his own house, where, after the ankle was dressed,
Grace was promptly put to bed.

In the morning, much to his surprise, he found that the swelling had
almost entirely disappeared, and he was allowed in consequence to come
down to the breakfast-table with the family, where he sat with his
foot propped up on a chair. He was considered a very distinguished
invalid and found it hard not to pose as a celebrity in the cross-fire
of admiring glances from the younger Merton boys and the deferential
questions of their equally young sisters.

After breakfast, he was assisted out on to the lawn and placed in a
comfortable wicker chair under a tree, where he could read his book
or watch the boys play tennis, as he pleased. The tennis was so well
worth watching that after regarding it critically for half an hour he
suddenly pounded the arm of his chair and called excitedly for the boys
to come to him. They ran up in some alarm.

“No, there’s nothing wrong,” he said. “I have a great idea. I see a
way for you to get even with those lads at Hilltown and to revenge me
by proxy. All you need is a week’s training with better players than
yourselves for this tri-club tournament and you’ll be as good or better
than they are now.”

Then the champion explained how the Malvern team, having no worthy
opponents to practise against at home, were not able to improve in
their playing; that water would not rise above its own level; and that
all they required was competitors who were much better than themselves.

“I can teach you something about team-play that you don’t seem to
understand,” said Grace. “I will write to-day to that college chap,
Thatcher, to come down with a good partner and they will give you some
fine practice.”

The Malvern boys were delighted. They wanted the lessons to begin at
once, and as soon as the letter was despatched to Thatcher, Grace had
his arm-chair moved up near the net and began his lectures on tennis,
two boys from the Malvern club acting as the team’s opponents.

Grace began by showing the boys the advantage of working as a team
and not as individuals, how to cover both alleys at once, and how to
guard both the front and back; he told them where to stand so as not to
interfere with each other’s play, when to “smash” a ball and when to
lift it high in the air, where to place it and when to let it alone.
Sometimes one play would be repeated over and over again, and though
Grace was a sharp master his team were only too willing to do as he
commanded whether they saw the advantage of it or not. When the shadows
began to grow long, and the dinner gong sounded, Grace told them they
could stop, and said they had already made marked improvement, so they
went in radiant with satisfaction and exercise, and delightfully tired.

Practice began promptly the next morning, and continued steadily on to
luncheon. At two o’clock Thatcher and another player arrived from the
college, which was only a few miles distant from Malvern, and Grace
gave them an account of his defeat at Hilltown and of the Slade’s
treatment of the Malvernites.

“You saw, Thatcher,” said Grace, “how they abused and insulted those
boys. Well, these same boys have treated me as if I were one of their
own family. Dr. and Mrs. Merton have done everything that people could
do. It has been really lovely, and I think I can show my appreciation
of it by bringing back those cups from that hole in the ground called
Hilltown. And I ask you to help me.”

The college men entered heartily into Grace’s humor, and promised to
come down every afternoon and give the boys all the practice they
wanted.

Every one belonging to the club had heard what was going on, by this
time, and the doctor’s big front lawn was crowded with people all the
afternoon in consequence.

The improvement in the Malvern boys’ playing was so great that every
one came up to be introduced, and to congratulate Grace on the work he
had done. He held quite a levee in his arm-chair.

Mrs. Merton asked the college men to supper, and had some of the
Malvern men and maidens to meet them.

The visitors presumably enjoyed their first day very much, for when
they returned the next morning they were accompanied by four more
collegians, who showed the keenest interest in the practice games.

These four men belonged to that set that is found in almost every
college, whose members always seem to have plenty of time to encourage
and aid every institution of Alma Mater, from the debating societies
to the tug-of-war team.

These particular four were always on the field when the teams
practised; they bought more tickets than any one else for the Glee Club
concerts; and no matter how far the foot-ball team might have to wander
to play a match, they could always count on the appearance of the
faithful four, clad in greatcoats down to their heels, and with enough
lung power to drown the cheers of a hundred opponents.

Barnes, Blair, Black, and Buck were their proper names, but they were
collectively known as the Four B’s, the Old Guard, or the Big Four; and
Thatcher had so worked on their feelings that they were now quite ready
to champion the Malvern team against their disagreeable opponents.

They made a deep impression on the good townsfolk of Malvern. Different
people carried them off to supper, but they all met later at Dr.
Merton’s and sat out on his wide veranda in the moonlight, singing
college songs to a banjo accompaniment which delighted the select few
inside the grounds and equally charmed a vast number of the uninvited
who hung over the front fence.

The practice games continued day after day, and once or twice the
Malvern team succeeded in defeating their instructors, which delighted
no one more than the instructors themselves.

Grace was very much pleased. He declared he would rather have his boys
defeat the Slades than win the national tournament himself, and at the
time he said so, he really believed that he would.

He went around on crutches now, and it was very odd to see him vaulting
about the court in his excitement, scolding and approving, and
shouting, “Leave that ball alone,” “Come up, now,” “Go back, play it
easy,” “Smash it,” “Played, indeed, sir,” “Well placed.”

The tri-club tournament opened on Wednesday, and on Tuesday the Four
B’s, who had been daily visitors to Malvern, failed to appear, but sent
instead two big pasteboard boxes, each holding a blazer, cap, and silk
scarf, in blue-and-white stripes, the Malvern club colors, which they
offered as their share toward securing the Malvern champions’ victory.

On the last practice day, Grace balanced himself on his crutches and
gave the boys the hardest serving they had ever tried to stand up
against. All day long he pounded the balls just an inch above the net,
and when they were able to return three out of six he threw down his
racket and declared himself satisfied. “We may not take the singles,”
he said, “but it looks as if the doubles were coming our way.”

Grace and his boys, much to the disgust of the townspeople, all of
whom, from the burgess down to the hostler in the Malvern Hotel, were
greatly excited over the coming struggle, requested that no one should
accompany them to Hilltown. They said if they took a crowd down there
and were beaten it would only make their defeat more conspicuous,
and that the presence of so many interested friends might also make
the boys nervous. If they won, they could celebrate the victory more
decorously at home. But Grace could not keep the people from going as
far as the depot to see them off, and they were so heartily cheered as
they steamed away that the passengers and even the conductor were much
impressed.

The reappearance of Grace on crutches, and of the Malvern boys
in their new clothes caused a decided sensation. They avoided any
conversation with the Hilltown people, and allowed Grace to act for
them in arranging the preliminaries.

Pineville had sent two teams. Hilltown was satisfied with the “State
champions,” as they now fondly called the Slades, and these, with
Malvern’s one team, balanced the games evenly.

The doubles opened with Merton and Prior against the second Pineville
team, and the State champions against its first. Grace told his boys
not to exert themselves, and to play only just well enough to win.
They did as he said, and the second Pineville team were defeated
in consequence by so few points that they felt quite pleased with
themselves. The Slades had but little trouble with the other Pineville
team.

Then the finals came on, and the people of Hilltown crowded up to see
the demolition of the Malvernites, against whom they were now more than
bitter, owing to Grace’s evident interest in their success.

The Hilltown element were so anxious to show their great regard for the
champions that they had contributed an extra amount of money toward
the purchase of prize cups over and above the fixed sum subscribed by
each of the three clubs.

“Get those cups ready for us,” said the elder Slade, as the four
players took their places. Prior looked as if he was going to answer
this taunt, but Grace shook his head at him.

Thatcher, whose late service to the Malvern team was unknown, acted
at their request as one of the umpires. Two Hilltown men served as
the referee and other umpire. The game opened up in a way that caused
a cold chill to run down the backs of the Hilltown contingent. The
despised Malvernites were transformed, and Hilltown could not believe
its eyes.

“Are these the same boys who were here ten days ago?” asked an excited
old gentleman.

“They say they are,” replied Mr. Percy Clay, gloomily, “but they don’t
look it.”

The Slades felt a paralyzing numbness coming over them as ball after
ball came singing back into their court, placed in odd corners just out
of reach of their racquets.

They held a hurried consultation, and rolled up their sleeves a little
higher and tossed away their caps.

Grace had a far-away and peaceful look in his eyes that made the crowd
feel nervous. The first set went six to four in favor of Malvern.
Then the crowd surrounded the champions and poured good advice and
reproaches upon them, which did not serve to help either their play or
their temper.

The result of the second set convinced the umpire and referee that it
was time to take a hand in the game themselves, and the decisions at
once became so unfair that Grace hobbled over to that end of the court
to see after things. But his presence had no effect on the perceptions
of the Hilltown umpire. So he hobbled back to Thatcher and asked him
what they had better do about it. Thatcher said he was powerless, and
Grace regretted bitterly that he had not brought a crowd with him to
see fair play, for the boys were getting rattled at being robbed of
so many of their hard-won points. To make matters worse, the crowd
took Thatcher in hand, and disputed every decision he gave against
Hilltown. Thatcher’s blood rose at this, and forgetting that the usual
procedure would not be recognized by a Hilltown crowd, he turned on the
spectators and told them that he would have the next man who interfered
or questioned his decisions expelled from the grounds.

His warning was received with ripples of laughter and ironical cheers.

“Who’s going to put us out?” asked the Hilltown youths, derisively.
But Thatcher had spoken in a rather loud voice, and his words and the
answer to them had reached the ears of four straight-limbed young men
who were at that moment making their way across the grounds. They broke
into a run when they heard Thatcher’s angry voice, and, shoving their
way through the big crowd with an abruptness learned only in practice
against a rush line on a foot-ball field, stood forth on the court in
all the glory of orange and black blazers.

“The Four B’s!” exclaimed Grace, with a gasp of relief.

“What seems to be the matter, Thatcher?” asked Black, quietly. “Whom do
you want put out?”

“Who are you?” demanded Mr. Clay, running up in much excitement.
“Get off this court. You’ll be put out yourselves if you attempt to
interfere.”

Several of the Hilltown young men ran to Mr. Clay’s assistance, while
one of the Slades leaped over the net and seized Mr. Clay by the
shoulder.

“Don’t be a fool, Clay!” he whispered. “I know those men. Two of them
play on the foot-ball team, and if they felt like it they could turn
the whole town out of the grounds. Leave them alone.”

Mr. Clay left them alone.

“Go on, Thatcher,” said Black, with a nod, “if any of these gentlemen
object to any decision, we will discuss it with them. That’s what
we’re here for.” Two of the Big Four seated themselves at the feet of
the Hilltown umpire, and looked wistfully up at him whenever he made
a close decision. It was remarkable how his eyesight was improved by
their presence.

The Malvern boys beamed with confidence again. The second set went to
them, 6-4. Grace was so delighted that he excitedly stamped his bad
foot on the turf, and then howled with pain.

The last set was “for blood,”--as one of the four collegians said.

The Slades overcame their first surprise, and settled down to fight for
every point. The Malvernites gave them all the fight they wanted. One
by one the games fell now on one side, now on the other side of the
net. And when it came five games all, the disgust and disappointment of
the crowd showed itself in shouts and cheers for their champions and
hoots for their young opponents.

But all the cheering and hooting could not change the result.

“Set and game! Malvern wins!” shouted Thatcher, and then, forgetting
his late judicial impartiality, threw his arms around Merton’s neck and
yelled.

The silence of the Hilltown people was so impressive that the wild yell
of the college contingent sounded like a whole battery of skyrockets
instead of only four, and Grace sat down on the court and pounded the
ground with his crutches.

“That’s enough for me,” he cried; “I don’t care for the singles. I
know when I’ve had enough! I’d have two sprained ankles to do it over
again!”

Then the Slades announced that the singles would begin immediately
after luncheon.

The Malvern contingent went to the hotel to find something to eat, and
Blair slipped away to telegraph to Malvern.

Five minutes later the operator at that place jumped as if he had
received a shock from his own battery, and ran out into the street
shouting, “Malvern’s won the doubles, three straight sets!”

Judge Prior’s coachman, who was waiting at the station for an express
package, turned his horse and galloped back up Malvern’s only street,
shouting out:

“We’ve won. Master John and Mr. Merton’s won the tennis match.”

And then the people set to work to prepare a demonstration.

The Hilltown people thought they had never seen young men so
disagreeable as were the Big Four after luncheon. They seated
themselves like sentinels at the four corners of the court, and
whenever any one ventured to jeer at Malvern’s representative they
would burst into such an enthusiasm of cheering as to drown the jeers
and deafen the spectators.

There was no one in the singles but Slade and Merton, the Pineville
representative having decided to drop out. Merton was nervous, and
Slade was determined to win. Both played as they had never played
before, but Slade’s service, which was his strong point, was nothing
after the one to which Grace had accustomed Merton. And in spite
of Slade’s most strenuous efforts the games kept coming slowly and
slightly in Merton’s favor.

They were two sets all and were beginning the final set, when Barnes
arose and disappeared in the crowd. But those of the quartette who were
left made noise enough to keep Merton playing his best. It became a
more and more bitter fight as the end drew near. Grace was so excited
that not even his sprained ankle could keep him quiet, and Thatcher had
great difficulty in restraining a desire to shout. At last Merton got
“’vantage,” with only one point to win, but he missed the next ball
and back went the score to “deuce” again. Three times this happened,
and three times the college men half rose from the ground expecting to
cheer, and then sank back again. “If he does that again,” said Grace,
“I’ll have nervous prostration!” But he didn’t do it again. He smashed
the next ball back into Slade’s court far out of his way, and then
pulled down his sleeves as unconcernedly as if he had been playing a
practice game.

The next moment Prior and the others had lifted him up on their
shoulders, and were tramping around the field with him shouting,
“What’s the matter with Malvern?” and “We _are_ the people!” and many
other such highly ridiculous and picturesque cries of victory.

And then there came a shout from the entrance to the grounds, and
up the carriageway rode Barnes mounted on top of an old-fashioned,
yellow-bodied stage-coach that he had found in some Hilltown
livery-stable and decorated from top to bottom with the Malvern colors.
He had four horses in hand, and he was waving his whip and shouting as
if a pack of wolves or Indians were in close pursuit.

The boys clambered up on top of the coach and began blowing the horns
and affixing the new brooms that Barnes had thoughtfully furnished for
them. They were in such a hurry to start that they forgot the prizes;
and if Grace had not reminded the boys, they would have gone home
content without the tokens of victory.

The faces of Mr. Percy Clay and the other contributors to the silver
cups when they saw the prizes handed up to that “Malvern gang,” as they
now called them, were most pitiful.

“Fancy our giving two hundred dollars extra for those cups, and then
having them go to Malvern!” groaned Mr. Clay.

The boys took the prizes without remark, and had the courtesy not to
open the boxes in which the cups reposed on blue velvet until they were
out of sight of the men who had lost them with such bad grace.

But when once they were on the road, with the wind whistling around
their hats and the trees meeting over their heads and the sun smiling
its congratulations as it sank for the night, they examined the cups,
and Grace said he had never seen any handsomer.

It really seemed as if the ten miles was covered in as many minutes,
and though dogs ran out and barked at them, and the people in the
fields stared at them as if they thought they were crazy, and although
Barnes insisted on driving over every stone he could find and almost
upsetting them, they kept up their spirits and shouted and sang the
whole way.

The engineer of the train that had taken them up saw the coach on his
return trip bounding through the shady high road where it ran parallel
with his track, and told the operator at Malvern that “those boys were
coming back on top of a circus band-wagon.”

And the people of Malvern were ready to receive them, though they were
still ignorant of the second victory. The young people lined the high
road for a distance beyond the town, and the boys saw them from afar,
seated on the fence-rails and in carts and wagons. The other members of
the club saw the stage, also, for one of the boys had been up in a tree
on the lookout for the last half-hour. And they waved the club colors
and all the flags they had been able to get at such short notice; but
it was not until three of the Big Four stood up on top of the coach
at the risk of breaking their necks, and held up the cups and waved
them around their heads until they flashed like mirrors, that the club
really cheered. And when they saw that there were THREE cups they set
up such a hurrah that the cows in the next field tore madly off in a
stampede. That night everybody in town came to Dr. Merton’s with the
village band and thronged the big lawn; and Merton made a speech in
which he spoke very highly of Prior, and of the Big Four who had helped
to save the day, and of Thatcher, but most of all of Grace.

Then Grace had to speak leaning on his crutches; and the band played
and the college boys sang and everybody handled the prizes and admired
them even to the champions’ satisfaction.

The next day Grace bade his new friends good by and went back to
college, where his absence was attributed to his sprained ankle. He
thought of the people of Malvern very often, of the twilight evenings
spent on Dr. Merton’s lawn listening to the college boys’ singing, and
talking to the girls of the Malvern Tennis Club, and of the glorious
victory of his pupils and the friendliness and kindness of his hosts.

He knew he would never forget them, but he hardly thought they would
long remember him.

But, two weeks later, the expressman brought a big box with a smaller
black one inside of it; and within, resting on its blue velvet bed, was
a facsimile of the prize-cup of the tri-club tournament. And it was
marked, “To Charles Coleridge Grace. From the people of Malvern.”

And when Grace exhibits the many prizes he has won, they say that it is
this cup which he did _not_ win that he handles most tenderly and shows
with the greatest pride.




THE JUMP AT COREY’S SLIP.


The jump from Corey’s slip was never made but by two of the Brick Dust
Gang, and though, as it turned out, they were not sorry they had taken
it, they served as a warning to all the others of the gang against
trying to emulate their daring.

Corey’s slip, as everybody knows, is part of Corey’s brick-yard, on the
East side, near the Twenty-sixth street wharf, and the Brick Dust Gang
are so called because they have a hidden meeting-place among the high
piles of bricks which none of the other boys, nor the police, nor even
the employees of the brick-yard have been able to find. It is known to
exist, though, and the gang meet there to smoke and play the accordion
and gamble for cigarette pictures, and to pursue such other sinful and
demoralizing practices of East side youth as they elect.

The Brick Dust Gang must not be confounded with the Rag Gang of “The
Bay,” near Thirty-third street, for, while the Rag Gang are thieves
and toughs, the Brick Dust Gang are too young to be very wicked, and
their “folks” are too respectable to let them go very far astray. The
gang got along very well during the winter months, and the hole in the
bricks was filled every afternoon after the public schools had closed,
with from a dozen to twenty of them.

Buck Mooney was the leader, and no one disputed his claim, for he was
a born leader in some respects, just as was his father, who could
throw the votes of the Luke J. Mooney Star Social Club wherever they
would do himself and the party the most good. But his son Buck was
quick-tempered and stronger than he knew, and he had a way of knocking
the younger and less pugilistic members of his crowd around which was
injudicious; for by this he hurt his own popularity as well as their
heads.

He was no bully though, and there was no one who could lead him in any
show of physical prowess recognized and practised by the gang. So all
through the winter he was easily the leader, and no one stood against
him. His fall came in the spring. The coming of the spring meant more
to the Brick Dust Gang than to almost any other crowd along the river
front, for their knowledge of the brick-yard and its wharf enabled them
to bathe in the river quite hidden from the police at any hour of the
day, and this means a great deal to those who have felt the stifling
heat of the tenements along the East River.

They bathed and swam and dived from the first of May until the autumn
came and gave the water such a sharpness that they left it numbed and
with chattering teeth, and they began at five in the morning and kept
it up late into the night. They lived in the water, and were rather
more at home in it than they were on the streets. The workmen in the
brick-yard never interfered with them, because the boys helped them in
piling the bricks and in unloading the scows and loading the carts; and
the police could never catch them, for the reason that the boys always
kept a part of the gang posted as sentinels in the yard.

Mooney and Tommy Grant were easily the best swimmers in the crowd.
Tommy was four years younger than the leader, and small and
consumptive-looking; but he was absurdly strong for his size, and his
body was as hard and muscular as a jockey’s. The trouble began between
the two at the swimming-match at Harlem for all comers, where they both
entered for the one-mile race with a turn. The Harlem boys were not in
it from the first, and the two down-town boys led all the others by a
hundred yards. “The little fellow,” as Tommy was called by the crowds
on the shore, was the popular favorite; and the crowd was delighted
when he came plunging in ahead, swimming so much under water that only
one bare shoulder and revolving arm told where he was.

Buck Mooney, the leader of the gang, was a bad second and a bad loser
as well. He swore a great deal when his backers pulled him out of the
water, and gave every reason for Tommy’s success, except that Tommy
could swim faster than he could.

When Tommy appeared around the streets the next day with the big gold
medal on his coat, and with the words “Champion of the East River”
blazoned on it, Mooney felt worse than ever, and grew so ugly over it
that some of the gang soon turned against him, and his hold over them
disappeared. Little Tommy took his place without any formal election,
and Mooney sulked and said unpleasant things about him behind his back.

They never came to blows, but they both grew to hate each other
cordially,--principally through the stories their friends told of each
to the other, as friends, true friends, are found to do, in all classes
of society. So the breach grew very great and the gang was divided and
lost its influence. One faction would refuse to act as sentinel for the
other, and each claimed the meeting-place. On the whole, it was very
unpleasant, and most unsatisfactory to those who loved peace.

It was evident that something must be done; either the gang must
separate into two crowds or reunite again under one leader. It was a
foolish, dare-devil young Irish boy that suggested how this last and
much-desired result could be accomplished. There was a big derrick at
the end of the wharf to lift the buckets of coal from the scows, when
the place was used for a coal-yard.

Some of the more daring boys had jumped from the middle bar of this
derrick, in emulation of Steve Brodie, whose jump from the Brooklyn
Bridge and subsequent elevation to the proprietorship of a saloon had
stirred up every boy in the East side. It was a dangerous thing to do,
because there was an outer row of posts beyond the slip, and whoever
jumped had to jump out far enough to strike the water beyond them. For,
if he should not jump far enough--

What the Irish boy proposed was that some one should try to dive--not
jump--from the very top of the derrick. The derrick was fifty feet
above the water, and the outer line of posts was eight feet from the
slip and fifteen feet from the line of the derrick. It looked like just
what it was--an impossibility--for any one but the coolest and most
practised diver.

“If a lad should do it,” objected one of the gang, “and ’ud hit them
piles, there’d be no getting at him quick e’cept from the top of the
derrick. He’d sink afore any one could get around the piles to him from
the slip.”

“There’d be no need to hurry,” said another, grimly. “He’d keep till
the police boat picked him up.”

“Well, the morgue’s handy,” commented another, flippantly, with a nod
of his head toward Bellevue Hospital, back of them.

As ill luck would have it, Mooney came up just then, and they told him
what they were discussing.

“I’ll bet Tommy Grant wouldn’t be afeard to try it,” said one of the
youngest.

That was enough for Mr. Mooney. He said with a sneer that Tommy _would_
be afraid, and of course Tommy was told of this at once, and Tommy,
after a careful survey of the jump, said it was suicide. And then
Mooney called him a coward, and said he’d do it, and he’d show him who
was fit to lead the gang.

The elder boys told him not to be a fool, Tommy among the number; but
he said they were cry-babies, and told them to keep quiet about it and
to meet at the wharf at seven that evening.

The tide was low then, and the piles showed high above the water. At
high tide they were covered, and besides there were very few people
about at that hour.

At seven o’clock twenty of them gathered at the end of the wharf. They
were badly scared and wished they were well out of it, but there was no
stopping Mooney. The more they begged him not to do it, the more he
laughed at them. He climbed the ladder to the top of the derrick alone,
and stripped off every thread but his swimming tights and the scapular
around his neck. The big posts rose out of the water in front of the
slip--black, slimy-looking, and as pitiless as rocks.

Van Bibber and some of his friends in their steam yacht lying at anchor
off the New York Yacht Club’s wharf saw the boy mounting the ladder and
shouted to the other boys to stop him. The other boys would have liked
to do what the gentlemen suggested, but it was too late. But Tommy ran
half-way up the ladder, begging his rival to come down. Mooney swore at
him to go back, and Tommy hung there half-way up and fearful to do more
lest he should rattle the ex-leader of the gang.

The gentlemen on the yacht told two of the crew to jump into the
rowboat and pick the young fool up, and the sailors ran to cast off the
skiff.

Then they saw Mooney outlined against the dark background of the
tenements, as motionless as a marble statue on a high pedestal.

He raised his arms slowly over his head until the finger tips met and
interlaced, then he bent his knees and his body swung forward. There
was a brief, breathless silence as he dived out and down, and then
a yell from the yacht and a gasping cry from the boys, as they saw
him throw out his hands wildly to save himself, and saw that he had
misjudged the distance and would strike the posts. Some of the youngest
boys turned sick and sank whimpering to their knees, and six of the
older ones dived like one man into the water to pull him out. He had
struck the posts with his arm, had turned, striking them again, and
then sank without a cry into the river.

The sailors in the rowboat had just started toward the spot and the
club men were cursing them for their slowness. The six boys in the
water were shut off from Mooney by the posts, and slipped back after
they had tried vainly to climb over them.

“He’s killed. He’ll be drowned. Ah, he’s sunk for good,” the boys
wailed and cried in chorus.

Young Tommy from his post half-way up the ladder, saw that before the
boat could reach his rival, or the boys could get around the piles
to him, he would be drowned, and so he ran up the rest of the ladder,
poised for just a second, and then took the second and last jump that
was ever taken from Corey’s slip. He cleared the posts by an inch or
two, turned in the water before he had gone half-way into it, and dived
to where he saw the white body settling towards the bottom.

The sailors in the rowboat reached him in time to pull him out and
carry him to the yacht with the bruised and unconscious body of his
rival in his arms. Then the gentlemen sent Mooney over to the hospital,
and wanted to make up a purse for Tommy, but he said it was “all right”
and “hadn’t done nothin’ anyhow.” It took several weeks for Mooney’s
leg and arm to knit, and he limped for months afterward.

The gentlemen on the yacht wanted to compromise by giving Tommy a
medal, but he said he’d had enough trouble over the last medal, and
asked why they did not give it to Mooney, for he had taken the jump in
cold blood; “an’ I,” said Tommy, “just did it because I was in a hurry
to get down.”

So Van Bibber and the other yachtsmen gave Mooney a very fine medal,
which told that he was the “Champion Diver of the East River.” And now
there are two leaders to the gang, though each protests that the other
is the only one.




THE VAN BIBBER BASEBALL CLUB.


Young Van Bibber decided that he ought to take some people to the
circus. He had long outgrown the age when the circus only pleased, but
some of the men had said it was the thing to do just as it was the
thing to go incognito to see Carmencita dance; and so he purchased a
big box in the very centre of the lowest tier and wrote to Mrs. Dick
Wassails that it was at her service and that she could fill it with
whom she pleased. He added that he would expect them to take supper
with him later.

He owed Mrs. Dick, as everybody called her, a great deal for many
social favors, and he thought to make things even in this way; but Mrs.
Dick was engaged for that evening, and said she was so sorry and begged
to be excused. So young Van Bibber sent off a note to the Gramercys,
with whom he wished to become more intimate, and whom he wished to put
under an obligation. But they were just going abroad and were in the
midst of preparations and they also begged to be excused.

It was getting very near the night now, and Van Bibber ran over in his
mind the names of all of those people to whom he owed something or who
might some day do something for him. He tried the Van Warps, because
they owned a yacht, but they were going to a wedding; and he tried the
Van Blunts, on account of their house at Lenox, and found that their
great uncle had just died and that they were going to the funeral. Then
he asked the men in the club, but the one who gave such good dinners
thought it would be too much of a bore; and another, whose sister Van
Bibber wanted to know better, said he was afraid he would catch cold,
and others, all of whom had been civil to him in one way or another,
began to make excuses. So young Van Bibber stood on the steps of the
club and kicked viciously at the mat. He decided that his friends were
a very poor lot. “One would think I was trying to borrow money from
them,” soliloquized Van Bibber.

“Where to?” asked the driver of the hansom.

“To the circus,” said Van Bibber. It was a long ride, and he had
time to make up his mind that he had been foolish in starting out;
but as he was already more than half-way there he kept on. He had
determined to see that circus himself in solitary state from that box,
notwithstanding his irresponsive friends.

But at the entrance to the circus three small boys, in every way
representatives of the coming “tough,” waylaid him for ten cents to get
into the side show--only ten cents, that was all they wanted. They did
not aspire to such a pinnacle of happiness as the circus itself. But
Young Van Bibber saw a way to use his box and to show his smart friends
how somebody, at least, appreciated his invitations.

“Go get three more boys like you,” he said; “dirty boys that haven’t
seen the circus, and I’ll take you in.”

The three youths looked at him uncertainly for a moment.

“Ah, he’s kiddin’ us,” said one of them, doubtfully.

But there was such an innocent and embarrassed expression on young Van
Bibber’s face that they concluded he must mean it.

“Besides,” said one of them, “don’t you’se see he’s a priest? He
wouldn’t tell no lies.”

Van Bibber for the first time became conscious of his white lawn tie
and his long cape-cloak.

“Priests don’t go to circuses,” suggested one of the trio.

“Are you going to get those other boys or not?” asked Van Bibber,
impatiently. It really seemed as if nobody was willing to go with him.
But there was over a dozen boys about him by this time, and he picked
out three of the smallest and raggedest. Then he shoved them all into
the circus before him like so many chickens and saw, without caring,
that the men by the door were laughing at him.

The boys raced about at first and yelled to each other to come see this
animal, and to watch that one shaking the bars. Van Bibber wandered
around after them. They seemed to be having a very good time, and he
felt a queer sensation of satisfaction in some one else’s pleasure
which was oddly pleasing. Then they flocked back to him again and
informed him it was time to “get into the show part,” and so he led
them, to the grave disgust of the attendants, to the principal box in
the place.

“My eyes! but I wish de boys could see me now,” said one of them, pride
and happiness beaming from every feature of his face. “I guess this is
old man Barnum’s box, for sure.”

Van Bibber sat in the back of the box. He didn’t mind how the people
around them smiled. He felt himself very far above them, and in a
position to do as many eccentric things as he pleased. And he found
himself enjoying the show and the friendly interest his guests took
in him, and in their fear lest he couldn’t see everything, or that he
might miss what the clowns said.

He stopped the man who sold peanuts and candies, and distributed them
lavishly. It was cheaper by far than a Delmonico supper, and he enjoyed
seeing the half-famished way in which the young rascals fell upon the
supplies and stowed them away. They were really very noisy and wildly
excited, but he didn’t care. He never remembered having given anybody
so much extreme pleasure before in his life.

When it was all over and the big spectacular show that had held them
breathless had ended, he fought his way out to the waiting hansom, very
well pleased with the night’s experience. But before he got away his
guests crowded around him at the door, and one of them, who, as they
had privately informed him, was no less distinguished an individual
than the captain of Open Lots Baseball Club, of which they were all
members, thanked him very civilly and asked him his name. He gave the
captain his card with grave politeness and shook hands with all of
them with equal solemnity, and then drove down town and had a solitary
supper. On the whole, he concluded that though he had made nothing by
it, he had not wasted the box, and he went to bed satisfied.

And two days later he received in a very dirty envelope the following
epistle:

  DEAR SIR--At a meeting of the Open Lots Baseball Club it was voted,
  on account of your kindness, to change the name to the Courtland Van
  Bibber Baseball Club, which it is now, as a mark of our apreshun of
  your kindness. Truly yours,

                         TERENCE FAHEY MCGLOIN,
                                           _Capt. C. Van. B. B. B. C._

“So,” said Van Bibber, as he put the letter carefully away, “It pays to
go out into the highways, after all.”




THE STORY OF A JOCKEY.


Young Charley Chadwick had been brought up on his father’s farm in New
Jersey. The farm had been his father’s before his father died, and was
still called Chadwick’s Meadows in his memory. It was a very small
farm, and for the most part covered with clover and long, rich grass,
that were good for pasturing, and nothing else. Charley was too young,
and Mrs. Chadwick was too much of a housekeeper and not enough of a
farmer’s wife, to make the most out of the farm, and so she let the
meadows to the manager of the Cloverdale Stock Farm. This farm is only
half a mile back from the Monmouth Park race track at Long Branch.

The manager put a number of young colts in it to pasture, and took what
grass they did not eat to the farm. Charley used to ride these colts
back to the big stables at night, and soon grew to ride very well, and
to know a great deal about horses and horse breeding and horse racing.
Sometimes they gave him a mount at the stables, and he was permitted to
ride one of the race horses around the private track, while the owner
took the time from the judges’ stand.

There was nothing in his life that he enjoyed like this. He had had
very few pleasures, and the excitement and delight of tearing through
the air on the back of a great animal, was something he thought must
amount to more than anything else in the world. His mother did not
approve of his spending his time at the stables, but she found it very
hard to refuse him, and he seemed to have a happy faculty of picking
up only what was good, and letting what was evil pass by him and leave
him unhurt. The good that he picked up was his love for animals, his
thoughtfulness for them, and the forbearance and gentleness it taught
him to use, with even the higher class of animals who walk on two legs.

He was fond of all the horses, because they were horses; but the one
he liked best was Heroine, a big black mare that ran like an express
train. He and Heroine were the two greatest friends in the stable. The
horse loved him as a horse does love its master sometimes, and though
Charley was not her owner, he was in reality her master, for Heroine
would have left her stall and carried Charley off to the ends of the
continent if he had asked her to run away.

When a man named Oscar Behren bought Heroine, Charley thought he would
never be contented again. He cried about it all along the country road
from the stables to his home, and cried about it again that night in
bed. He knew Heroine would feel just as badly about it as he did, if
she could know they were to be separated. Heroine went off to run
in the races for which her new master had entered her, and Charley
heard of her only through the newspapers. She won often, and became a
great favorite, and Charley was afraid she would forget the master of
her earlier days before she became so famous. And when he found that
Heroine was entered to run at the Monmouth Park race track, he became
as excited over the prospect of seeing his old friend again, as though
he were going to meet his promised bride, or a long-lost brother who
had accumulated several millions in South America.

He was at the station to meet the Behren horses, and Heroine knew him
at once and he knew Heroine, although she was all blanketed up and had
grown so much more beautiful to look at, that it seemed like a second
and improved edition of the horse he had known. Heroine won several
races at Long Branch, and though her owner was an unpopular one, and
one of whom many queer stories were told, still Heroine was always
ridden to win, and win she generally did.

The race for the July Stakes was the big race of the meeting, and
Heroine was the favorite. Behren was known to be backing her with
thousands of dollars, and it was almost impossible to get anything but
even money on her. The day before the race McCallen, the jockey who was
to ride her, was taken ill, and Behren was in great anxiety and greatly
disturbed as to where he could get a good substitute. Several people
told him it made no difference, for the mare was as sure as sure could
be, no matter who rode her. Then some one told him of Charley, who had
taken out a license when the racing season began, and who had ridden a
few unimportant mounts.

Behren looked for Charley and told him he would want him to ride for
the July Stakes, and Charley went home to tell his mother about it, in
a state of wild delight. To ride the favorite, and that favorite in
such a great race, was as much to him as to own and steer the winning
yacht in the transatlantic match for the cup.

He told Heroine all about it, and Heroine seemed very well pleased. But
while he was standing hidden in Heroine’s box stall, he heard something
outside that made him wonder. It was Behren’s voice, and he said in a
low tone:--

“Oh, McCallen’s well enough, but I didn’t want him for this race. He
knows too much. The lad I’ve got now, this country boy, wouldn’t know
if the mare had the blind staggers.”

Charley thought over this a great deal, and all that he had learned on
the tracks and around the stables came to assist him in judging what it
was that Behren meant; and that afternoon he found out.

The race track with the great green enclosures and the grand stand as
high as a hill, were as empty as a college campus in vacation time,
but for a few of the stable boys and some of the owners, and a colored
waiter or two. It was interesting to think what it would be like a
few hours later when the trains had arrived from New York with eleven
cars each and the passengers hanging from the steps, and the carriages
stretched all the way from Long Branch. Then there would not be a
vacant seat on the grand stand or a blade of grass untrampled.

Charley was not nervous when he thought of this, but he was very much
excited. Howland S. Maitland, who owned a stable of horses and a great
many other expensive things, and who was one of those gentlemen who
make the racing of horses possible, and Curtis, the secretary of the
meeting, came walking towards Charley looking in at the different
horses in the stalls.

“Heroine,” said Mr. Maitland, as he read the name over the door. “Can
we have a look at her?” he said.

Charley got up and took off his hat.

“I am sorry, Mr. Maitland,” he said, “but my orders from Mr. Behren
are not to allow any one inside. I am sure if Mr. Behren were here he
would be very glad to show you the horse; but you see, I’m responsible,
sir, and--”

“Oh, that’s all right!” said Mr. Maitland pleasantly, as he moved on.

“There’s Mr. Behren now,” Charley called after him, as Behren turned
the corner. “I’ll run and ask him.”

“No, no, thank you,” said Mr. Maitland hurriedly, and Charley heard
him add to Mr. Curtis, “I don’t want to know the man.” It hurt Charley
to find that the owner of Heroine and the man for whom he was to ride
was held in such bad repute that a gentleman like Mr. Maitland would
not know him, and he tried to console himself by thinking that it was
better he rode Heroine than some less conscientious jockey whom Behren
might order to play tricks with the horse and the public. Mr. Behren
came up with a friend, a red-faced man with a white derby hat. He
pointed at Charley with his cane. “My new jockey,” he said. “How’s the
mare?” he asked.

“Very fit, sir,” Charley answered.

“Had her feed yet?”

“No,” Charley said.

The feed was in a trough which the stable boy had lifted outside into
the sun. They were mixing it under Charley’s supervision, for as a
rider he did not stoop to such menial work as carrying the water and
feed; but he always overlooked the others when they did it. Behren
scooped up a handful and examined it carefully.

“It’s not as fresh as it ought to be for the price they ask,” he said
to the friend with him. Then he threw the handful of feed back into the
trough and ran his hand through it again, rubbing it between his thumb
and fingers and tasting it critically. Then they passed on up the row.

Charley sat down again on an overturned bucket and looked at the feed
trough, then he said to the stable boys, “You fellows can go now and
get something to eat if you want to.” They did not wait to be urged.
Charley carried the trough inside the stable and took up a handful of
the feed and looked and sniffed at it. It was fresh from his own barn;
he had brought it over himself in a cart that morning. Then he tasted
it with the end of his tongue and his face changed. He glanced around
him quickly to see if any one had noticed, and then, with the feed
still clenched in his hand, ran out and looked anxiously up and down
the length of the stable. Mr. Maitland and Curtis were returning from
the other end of the road.

“Can I speak to you a moment, sir?” said Charley anxiously; “will you
come in here just a minute? It’s most important, sir. I have something
to show you.”

The two men looked at the boy curiously, and halted in front of the
door. Charley added nothing further to what he had said, but spread a
newspaper over the floor of the stable and turned the feed trough over
on it. Then he stood up over the pile and said, “Would you both please
taste that?”

There was something in his manner which made questions unnecessary.
The two gentlemen did as he asked. Then Mr. Curtis looked into Mr.
Maitland’s face, which was full of doubt and perplexity, with one of
angry suspicion.

“Cooked,” he said.

“It does taste strangely,” commented the horse owner gravely.

“Look at it; you can see if you look close enough,” urged Curtis
excitedly. “Do you see that green powder on my finger? Do you know
what that is? An ounce of that would turn a horse’s stomach as dry as a
lime-kiln. Where did you get this feed?” he demanded of Charley.

“Out of our barn,” said the boy. “And no one has touched it except
myself, the stable boys, and the owner.”

“Who are the stable boys?” demanded Mr. Curtis.

“Who’s the owner?” asked Charley.

“Do you know what you are saying?” warned Mr. Maitland sharply. “You
had better be careful.”

“Careful!” said Charley indignantly. “I will be careful enough.”

He went over to Heroine, and threw his arm up over her neck. He was
terribly excited and trembling all over. The mare turned her head
towards him and rubbed her nose against his face.

“That’s all right,” said Charley. “Don’t you be afraid. I’ll take care
of _you_.”

The two men were whispering together.

“I don’t know anything about you,” said Mr. Maitland to Charley. “I
don’t know what your idea was in dragging me into this. I’m sure I
wish I was out of it. But this I do know, if Heroine isn’t herself
to-day, and doesn’t run as she has run before, and I say it though my
own horses are in against her, I’ll have you and your owner before the
Racing Board, and you’ll lose your license and be ruled off every track
in the country.”

“One of us will,” said Charley stubbornly. “All I want you to do, Mr.
Maitland, is to put some of that stuff in your pocket. If anything is
wrong they will believe what you say, when they wouldn’t listen to me.
That’s why I called you in. I haven’t charged any one with anything. I
only asked you and Mr. Curtis to taste the feed that this horse was to
have eaten. That’s all. And I’m not afraid of the Racing Board, either,
if the men on it are honest.”

Mr. Curtis took some letters out of his pocket and filled the envelopes
with the feed, and then put them back in his pocket, and Charley
gathered up the feed in a bucket and emptied it out of the window at
the back of the stable.

“I think Behren should be told of this,” said Mr. Maitland.

Charley laughed; he was still excited and angry. “You had better find
out which way Mr. Behren is betting, first,” he said,--“if you can.”

“Don’t mind the boy. Come away,” said Mr. Curtis. “We must look into
this.”

The Fourth of July holiday makers had begun to arrive; and there
were thousands of them, and they had a great deal of money, and they
wanted to bet it all on Heroine. Everybody wanted to bet on Heroine;
and the men in the betting ring obliged them. But there were three
men from Boston who were betting on the field against the favorite.
They distributed their bets in small sums of money among a great many
different book-makers; even the oldest of the racing men did not know
them. But Mr. Behren seemed to know them. He met one of them openly, in
front of the grand stand, and the stranger from Boston asked politely
if he could trouble him for a light. Mr. Behren handed him his cigar,
and while the man puffed at it he said:--

“We’ve got $50,000 of it up. It’s too much to risk on that powder.
Something might go wrong; you mightn’t have mixed it properly, or there
mayn’t be enough. I’ve known it miss before this. Minerva she won once
with an ounce of it inside her. You’d better fix that jockey.”

Mr. Behren’s face was troubled, and he puffed quickly at his cigar
as the man walked away. Then he turned and moved slowly towards the
stables. A gentleman with a field-glass across his shoulder stopped him
and asked, “How’s Heroine?” and Mr. Behren answered, “Never better;
I’ve $10,000 on her,” and passed on with a confident smile. Charley
saw Mr. Behren coming, and bit his lip and tried to make his face look
less conscious. He was not used to deception. He felt much more like
plunging a pitchfork into Mr. Behren’s legs; but he restrained that
impulse, and chewed gravely on a straw. Mr. Behren looked carefully
around the stable, and wiped the perspiration from his fat red face.
The day was warm, and he was excited.

“Well, my boy,” he said in a friendly, familiar tone as he seated
himself, “it’s almost time. I hope you are not rattled.” Charley said,
“No,” he felt confident enough.

“It would be a big surprise if she went back on us, wouldn’t it?”
suggested the owner gloomily.

“It would, indeed,” said Charley.

“Still,” said Mr. Behren, “such things have been. Racin’ is full of
surprises, and horses are full of tricks. I’ve known a horse, now, get
pocketed behind two or three others and never show to the front at all.
Though she was the best of the field, too. And I’ve known horses go
wild and jump over the rail and run away with the jock, and, sometimes,
they fall. And sometimes I’ve had a jockey pull a horse on me and make
me drop every cent I had up. You wouldn’t do that, would you?” he
asked. He looked up at Charley with a smile that might mean anything.
Charley looked at the floor and shrugged his shoulders.

“I ride to orders, I do,” he said. “I guess the owner knows his own
business best. When I ride for a man and take his money I believe he
should have his say. Some jockeys ride to win. I ride according to
orders.” He did not look up after this, and he felt thankful that
Heroine could not understand the language of human beings. Mr. Behren’s
face rippled with smiles. This was a jockey after his own heart. “If
Heroine should lose,” he said,--“I say, if she should, for no one
knows what might happen,--I’d have to abuse you fearful right before
all the people. I’d swear at you and say you lost me all my money,
and that you should never ride for me again. And they might suspend
you for a month or two, which would be very hard on you,” he added
reflectively. “But then,” he said more cheerfully, “if you had a little
money to live on while you were suspended it wouldn’t be so hard, would
it?” He took a large roll of bank bills from his pocket and counted
them, smoothing them out on his fat knee and smiling up at the boy.

“It wouldn’t be so bad, would it?” he repeated. Then he counted aloud,
“Eight hundred, nine hundred, one thousand.” He rose and placed the
bills under a loose plank of the floor, and stamped it down on them. “I
guess we understand each other, eh?” he said.

“I guess we do,” said Charley.

“I’ll have to swear at you, you know,” said Behren, smiling.

“I can stand that,” Charley answered.

       *       *       *       *       *

As the horses paraded past for the July Stakes, the people rushed
forward down the inclined enclosure and crushed against the rail and
cheered whichever horse they best fancied.

[Illustration: He took a large roll of bank bills from his pocket and
counted them.]

“Say, you,” called one of the crowd to Charley, “you want to win, you
do. I’ve got $5 on that horse you’re a-riding.” Charley ran his eyes
over the crowd that were applauding and cheering him and Heroine, and
calculated coolly that if every one had only $5 on Heroine there would
be at least $100,000 on the horse in all.

The man from Boston stepped up beside Mr. Behren as he sat on his
dog-cart alone.

“The mare looks very fit,” he said anxiously. “Her eyes are like
diamonds. I don’t believe that stuff affected her at all.”

“It’s all right,” whispered Behren calmly. “I’ve fixed the boy.” The
man dropped back off the wheel of the cart with a sigh of relief, and
disappeared in the crowd. Mr. Maitland and Mr. Curtis sat together
on the top of the former’s coach. Mr. Curtis had his hand over the
packages of feed in his pockets. “If the mare don’t win,” he said,
“there will be the worst scandal this track has ever known.” The
perspiration was rolling down his face. “It will be the death of honest
racing.”

“I cannot understand it,” said Mr. Maitland. “The boy seemed honest,
too.”

The horses got off together. There were eleven of them. Heroine was
amongst the last, but no one minded that because the race was a long
one. And within three-quarters of a mile of home Heroine began to shake
off the others and came up slowly through the crowd, and her thousands
of admirers yelled. And then Maitland’s Good Morning and Reilly swerved
in front of her, or else Heroine fell behind them, it was hard to tell
which, and Lady Betty closed in on her from the right. Her jockey
seemed to be trying his best to get her out of the triangular pocket
into which she had run. The great crowd simultaneously gave an anxious
questioning gasp. Then two more horses pushed to the front, closing the
favorite in and shutting her off altogether.

“The horse is pocketed,” cried Mr. Curtis, “and not one man out of a
thousand would know that it was done on purpose.”

“Wait!” said Mr. Maitland.

“Bless that boy!” murmured Behren, trying his best to look anxious.
“She can never pull out of that.” They were within half a mile of
home. The crowd was panic-stricken and jumping up and down. “Heroine!”
they cried, as wildly as though they were calling for help, or the
police--“Heroine!”

Charley heard them above the noise of the pounding hoofs, and smiled in
spite of the mud and dirt that the great horses in front flung in his
face and eyes.

“Heroine,” he said, “I think we’ve scared that crowd about long
enough. Now, punish Behren.” He sank his spurs into the horse’s sides
and jerked her head towards a little opening between Lady Betty and
Chubb. Heroine sprang at it like a tiger and came neck to neck with
the leader. And then, as she saw the wide track empty before her, and
no longer felt the hard backward pull on her mouth, she tossed her
head with a snort, and flew down the stretch like an express, with her
jockey whispering fiercely in her ear.

Heroine won with a grand rush, by three lengths, but Charley’s face was
filled with anxiety as he tossed up his arm in front of the judges’
stand. He was covered with mud and perspiration, and panting with
exertion and excitement. He distinguished Mr. Curtis’ face in the
middle of the wild crowd around him, that patted his legs and hugged
and kissed Heroine’s head, and danced up and down in the ecstasy of
delight.

“Mr. Curtis,” he cried, raising his voice above the tumult of the
crowd, and forgetting, or not caring, that they could hear, “send some
one to the stable, quick. There’s a thousand dollars there Behren
offered me to pull the horse. It’s under a plank near the back door.
Get it before he does. That’s evidence the Racing Board can’t--”

But before he could finish, or before Mr. Curtis could push his way
towards him, a dozen stable boys and betting men had sprung away with
a yell towards the stable, and the mob dashed after them. It gathered
in volume as a landslide does when it goes down hill; and the people
in the grand stand and on the coaches stood up and asked what was the
matter; and some cried “Stop thief!” and others cried “Fight!” and
others said that a bookmaker had given big odds against Heroine, and
was “doing a welsh.” The mob swept around the corner of the long line
of stables like a charge of cavalry, and dashed at Heroine’s lodgings.
The door was open, and on his knees at the other end was Behren,
digging at the planks with his finger-nails. He had seen that the boy
had intentionally deceived him; and his first thought, even before that
of his great losses, was to get possession of the thousand dollars
that might be used against him. He turned his fat face, now white with
terror, over his shoulder, as the crowd rushed into the stable, and
tried to rise from his knees; but before he could get up, the first man
struck him between the eyes, and others fell on him, pummelling him and
kicking him and beating him down. If they had lost their money, instead
of having won, they could not have handled him more brutally. Two
policemen and a couple of men with pitchforks drove them back; and one
of the officers lifted up the plank, and counted the thousand dollars
before the crowd.

Either Mr. Maitland felt badly at having doubted Charley, or else he
admired his riding; for he bought Heroine when Behren was ruled off the
race tracks and had to sell his horses, and Charley became his head
jockey. And just as soon as Heroine began to lose, Mr. Maitland refused
to have her suffer such a degradation, and said she should stop while
she could still win. And then he presented her to Charley, who had won
so much and so often with her; and Charley gave up his license and went
back to the farm to take care of his mother, and Heroine played all day
in the clover fields.




BY GEORGE BIRD GRINNELL


The Wolf Hunters

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TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:


  Italicized text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_.

  Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.

  Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized.

  Archaic or alternate spelling has been retained from the original.