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you, man, with all of these September gales coming our way, you won't think you're yachting off Cowes. I hope your gear's been overhauled lately,' says Wesley. And with that they left to get things ready.

"There was a gentle gale stirrin' from the no'th'ard when we sailed out of Rikievik next day, Friday. Wesley liked the look o' things pretty well. We put out behind the Englishman, him under two-reefed mains❜l and the Lucy under a single reef two jibs and whole fores'l, both of us. That was along 'bout dark. Wesley didn't make any attempt to push by the yachtjust laid to wind'ard of her. He did love to get to wind'ard of a vessel-lay off her quarter and watch her. And for most of the rest of that night, we stayed there so. "When the sun ought to have been pretty near to showin' up again, Wesley says: Boys, I can't see but what the Lucy's holdin' her own, and I guess we'll wear off to the east'ard just a little. We might's well get out of sight of this fellow quick's we can now. I've a notion, too, this breeze 'll be coming from that quarter before a great while, and there's nothing the Lucy likes quite so well as to take it just a tri-i-fle slanting when it blows.'

"I don't know whether the Bounding Billow people saw us get away or notp'r'aps they didn't care. Anyway, they didn't come after us. We sunk their port light down afore daylight, and by good sun-up there wasn't a sail of her in sight. "Well, it didn't come to blow same's Wesley thought it would and, nacherally, he was roarin' 'round fine. We shook out the reef in the mains'l before noon-time of that first day, and later we set both tops'ls and that whoppin' gauze balloon of the Lucy's. And she carried 'em easy, too. We warn't loafing altogether; we was makin' nine knots right straight along. But that wasn't pleasing Wesley.

"Next day and the next it was the same story, and part of the next day it was lighter yet. We hove the log, and got only eight knots for twenty-four hours handrunnin'. Then, almost all at once, from a nice summer breeze it jumped to a gale. And it was a gale-one of those healthy, able zephyrs that makes up north there and gets a good runnin' start afore it tears things loose in the forties.

old buster of a no'theaster-whoo-o-ish!

and Wesley dancin' on and off the break while he watched it comin' on. 'I'm thinkin',' he says, we can stow some of those summer kites for a while. Might put the tops'ls in gaskets, boys, and that balloon in stops. We won't be likely to need them any more this trip. This is the breeze I've been waiting for-struck in a little late, but it'll make up for lost time soon.'

"And it sure was making up for lost time. The mains'l pretty soon had to be tucked up, and on the next day tucked again. And before another day we had to take it in altogether, get the trys'l out the hold and fit that on. Now you know it was blowing some when Wesley Marrs had the Lucy under a trys'l and a yachtin' fellow somewhere 'round racing him for a thousand dollars a side; and, what was more, the name of the thing after they got into Gloucester.

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"We went that way for thirty-odd hours, and Wesley was almost satisfied. Maybe,' says he, if this fine breeze holds, we'll make up for those yachtin' days in the fifties. What kind of weather, fellows, do you s'pose, the Bounding Billow's making of it? Think now she's handling it like the Lucy, hay? I'd give something to know if she's carryin' a whole fores'l and both jibs right now. Boys,' he says, 'but this is fine weather. In forty-eight hours, and this fine breeze holds, we'll be raisin' Thacher's twin lights!' Wesley was mighty well satisfied with the way things was lookin' just then.

I'll

"That was Friday night late. After midnight it was, for I went on watch at twelve o'clock. I remember well Wesley and Murdie Greenlaw at the wheel when I came out of the cabin door to go for❜ard. We was driving through it and she layin' over. Man, but she was layin' over. tell you how she was layin' over. That very afternoon it was that Billie Henderson had walked along her weather run from her stern to her fore-rigging. You've heard of that trick, some of you. Yes, sir-we had a line on him in case he slipped-that's the truth.

"Well, it must have been getting on towards one o'clock, for I was figuring on being called aft to take the wheel for my "Whoo-o-ish it whistled! A regular second hour; and then in one more hour

VOL. XXX.-24

wards-Dan was nearest me under the weather rail. He says, 'I'll fix that stays'l.' And he did fix her, as he thought. He yanks the halliards loose and they goes flyin' aloft. We could just make them out slinging between the fore and main rigging-like long devils, with the block on the end.

"Dan hollers out: 6 Stays' halliardends loose and can't get hold of 'em— they're aloft.'

"The skipper says:

"Dan roars back:

me for ?'

'Go after them.' What do you take

"For a man,' hollers the skipper; but I guess I was mistaken.'

a fellow could go below and dry off and
have a good sleep. We were driving
through it-two jibs, fores'l and trys'l.
We hadn't seen the top of her port-rail for
more than two days: and this was one of
those nights when the water gets full of
phosphorus. It 'd been a new moon gone
down, and rain that morning, and you all
know how the water fires after rain and a
new moon. It was fair afire now. And
the Lucy! she was leapin' from the top of
one sea to the top of another. We made
a lane you could see for a cable length
behind, and there was blue smoke, I swear,
coming from each side.
"Her nose would poke under and we
would get it all over. I had
666
elbow
my
crooked in the fore-rigging so I wouldn't
wash off. When she'd rise, she'd throw
the water over her shoulder, and it'd run
the whole length of her deck and race
over the taffrail. That was only the spray,
mind you. She was taking it over the rail
all the time, besides, as if she had no rail at
all. The skipper and Murdie at the wheel
must 'a been pulp. Three or four others
were in the waist-five or six men besides
the skipper had to be on deck all the time.
We was all in oilskins and red-jacks, of
course, and we was all properly soaked.

"Well, we was whoopin' along; we'd just shot by some lumberin' old tramp steamer that was making awful bad weather of it, and somebody in the waist'd just called out, We're this far, anyway, thank the Lord.' The cook had his head out the fo'c's'le gangway-just a narrow slit to sing out to us on deck—when we saw the skipper jump into the main riggin' and look ahead, and then jump back on deck again as if he saw a ghost. He hollers :

"If there ain't the Englishman ahead, and carryin' a two-reefed mains'l! A two-reefed mains'l! And goin' like a liner! I'll be damned if I'll stand on the deck of the Lucy Foster and see the Bounding Billow beat her home. I'll bust the Lucy's spars, but I'll beat him. Bend on the stays'l. I guess the Lucy can carry as much sail as that windowframe boat. Bend on that stays'l.'

"You can bet that shook the boys up. A stays'l! And her planks rattlin' then! Dan Ross-most of you know Dan-big Dan, that was lost on the Fredonia after

Show me a man crazy enough to go after them,' says Dan.

"Here's one,' roars the skipper, and so help me, if he didn't start aloft. Blowing? My blessed soul, we needed cotton hooks to hang on by. The boys was curled up under the wind'ard rail with their fingers into the ring-bolts. And up went Wesley Marrs-to le'ward, mind you. And however he managed it—we couldn't half make out what he was doing up there-but he got hold of them.

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"Down he comes with the ends fast around his waist. 'Here,' he says to Dan, take hold of that.' He unwound about two fathom of it. That's one end of the stays'l halliards you run aloft a little while back. That snaps into the after upper corner of the stays'l, so long as we got to make things plain to you. And this' he gave him the other end—this is what you haul on. Is that plain enough? Then see if you can hang on to it, so's better men than yourself won't have to go aloft in a gale to get them down again. Now then, up with that stays'l. Call all hands for'ard there, cook-and call all hands aft there, Murdie-and up with that stays'l! Up with it."

"And up she went. Such a slattin' afore we got her up! But she got there

and then! If she was leapin' before, she was high-diving now. The water was firing like I was telling you, firing like an ocean of big diamonds and white sulphur mixed; and there was that blue smoke you could almost smell coming out from both sides of her wake. I misdoubted if we'd ever get home. If I'd had a knife handy, you'd have seen the stays'l go into

the sky.

But I didn't have a knife, nor nobody else on deck, and all we could do was to hope we'd get in to walk down Main Street just once again, and swearin' we'd never ship another trip with that crazy Wesley Marrs, so long's we lived again. Yes, sir, that was an awful run home. We carried our stays'l past the Point. And that's the same Lucy and the same Wesley Marrs coming in the dock there now."

"And what happened to the Bounding Billow? Did you pass her ?"

"The Bounding Billow? Hell, no. We got in Monday morning at five o'clock. There warn't any Bounding Billow in sight that night-just one of them ghost dreams of Wesley's. The Englishman didn't get along till about the middle of the week."

"And what did he have to say?"

"The Englishman? Oh, that was funny, too-but hold up a second and see what that telephone wants, one of you."

"It's the office, Petie. They want to know what Captain Marrs got."

"Oh, all right. He'll make fast and be up the wharf in a minute, tell them. He's getting ready to step ashore now."

It was a man of medium height and easy swing who came up the dock with half his crew in tow. He had the sunburned skin of a healthy boy and the vigorous jaw of a man of action.

He spat out tobacco-juice as he rolled along, but his teeth showed white and unconquerable when he grinned up at the look-out. It was the voice of a moderate blow, a summer gale at play, that answered the hail from Crow's Nest.

"Any

. "Hulloh, Peter," it roared. signs of fish up there, boy?" "Hulloh, skipper. What you got?" "Four hundred barrels."

"Good. Where'd you get 'em?" "Off Monhegan mostly. One school off Middle Bank on the way down. All medium schools. How's the market ? "

"Fourteen and a quarter to-day."

"Good. Report me to the office, will you?-four hundred barrels. Come along down, Peter, and wash the gurry out your throat. Tell 'em all up there to come."

"In a minute. Here, Johnnie "-Peter lit on a boy of tender years, a boy of an age that ordinarily would not have been allowed to breathe this smoky atmosphere, but in this case a boy who was sometimes suffered to skirt the edge of the blessed circle because of his tractable ways and certain useful connections. He was a purveyor of supplies and a nephew of the firm, a willing boy and not too obtrusive. "Here, Johnnie, telephone the office that the Lucy Foster hails for four hundred barrels, small schools and fine fish-and take charge while we're gone. We'll be at the Anchorage-if anything heaves in sight. But make sure before you disturb us; don't get worried by any coasters or yachts, mind. Do a good job now, and I'll tell your uncle about you, and maybe some day he'll let you have a vessel of your own. Come along, fellows, and p'raps we can get it out of Wesley himself just what the Englishman did say after he got in and found the Lucy three days before him. And p'raps we c'n get a word out him 'bout his marriage-if it is comin' off this fall."

And down the winding stairs the chief look-out and his staff worked their way. It was tack and jibe, until they reached the street below; then it was wear off and a straight run of it, in the wake of Wesley to the Anchorage.

Up in the Crow's Nest the flag went to the mast-head for the Lucy Foster, arrived with four hundred barrels of fine mackerel. And Johnnie, a born hero-worshipper, looked out to sea for incoming fishermen, bravely singing all the while:

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THE MEMPHIS PACKET

A MISSISSIPPI RIVER STORY

By Willis Gibson

ILLUSTRATIONS BY F. C. YOHN

USINESS was brisk in the St. Louis Memphis trade during the summer of 1880, but not brisk enough to support both the St. Louis Packet Company and Captain Jo Benton. The St. Louis Company, fresh in the field with half a dozen fine new steamers operated on a daily schedule, was steadily increasing its reve

nues.

Captain Jo, with his single steamboat, the Southerner, was as steadily losing money.

The Southerner was a stern-wheeler, of moderate size and ante-bellum design. She leaked unreasonably, and was, as a rule, a day or two behind time. But the Captain cared for none of these things— to him she was, by all odds, the finest packet on the Mississippi. Where she came from originally no one knew, although tradition favored Pittsburg. She had been on the Memphis run so long that even the oldest authorities were uncertain as to the date of her maiden trip.

Captain Jo was something of a veteran himself. The son of a pilot, from his earliest remembrance the intricacies of the profession had been pushed and pounded into him. At ten he had become a helper in the engine-room, at fifteen a cub steersman, at twenty-one a pilot, and at thirty a master, and a good one. He was a master of the old school, however. Such improvements as electric lights and steam steering-gear he regarded as "frills"; and the Government engineers, with their elaborate plans for taming the unruly current, he abominated. But outside the engineers' department he was so universally popular, and his boat so widely known, that in the past he had prospered greatly.

With the advent of the new line his passengers and freight rapidly diminished. At first he was unruffled, but the defection

increased day by day, and before long his income began to resemble the river during a dry season. He realized, at last, that he must do something to protect himself, and quickly. He decided upon a reduction in running time, and accordingly arranged a new card which would have worried the great record-breaker, R. E. Lee. The new card was not a success. The engines of the Southerner, accustomed to long years of deliberate, peaceful motion, balked at the racing speed now suddenly forced upon them-the very first day a steam-pipe burst, a shaft broke, and a cylinder head blew out. As a result, the steamer was compelled to lay up for two weeks, and when she came back the cause was lost. The luxury and frequency of the rival boats had securely anchored both tourists and shippers. The Southerner made a few trips with an idle crew, and a cabin full of waiters and empty chairs, and then the Captain gave it up.

It was not easy for him to abandon the scenes of his former glory-in all his fortytwo years he had been outside that five hundred miles of river but twice; in the settlements along its banks he knew nearly every man, woman, and child—but there seemed nothing else to be done. So one October day he said good-by to his agents, collected all the musty stationery of the line, and steered away to his Illinois farm, a few miles above the city of Alton. There he hauled his steam-boat out of water, propped her up on his front lawn, and then retired to a quiet agricultural life.

At least, that was his intention when he came ashore, but he soon discovered that the habits of his steam-boat days were not to be shaken off. The management of his farm, which he had partially assumed at the start, he relinquished more and more to his men, until, at the end of six months, he gave scarcely a thought to the property.

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