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he didn't propose to make her suffer. I went off by myself and consigned all six-foot women without backbone and all footless mates without ginger to the hospital.

"A pretty mess I was in! Master of a tender schooner, going to take a heavy cargo of lumber down the coast with every prospect of foul weather, and my mate little good, anyway, and now acting as nurse and errand boy to a pale, fat woman with a chronic attack of mental limpness. I brought up the subject again and Jim told me his wife wouldn't listen to any suggestion of her going to San Francisco by train.

We jammed the cargo in at the mill, piled the deckload high, and hurried back to Astoria to take on some piling. Here bad luck began. A sling broke and dropped a sixty-foot spile on me. I went to the hospital with a broken leg the afternoon we were to have got to sea. When the bones were set I sent for Jim and told him to try to get a captain to take the schooner down the

coast.

"I'm laid up here for a good six weeks,' I said. The weather is holding fair and if you get to sea to-night you'll likely fetch the Golden Gate on a good slant. If this weather once changes the Mabel Gale may have to lie here for two months. Hurry up, my son.'

"I'll take her down myself,' he said, easily enough.

"You won't, either,' I retorted, for I was mad. 'Your father's got every penny he possesses in this vessel and I wouldn't trust you to run a tug across the river.'

"Jim flushed and looked silly. Just then Ethel came in, all dressed up. She wanted to know when I would come down to the schooner. I suppose you'd better stay in bed till to-morrow,' she remarked.

"I'm here for six weeks,' I informed her.

"But I can't spend six weeks here,' she pouted, crushing down into a chair. 'It's raining awfully and there's nothing to do. I wouldn't spend a week here, living on that horrid schooner in the rain.'

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But I'll have nobody to look after me!' she exclaimed, and started to sob. 'You know I'm not a bit well,' she went on. 'And if it's rough there's nobody to look after me but you.' She turned her eyes on me and burned me up, so to speak.

"Jim put his hand over hers and tried to cheer her, but she foresaw disaster and destruction. She complained bitterly of me for sticking to my bed when there was work to do. She upbraided Jim for his thoughtlessness and neglect of her. She was one hundred and eighty pounds of woe and wet handkerchief. I was surprised that Jim didn't give in to her, but he stuck to it that he was going down the coast, though I advised him to get another master.

"When he wasn't to be convinced, I saw that there was only one thing to do: go down with the schooner myself. I couldn't do much except give advice, of course, but if old lady Botefuhr was to stay happy my being on the ship and taking the responsibility might help along. Mrs. Jim wasn't grateful at all when I managed to convince the doctor and nurse that I was insane and dangerous, though Jim did try to tell her that I risked my life in going where I would have no nursing and no attention.

"The next day saw me slung in a cot on the quarter deck of the Mabel Gale, watching Jim Botefuhr get her to sea while his wife went back and forth between the wheel and the cabin, complaining of her head, her back, and her

nerves. We got out all right over a fairly rough bar and the cook got me down into my berth and settled me as comfortably as I could be. I noticed that Jim stayed on deck all that night, even during the second mate's watch, though he constantly ran down to see how his wife was.

"In the morning a nor'wester took hold of us and shoved us famously down the coast till we were off Yaquina. Here the wind died and a light easterly breeze barely gave us steerage way. That evening I observed that Jim was consulting the barometer pretty frequently, though he said nothing to me. So I sent the cabin boy to read it for me. I wasn't a bit surprised to find that it was falling at a rate that meant a blow inside of twelve hours.

"I sent for Jim and said, 'Get me fetched up on deck. There's a gale coming. I must'

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Ethel overheard me and burst right in, crying, 'You must get up and sail the schooner, captain. I won't have Jim risking his life and the lives of us all. It isn't his business to be captain, anyway.' She was scared to death.

Between a broken leg, Jim, and his big, limp wife, and the coming storm I was mad all through. I started to relieve my mind when Jim put his arm around his wife and scowled at me. 'You stay where you are,' he said curtly. 'I'm master of this schooner-Ethel, dear, now don't worry, for there's no danger and I'm quite able to He carried her off, soothing her as if she were a child.

"I roared after him and he paid no attention to me, though he did presently send the boy down to peer in at the door and patter off, 'Captain Botefuhr wants to know whether you want some warm milk, sir?'

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And all the while it was hell on deck.

When the gale had got a good hold with its teeth I looked every minute for Jim to cut away the lashings of the deckload, make a mess of it, and wreck the schooner. But the wind kept rising and the sea got up and I didn't hear any such orders nor any sound of its being done. Finally I did hear an infernal rumpus overhead. I said to myself, I'll bet something big's broken adrift this time.' "I stood it for a minute and then decided to get out of bed and crawl on deck, broken leg or no leg at all. I was screwing up my courage when a foremast hand came down with a bleeding face and wild eye. 'What's the matter, Olson?' I yelled.

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Cutting the deck load away?' I demanded, half crazy with anxiety. "The sailor shook his head. 'No. Skipper won't let us. He'll drown us all.'

"At this instant the companionway was darkened and Jim shot into the cabin with swinging arms. 'Get on deck, you loafer!' he bawled at Olson and hit him a jolt that shoved him up six steps. 'Get on deck and work!' he shouted after him and then leaped up and simply threw him on out, following himself.

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'There was rank mutiny on the Mabel Gale for the next six hours and before long half the crew were lying in the cabin groaning. Jim had evidently lost his head and was intent on saving the deck load when any sane man would have been glad to save the schooner. The men grew ugly and the consequence was that Jim had to hit out with the first thing handy. When the row was over he would hustle the worst injured down into the cabin to get their wind. Oh, yes! he handled them all right.

"I gave up. The motion of the schooner was so violent that I had to lash myself in the bunk. I could look out the door and see Ethel huddled miserably on the deck, among the reeking, wounded men, swinging high to the lift

of the deck, hanging for dear life to a table leg when the ship careened far over with creak and crash of timbers.

"Now and then Jim, plunging down, would clip her up into his arms and stagger with her to a bunk, tuck her in, kiss her, and then drive for the deck again. In five minutes she would be back on the cabin floor. Nobody even cast me a look. What did I care? The racket couldn't last long. The whole business was going to the bottom. I fell asleep.

"I wakened to find from the motion of the ship that the wind had hauled into the west. The Mabel Gale was pitching and tossing and rolling and lurching and staggering through the cross-seas with an awful noise of straining timbers and shivering decks. Mind you, she was a little tender and the stoutest ship can't be expected to carry a towering deck load through a gale. Every minute I held my breath, knowing she was going to break up like a box under a hammer.

"Then the wind dropped entirely. I heard Jim roaring orders. From the cabin, now quite dark, I heard Ethel screaming in an odd, light voice. Then with a vast sigh the wind veered into the nor'west and the schooner picked up her heels and drove before it. She was on her course again.

"An hour later the cook come in with a bowl of soup for me and a pot of tea for Ethel. I asked him how things were going. When did you get rid of the deck load?' I demanded. I didn't hear it go.'

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"It is still there,' said cooky. Much gear fetch away?' Nothing much,' says the cook and

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vanishes.

"By morning things had calmed down nicely. Jim came off the deck, picked Ethel up, coaxed her to eat, got her to bed, and talked to her like a father. Then he stuck his head into my room. 'How are you feeling?' he asked, wiping the salt out of his eyes.

"I'll feel better when I can see what my schooner looks like after you've handled her three days in a gale of wind,' I said crossly. Get me out of this.'

"He nodded and sent down some hands and they hoisted me up the com

panionway and on deck. The sky was clear and the schooner was boiling along ten knots an hour. I looked all around. The deck load was there, the masts were in her, and so far as I could see not a rag of sail had been lost. Even the long boat was still on top of the deck cargo of lumber, though it had been stove in. The second mate was lashing things fast afresh. But the hands did look sick; black eyes, skinned noses, and flat ears seeming to be the ruling fashion. How did you do up the crew this way?' I inquired of Jim. They tried a dozen times to cut the deck load adrift,' he grunted. 'Made trouble. Had to lick 'em.'

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"I lay for an hour watching him. Then I called him and said, 'You'll take this hooker next voyage, my son. I'm going to tell your father you're the boy for the job. I'm something of a mariner myself, but you've got me beat. I'd have lost that deck load."

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Jim was pleased. 'You see I got

kind of mad when Ethel made small of my running the schooner home,' he told me confidentially. 'And I couldn't have the poor girl frightened that way. I think a man that can't be a man and save his wife worry and show he's able to look after her and protect her hasn't any business to be married. Ethel's a delicate, sensitive woman. When she understands that I know my business, it will relieve her mind a lot and she can have more comfort.' He said more to the same effect.

"The tug that picked us up outside the Golden Gate seemed surprised to see us, only seven days out from the Columbia. Did that gale catch you?' the captain roared across when he got his craft alongside.

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"Yes,' said Jim. We had three days of it.' "Lose the captain?'

"I'm captain this trip,' Jim said very curtly and immediately drove a stiff bargain.

"When we were inside the bay I was brought up on deck and noticed that there were several more craft in the lower harbor that looked rather seedy. Among them was the Maid of Athens with topmasts gone and decks swept

clean. I couldn't see a rope-yarn out of place on the Mabel Gale.

"When we warped in I saw Botefuhr and the old lady on the wharf. We'd been reported by the lookout, and the old gentleman was shaking in his shoes. When other vessels were on the missing list he didn't expect to see a tender old hooker like the Mabel Gale toddling in home all sound. When the lines were ashore he climbed up the plank and came right over to me.

"I thought you were in Astoria,' he said.They telegraphed that you were in the hospital. I thought Jim had gone to sea with the schooner. I hardly hoped she'd fetch port. I'm glad you were along to bring her in.'

"I came along,' I replied, 'but I kept a bunk warm. Your son there is master of this schooner. He did it all himself.'

"His first expression of delight faded into one of suspicion. I reassured him. Jim took her out of Astoria and sailed her right through the storm and into San Francisco.'

"But he saved the deck load!' he stammered. 'Even the big steamer Glide had to jettison cargo.'

"All Jim's work,' I told him. 'I quit right here. Give your son the schooner. I say he's all right.'

"Mrs. Botefuhr was hanging about

us and caught the last words. The old lady smiled shakily and turned away to watch Jim put the finishing touches to the moorings before giving the word, 'That'll do.' The last coil thudded on the deck and Jim nodded to the second mate and came aft. Ethel emerged from the cabin at the same moment, pretty healthy looking, if she did walk slowly and sigh like a porpoise. Mother Botefuhr kissed her and turned to Jim. 'We'll all go home and have dinner.' she said.

"Jim shook his head. 'Ethel isn't at all well,' he answered shortly. 'I'm going to take her to a hotel for to-night."

She was bitterly disappointed, but she tried another tack. The captain. says you did splendidly, Jim. I'm so glad you didn't have any accidents.'

Her son merely nodded absentmindedly, his eyes on his wife. His mother had scarcely finished before he called for the cabin boy to get their luggage ashore. Then he very carefully helped Ethel down the plank to the wharf, put her in a carriage that the boy called, and drove off. As the horses pounded away up the echoing wharf, Mother Botefuhr turned to me and said slowly, Ethel's just the wife for him. She's so strong and capable. I never could do-I-I'm only his mother, you see.''

SEPTEMBER

BY VIRGINIA LEWIS

There's a haze that hides the meadows and the river from the hills; There's a wealth of royal purple where the cricket chirps and trills; There is gold in rich abundance-come and gather while ye may; Come and breathe the breath of summer-gain a lifetime in a day.

There are lilies red and glowing in the marshland lying low,
There are tiny asters all astir where soft the breezes blow;
Come and gather, come and gather, of the blossoms red and white;
Learn the lore of field and meadow by the summer's lingering light.

For the sumach bush is all aflame, the maple catches fire;
From twig to twig the color runs as high the flames aspire.
Come and breathe the breath of summer-there's a whisper in the trees
That she's going, going, going. Who would lose such days as these?

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T never occurred to the new manager on the San Rosario to inquire what it meant, nor could Don Coyote, in all

probability, have made a tenderfoot understand that he, singly and alone, had been in the habit of imitating a whole pack of coyotes at Deadface Rock for years; so on a certain night in the full of the moon Don Coyote and the stranger fell out. The former, with a yellow-gray mate, known about that region as the Ghost from the fact that no one could kill her, had mounted a rock, which they had preempted years before, and while the Ghost listened and marveled at its sweetness, Don Coyote yelped, becoming so enthusiastic over the melody of his song that the notes fairly piled on one another, gathering volume until they became ventriloquistic and went echoing far and wide, conveying the impression to the one startled listener that a pack of particularly ferocious coyotes was surrounding the camp. Any man there could have told him that it was Don Coyote alone making all the noise, and that he had sung to the Ghost in that very spot ever since they first found color at San Rosario.

It was a hot night on the edge of the desert, and the wind which fanned the cheeks of the sleeping men, and which, coming from the mountains, should have been cool, was dry and hot, and the sand still sent up the crackling radiations of the day. The new manager

wondered that men could sleep, as he peered into the gloom in search of the fiery eyes of the savage pack which was making night hideous and filling the vibrant air with sounds. Finally he made out a doglike form, not two hundred feet away, and taking a new-fangled and deadly revolver which lay by. his side, as ill luck would have it, fired, arousing the whole camp which laughed and cursed at his ignorance and then dropped off to sleep again.

The yelping had ceased and Don Coyote alone knew the cause. At the shot he whirled around and leaped into the chaparral, running a few yards in a semicircle; then he stood still, with one foot in advance, his long, bushy tail erect. The Ghost had probably gone in another direction, as was their custom when alarmed, so after waiting a short time Don Coyote silently picked his way back, occasionally stopping to raise his head and sniff the air and eye the big moon.

His moist, cold nose told him there had been no change in the camp. He still recognized the familiar odor of men, the delicious aroma of bacon, and added to this the smell of burnt powder; then suddenly something else which made him stop short in his tracks and stand like a statue while the long, stiff, gray hairs on shoulders and neck rose until he seemed as large again. For a moment he stood, then ran rapidly along his old trail to the rock. There she lay where she had dropped from his side, and from a gaping wound welled the life-blood of the Ghost, hit in the dark by a chance shot,

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