DESPERATE MEASURES.
Ensign Glennie was as brave and gallant an officer as ever left Annapolis, but he was taught to look at such enterprises as Dick had broached in a sane and logical manner. This desperate measure, viewed in that light, seemed the height of reckless folly.
Matt had four guards—the captain of the war ship and three marines. The captain was armed—probably with the sword alone—but the marines certainly had muskets.
Here, then, was the situation: He and Ferral, with only their two hands for weapons—Glennie had left his revolver on the submarine—were to attack four armed men in the attempt to rescue Matt!
Even if fortune was kind to them, and they were able, in some manner, to get Matt away from his guards, there was a barracks full of soldiers within sound of the captain's voice; and how could Matt, and Dick, and Glennie run the gantlet of the whole town?
But Glennie had given his word, and he would stand to it, no matter what the cost. It was a matter of pride with him to meet any plan Dick Ferral might propose.
The ensign did not think, for a minute, that there was anything unjust in taking Matt by force away from the captain of the war ship. A mistake had been made by the captain, but there was no time to let the blunder be rectified by the ordinary course of events. As Dick had said, the fate of theGrampusmight depend on her leaving Punta Arenas the next morning.
The cause was a just one—but foolhardy.
Matt and his guards had landed at quite a distance from the pile of timbers behind which Dick and Glennie were lying concealed. The path from the wharf led past the end of the pile, and it had not been difficult to discover that the approaching party was following the path.
The party was close, very close, as the two youths knelt near the ends of the timbers, listening to the crunch of footsteps and prepared for their reckless work.
"What's your plan?" whispered Glennie.
"Nothing but to jump out at 'em with our fists," whispered Dick. "As soon as Matt knows what's up, he'll help. And say, he's got a 'right' that could put any one of that outfit to sleep!"
"I hope none of us will be put to sleep while we're getting Matt in shape to use his 'right.'"
"Don't croak!"
"Never. I'm merely thinking of what might happen."
"Hist now! Here they come. Jump when I give the word."
In that critical moment Glennie thought how much better off he and Dick would have been, and how much more certain of success, if they had brought Speake and Clackett along with them. But it was too late to think of what might have been. Dick and Glennie were face to face with the emergency, and must, alone and unaided, deal out the desperate measures themselves.
The crunching footsteps approached. Glennie caught a glimmer of starlight on a musket barrel, and saw dimly two marines marching ahead, followed by Matt, with a uniformed figure and another marine bringing up the rear.
"Now!" roared Dick.
His voice was loud enough to arouse the town. Dick made it so purposely. He aimed to startle the guards—to hold them panic-stricken, if possible, until Matt could be apprised of conditions and help in the resulting battle.
In this Dick was entirely successful. Every member of the party jumped, even Matt.
"It's Dick and Glennie, Matt!" cried the young sailor. "Get into it, old ship! Everything hangs on our success!"
Dick, while he spoke, was plunging at one of the marines. Glennie leaped at another. Matt, quick to realize what was afoot, turned on the third. Captain Sandoval drew his sword.
Before the sword could be used, Matt whirled about, the marine's musket in his hands.Clash!The swordstruck the musket barrel and Matt, by a dexterous jerk, flung the blade a dozen feet away into the darkness.
Captain Sandoval, thus suddenly unarmed, set his face toward the barracks and ran with all his speed, shouting at every jump for the soldiers.
"Don't hurt anybody!" panted Matt. "Don't make this a serious matter instead of a—a farce!"
"It will be a mighty serious matter if we don't get you down to theGrampusin short order," puffed Glennie.
He had toppled over the marine whom he had chosen for an antagonist and was struggling to get his musket; but the marine, agile as a monkey, rolled out from under the ensign's gripping fingers, bounded erect, and made off into the gloom like an antelope.
A blow, and then a grab and a jerk, all judiciously given, had placed Ferral in possession of the weapon belonging to the other marine. Those who were unarmed had rushed away on the track of the captain. The one who had retained his musket, however, paused somewhere among the shadows and began to fire.
Bang!
A bullet whistled through the air close to Glennie's head.
"Cut for it!" shouted Dick. "Don't let any grass grow under you! This way, Matt."
Dick started for the wharf, pointing so as to reach it at the nearest point to the submarine. Matt and Glennie pushed after him—three fleeing streaks rushing for the water front of Punta Arenas with the clamor of alarmed soldiers awaking frantic echoes around the barracks.
Bang! went a revolver.
The marine, emboldened by the sounds from the barracks, pursued the fugitives, firing as he came. His bullets, launched while he was running, went wide of their targets.
"We'll never make it!" breathed the ensign.
"We've got to make it!" flung back Dick over his shoulder.
"But theGrampus—it will take time for those aboard to get up the anchors and to come to the wharf for us!"
"We'll win out!" asserted Dick stoutly. "Save your breath and run!"
Stumbling over the litter that had been scattered from the wharf, the three fugitives reeled and sprawled their way through the darkness. Even a fall, if it was in the right direction, was a distinct help.
Dick, being in the lead, was the first to reach that part of the wharf nearest theGrampus. The boat, looking like a black blot on the water, was tantalizingly out of reach.
Dick whistled shrilly.
Bang! It was not another bullet, but the hatch cover being thrown open.
"Vat it iss?" came the wavering voice of Carl.
"Pull up your mud hooks and come to the wharf!" shouted Dick. "Matt's with us—and we're defying the whole town. Everybody in the place is tight at our heels."
"Himmelblitzen!" cried Carl. "Der anchors vas coming oop alretty, aber id dakes a leedle time——"
The marine blazed away again. Carl, interrupted in the midst of his remarks, gave a hollow gurgle.
"Vat a safageness!" he exclaimed, "aber pulleds vat don'd hit don'd amoundt to nodding."
"Start the motor!" called Matt. "If the anchors are clear they can be carried this way while the chain is being taken in."
The jingler could be heard answering Carl's pressure on the push button. The propeller began to churn the water, but the boat did not move.
"They're sticking to the bottom!" groaned Dick. "Oh, what a beastly run of luck!"
A yelling pack was rushing toward the wharf from the barracks.
"We can't wait here until that outfit comes within rifle shot," declared Glennie. "We've got to get behind the iron walls of the submarine."
"How can we do it if the anchors hang to the bottom?" returned Dick.
"Swim!"
Splash! The ensign was in the water. Then there were two more splashes as Matt and Dick followed.
A DIVE FOR LIBERTY.
Carl fell over the top of the conning tower, descended the rounded deck with one hand clinging to a wire guy, and reached out over the water.
"Schust a leedle vay farder, bard!" he cried encouragingly. "Shvim a leedle fasder! Der fellers on shore iss pooty glose!"
Glennie was first to clasp Carl's outstretched hand, and, with its assistance, to reach the deck; then Glennie, dripping wet, laid hold of another guy and bent down to give a hand to Matt. Carl assisted Dick up the sloping deck at the same time.
By then the soldiers were almost upon the wharf. Sudden flares lit the night, and each flare meant the explosion of a gun.
"Quick!" cried Matt, "get below. We're in the right, but those fellows don't know it yet."
Carl pushed Dick toward the conning tower. The sailor was loath to be the first to seek safety, but hesitationon his part only blocked the way for the others. Down Dick went, Carl close after him. Then Glennie took a dive through the hatch, and had no more than cleared the way before Matt followed.
Flashes were shooting up in the darkness all along the wharf. Leaden hail pattered on the steel sides of theGrampus, but the stout iron merely gave a ringing laugh and flung the softer metal off.
An unexpected event happened just as Matt ducked below the hatch. The propeller, working against the pull of the anchors, suddenly took a grip and hurled theGrampusahead.
Carl had set the rudder for a move toward the wharf. It was in that direction, therefore, that the boat plunged, thus carrying those aboard nearer their enemies. Matt grabbed the tower steering device just in time to turn the craft. So narrow was the margin that the rounded side of the hull brushed the wharf timbers as the boat swept by.
This gave the soldiers a chance to do some shooting at close range; it likewise gave them a chance—for the fraction of a minute—to jump aboard, but no one improved the opportunity. Another minute and the submarine was headed out into the strait.
"Take the wheel, Carl, until I get down," called Matt.
"Dot's me!" boomed Carl from below.
Matt closed the hatch and descended to the periscope room.
"Stop the engine, Gaines!" he called through the tube. "Fill the tanks, Clackett!" he added.
"Hooray!" came from Clackett as the splash of water echoed from the filling tanks. "It's good to hear your voice again, Matt. How far down are we going?"
"Till we touch bottom. There's where we're to pass the night."
The bottom was reached at forty feet. Clackett announced the depth as theGrampuscame to a rest.
"We're forty feet from all the military and naval forces of Punta Arenas," said Glennie.
"But it's forty feet of water," added Dick, "and, even if those ashore knew where we were, it would puzzle them some to get at us."
"We're safe enough," said Matt. "In the early morning we'll rise until we show just the periscope ball and will start for the Pacific. Now that there's nothing particular for all hands to do, let's be comfortable and find out how it all happened."
"You're the cause of it, matey," declared Dick.
"I know that, of course. If I hadn't been held a prisoner by Captain Sandoval, there wouldn't have been any need of you and Glennie taking all those chances to rescue me. What I mean is, what suggested such an audacious proceeding?"
"You did," persisted Dick.
"Explain how?"
"Why, when you landed from the war ship, you stood up there on the wharf and defied this Captain Sandoval. It was Motor Matt's defiance that suggested to me a plan that was a little more comprehensive. You had defied Sandoval, so why couldn't the three of us defy all the Chilians in the town? Well, we did, didn't we? And we got clear with whole skins, every one of us."
"I can hardly believe it possible," muttered Glennie.
Dick turned on the ensign.
"You had as big a finger in the pie as any one," said he, "and you took the foolhardy risk like a whole man. I like you better this minute, John Glennie, than I ever thought I could. Toss us your fin!"
Glennie looked surprised, then a pleased look crossed his face and he reached forward and caught the young sailor's hand.
"If I've won your friendship by that piece of work, then I've had a double gain," said he.
"Vat in der vorld," chimed in Carl, "dit dose fellers shpeak to you like you vas a tog for? Und arrest you und keep you apoardt der var ship? I hat id all fixed oop in my mindt to put a dorpeto indo dot gruiser oof she ditn't led you go."
"It isn't very clear to me yet," answered Matt, "what I was made a prisoner for. Garcia started the trouble for me——"
"He said he would, you remember," put in Glennie.
"Yes, and he carried out his threat as soon as he got on the deck of the war ship. He told one of the officers that he had hired me to take him and his friends out of that sailboat in theGrampus, and that I had lost my courage and was heading for Sandy Point with them."
"You don't mean to say that this Captain Sandoval believed that?" cried Glennie.
"He professed to," answered Matt. "I was to be held in Punta Arenas until Garcia's yarn could be verified, which, the captain said, might take a week or two. The American consul, and the British consul, the captain also told me, were both out of town for a week——"
"Which is a fact," spoke up Glennie. "Dick and I went ashore to see the two consuls, and were informed, at their residences, that they had gone into the interior for a week."
"Then I owe Captain Sandoval an apology," said Matt, "for I doubted his word."
"Vell, he owes you some abologies, too, don'd he?" asked Carl.
"Well," smiled Matt, "a few."
Matt got up and turned off the electric light that flooded the periscope room.
"What's that for?" asked Dick.
"The light might shine through the lunettes and be reflected up to the surface," was Matt's answer. "I just happened to think of it."
"Well you did, Matt!" exclaimed Glennie.
"There was something else that Captain Sandoval told me," went on Matt, "which had to do with the Jap steamer."
"What was that?" came the questioning chorus.
"Why, at the time we were doing our wireless work from Gallegos Bay, the war shipSalvadore'swireless apparatus was not working. Sandoval discovered, from the station at Punta Arenas, that, at that very time, the station was communicating with a ship which claimed to be theSalvadore."
"It was the Jap steamer, eh?" put in Dick.
"Yes. You see, our second-hand machine wasn't powerful enough to communicate with Punta Arenas nor to receive messages from there; but the Jap steamer was closer, and so we exchanged messages with her. But the Japs were able to communicate with the Punta Arenas station, and the Chilians thought it was us. At least, that is what Captain Sandoval said. I couldn't explain without getting us into more trouble with the Sons of the Rising Sun, so I kept quiet."
Matt cut short the general comment by declaring that he was tired, that they were perfectly safe from pursuit, and that he was going to sleep.
All the rest were of the same mind, and presently the echoes of the excited voices had died out, and only sounds of deep and peaceful breathing disturbed the silence that reigned within theGrampus.
Matt was astir at five o'clock the next morning, and went around waking his friends.
"We must get an early start," he explained, "so all take your stations quietly. We are still off the town, remember, and we shall have to come close enough to the surface so that our periscope ball will be free of the water and show us the course. If the red ball should be seen as it glides over the water, we might have trouble, so we must proceed as warily as we can."
With Matt at the wheel and the periscope table, Gaines and Dick in the motor room, Carl and Clackett in the tank room, and Speake working at his electric stove in the torpedo room, the ballast tanks were slowly freed of a part of their watery load. Matt, watching the periscope, signaled to Clackett to stop unloading the tanks just as the reflected image of the surface appeared in the mirror.
"How is everything, matey?" queried Dick through the speaking tube.
"TheSalvadoreis within twenty fathoms of us," replied Matt, "but everything is quiet. Full speed ahead, Gaines," he added. "We'll not come to the surface until we're several miles nearer Smyth Channel."
With all the machinery working smoothly, theGrampusglided as softly as a huge fish away from the dangerous port of Punta Arenas, the red periscope ball alone showing, and flashing a crimson trail in the direction of the Pacific.
ENGLISH REACH.
When safely beyond Punta Arenas, theGrampusarose to the surface and rode as high as completely empty ballast tanks would let her. The higher she was in the water the more speed she would develop—and speed was the one crying need at that time.
Luck had favored the chums in Punta Arenas, and all were hoping that the good fortune would hold until they passed the western end of the strait. But in this they were destined to be disappointed.
With everything working perfectly they passed Port Famine, and, a little later, the southernmost point of South America that enters the strait—Cape Froward. Here the weather usually changes, but it did not change for Motor Matt and his friends. They had, what was rare in those waters, a fair day, which, so far as the barometer could foretell, was likely to hold.
But after passing Cape Froward, and while Mount Sarmiento's snowy crown was still visible in the distance, the motor developed a serious complaint. It refused absolutely to run, and the trouble was too much for Gaines and Dick. Matt had to go down and give the machinery his personal attention.
The batteries were not working properly. Matt replaced some of the cells. That, however, did not remedy the matter. Further examination developed carburetter trouble, and, as the examination continued, one ill after another showed itself until it seemed as though every part of the motor had gone into a decline.
Matt, of course, remedied the matter, but it took hours of time and made it impossible for theGrampusto glide into the waters of the Pacific that day.
After supper, smothering their disappointment as best they could, the submarine descended to the bottom according to her usual fashion, and her crew had supper together in the periscope chamber.
"How long does it take a good fast steamer to sail around the Horn?" asked Speake.
"About a year, I guess," grinned Dick. "It would depend on the number of sails the steamer had. Probably she could steam around in two or three days."
"From that," spoke up Clackett, "I should infer that the Jap boat has had time to get somewhere near the end of the strait and lay for us?"
"It's hard to tell where the Jap steamer is," said Matt. "We've done the best we can, so let's not borrow any trouble. Our periscope ball is a pretty small thing for the crew of the steamer to see. We could pass within a mile of the Japs and they'd never know we were anywhere in their vicinity."
"We'll get through, somehow, mates," averred Dick cheerfully. "After we pulled off that little game in Punta Arenas, I'm beginning to think there isn't anything we can't do."
"There'll be more accidents," said Gaines seriously. "Something else will happen to the machinery. I've noticed always that motor troubles come in pairs."
"Why, Gaines," laughed Matt, "our last motor troubles came in bunches of a dozen! Every part of the motor seemed to have developed a weakness."
"They all came at the same time," continued Gaines, with superstitious firmness. "There'll be something else, you mark what I'm saying."
The following morning there was another early start. Everything went swimmingly for several hours; then, on rounding a particularly bold headland, Speake, who was in the conning tower, steering, saw something which nearly caused him to fall off the ladder.
"Oh, Christopher!" he called down the hatch. "Look, Matt!"
Matt and Glennie both sprang to the periscope, drawn there by a quick jump on account of the wild alarm that throbbed in Speake's voice.
English Reach lay ahead of theGrampus, and there, out across the surface of the water, quietly and expectantly waiting, was the Jap steamer!
Speake had been on the lookout, on the crest of the hill at Gallego Bay, at the time the steamer had been raised the other time. He recognized her on the instant.
There was a Chilian flag flying, and from a swift movement of men over the steamer's decks it was certain that theGrampushad been seen.
"They see us now," said Matt, "but they won't in a minute. Clackett," he called through the tank-room tube, "we'll go down the usual depth for periscope work."
Matt's voice was calm and steady, in spite of the fact that the thing for which he had planned in Gallegos Bay—namely, the avoiding of the steamer—had failed.
Minutes passed without bringing the usual swish of water filling the ballast tanks. Through the periscope Matt could see that the Japs were lowering a boat. Speake had come down into the periscope room, closing the hatch behind him in preparation for a dive. He stood with his hand on the wheel and looking over Matt's shoulder.
"What's the matter, Clackett?" called Matt.
"The intake valves won't work!" came back the disgusted voice of Clackett.
Matt ran down to give his personal attention to the matter. For a few minutes he struggled with the valves, but all to no purpose.
"I'll get at the bottom of this trouble," declared Matt, "if it takes a leg."
"I told you something else would happen," called Gaines from the motor room. "That's what it is—tank trouble."
"And just when we need the tanks," said Matt. "That Jap boat is close by, and we ought to be under the surface."
Matt, seeing a way whereby he thought the valve trouble might be remedied, was just beginning a new line of attack when Glennie called frantically through the tube:
"Dosomething, Matt! One boat is on its way to us from the steamer, and another is dropped into the water. If you can't do anything down there, then come up here."
Matt turned to Dick, explained to him what his new idea was regarding the valve trouble, asked him to work along that line, and then hurried up to the periscope room.
Speake was in the room, hardly knowing what to do.
"If we try to run," said he, "the Jap steamer will catch us, and if we don't run, the rowboats will be on top of us. If we can't dive, Matt, we're in another kind of a hole."
"Don't lose your nerve, Speake," said Matt. "Go down and see if you can help Dick. Glennie will go up into the tower and steer. I'm for the deck to watch and see how matters progress."
"I'm for der teck, too!" declared Carl, who happened, at that moment, to be in the periscope room.
He had a keen scent for trouble, and always tried hard to be around whenever any was going to happen.
Without paying much attention to Carl, Matt opened the locker and took out the submarine's copy of the Stars and Stripes.
"If the Sons of the Rising Sun try any of their old tactics," said Matt, "I'll make it plain that it's a ship carrying Old Glory."
"What do they care for any flag?" demanded Glennie. "Why, they're flying the Chilian flag now, and every man of them is got up in Chilian naval uniform. It's hard to tell them from the real thing, at a distance, too."
Matt ran up the ladder, gained the deck, and bent the flag to the halyards. Presently he had it flying, and drew back from the staff to look at the approaching boats.
Carl was on the after deck. In order, perhaps, to make himself look more nautical, the Dutch boy had crowded himself into sailor clothes. They were too big for him, up and down, and too small the other way.
Glennie, braced in the top of the conning tower, was running the boat from that position.
The first boat that had put off from the steamer, and consequently the nearest one to the submarine, contained an officer and two sailors.
They were rigged out in genuine Chilian style, and Matt had to admit to himself that the imitation was admirable—so admirable, in fact, that he would have been deceived had he not had prior knowledge of the identity of the steamer.
The submarine's motor was doing her best, but the craft had to follow the contour of the coast, and this threw her nearer and nearer the first of the approaching rowboats.
"We're in for it, Matt," said Glennie grimly.
"We'll try and keep ourselves out of harm until our diving gear is put in shape, Glennie," Matt answered. "After that we'll drop away and leave our Jap friends up above."
"Vell, vat oof der tiving gear don'd vas got retty in time, Matt?" asked Carl.
"Don't cross that bridge until you get to it, Carl. If the Stars and Stripes can't protect us on a peaceable cruise, then the Sons of the Rising Sun are taking long chances and running big risks."
A hail came from across the water. The officer in the nearest boat was standing and trumpeting through his hands.
"Spanish!" exclaimed Glennie. "They're not overlooking many details, those Japs. They want to know what boat this is, Matt."
"Just as if they didn't know!" muttered Matt. "Tell them, Glennie. Then ask them what boat they're from."
Glennie followed his orders, receiving some more Spanish talk from the officer.
"He says," reported Glennie, "that he's Captain Sandoval, of the Chilian war shipSalvadore, and, he says further, that he has been requested by his government to meet us at the Pacific end of the strait and give us safe conduct to Valparaiso."
"Talk about nerve!" murmured Matt. "We've seen Sandoval, and Sandoval's ship, theSalvadore, and we know what sort of a bold game our friends, the Japs, are playing. Ask him how he knew we were coming through the strait."
"He replies," pursued Glennie, "that our government communicated with his, and requested that a Chilian gunboat protect theGrampusfrom Jap miscreants known as Sons of the Rising Sun."
"Continued displays of nerve," murmured Matt, "and of the monumental order. Tell him we don't want his safe conduct, and to sheer away from us."
The first boat was almost upon the submarine. Glennie repeated Matt's order.
"The officer insists on coming aboard," said the ensign.
"Just tell him we know he's a Jap, and that we left theSalvadoreand Captain Sandoval at Punta Arenas."
There was no waiting on the part of the Japs in the rowboat for Matt's words to be translated into Spanish. The Japs took the words as they fell from the lips of the king of the motor boys, dropped their mask, and the sailors fell to with their oars.
"Stave in their boat, Glennie!" called Matt, his eyes flashing. "I hate to do it, but it's all we can do to avoid trouble. The sailors in the other boat will pick up these when they drop in the water."
"Dot's der dicket!" chirruped Carl, who had been shaking his fists at the Japs and taunting them with various epithets. "Sink der poat! Den, afder dot, sink der odder poat; und vind oop by drowing a dorpeto indo der shdeamer. Make some cleanoops vile you vas aboudt id."
Glennie so manœuvred theGrampusthat her sharp prow struck the rowboat broadside on. Instead of staving the boat, however, theGrampusran under her, the forward part of the small boat's keel sliding over the deck. All the Japs were hurled into the water.
"Clear away the boat if you can!" shouted Glennie. "Hooray for Motor Matt!"
TheGrampusflung onward. Matt started ahead to clear the rowboat off the deck, but, before he could reach her, she had cleared herself.
The speed of the submarine and the drag of the rowboat had accomplished the work.
"Don't cheer too soon, Glennie!" warned Matt. "Look behind you!"
Glennie turned in the tower and cast a glance rearward. A war ship was just rounding the headland, enveloping the top of the uplift in a dense cloud of black smoke.
"TheSalvadore!" fluttered Glennie, his despairing eyes returning to Matt.
"Anyhow," said Matt, "we're saved from the Sons of the Rising Sun. Look at them! That rowboat is hardly taking the necessary time to pick up the Japs we knocked into the water, she's so anxious to get back to the steamer."
"I don'd know vich gifs me der mosdt colt chills," cried Carl, "der Sons oof der Rising Sun oder der fellers on derSalfatore!"
SANDOVAL EXPLAINS.
"It looks," remarked Matt, "as though we were between two fires. However, of the two enemies, I had rather fall into the hands of Sandoval. He certainly has no destructive designs on theGrampus."
"The war ship is heading up for us," remarked Glennie. "It's a wonder they don't open on us with some of their small calibre guns."
"Vatch der Chaps," chuckled Carl. "Der Sons oof der Rising Sun acts schust like dey vas aboudt do set. Ach, du lieber, how dey row pack py der shdeamer!"
"They're pulling down the Chilian flag," laughed Matt. "They don't intend to have Sandoval see that."
"But what's the reason the war ship is coming for us, and acting so peaceably?" queried Glennie.
"I don't know, Glennie, but I wouldn't trust Sandoval the length of a lead line. I wish we could dive! Call down and ask Dick what he and Clackett are doing, if anything."
Glennie bent down beside the tower and put the question.
"They haven't found the trouble yet," said Glennie, lifting his head out of the tower.
"That means," remarked Matt, "that we've got to face Sandoval."
"Ah!" shouted Carl, "dere goes a flag signal."
The signal was a common one, and Matt did not have to send for his code book.
"Wish to communicate with you," read the flags; "come alongside."
"'Communicate with you,'" repeated Matt. "That sounds rather mild—for Sandoval. Get us alongside, Glennie."
"Don't you go aboard the war ship, Matt," cautioned Glennie.
"Thank you," said Matt, "once was enough."
As the submarine came along on the lee side of the war vessel, the big ship slowed her pace. Presently both craft were jogging along as companionably as a lad and his lass going to market.
"Señor," called Sandoval through a megaphone, "I beg your pardon ten thousand times."
"Vat's dot?" muttered Carl, with bulging eyes. "Can I pelieve vat I hear? Ten t'ousant dimes he pegs Modor Matt's bardon. For vy?"
"Why do you do that, captain?" asked Matt.
"Because of the little mistake. I made it. When Captain Enrique Sandoval makes a mistake he admits it like a man."
"What was the mistake?"
"Why, this, that your wireless instrument was not the one that claimed the submarine was my war ship."
Matt was puzzled.
"How did you find that out?" he asked.
"By a ruse, which I thought of myself. Early last evening I sent out calls, through theSalvadore'swireless instrument, for theSalvadore. You see? My ship was calling for herself. The call was answered by a ship which claimed she was theSalvadore, Captain Sandoval commanding."
Matt was amazed, not so much by what the captain had found out as by the fact that he had had sense enough to think of such a ruse.
"How did you know, captain," returned Matt, "that I did not answer that second call as you accused me of answering that other one?"
"Carramba!You would not have been so foolish. There is a ship somewhere in these waters that is trying to make others think she is theSalvadore. Where is she?"
"Yonder," said Matt, pointing to the Japanese steamer. "That is the vessel that claims to be theSalvadore. One of her officers told me that was her name, and that her captain was Enrique Sandoval."
Sandoval whirled about on his bridge and picked up a pair of binoculars. For several moments he studied the steamer.
"She was flying the Chilian flag when we first sighted her," he went on to Matt through the megaphone, "and now she's flying a piece of German bunting."
"That's because she don't want you to make her any trouble," said Matt.
"Car-r-ramba!I will make her trouble. I will pursue her and take her to Punta Arenas while the conduct of her officers and crew is being looked into. It will be easy for the realSalvadoreto overtake the counterfeit.Adios, señor, and good luck to you!"
"Wait a minute, captain!" called Matt.
"What is it you wish, señor?"
"How about that story Garcia told you about me?"
"Ah, it was a fairy tale, a child's story, and unworthy of full-grown ears."
"But you believed it?"
"For a time, yes. The injured convict told me that Garcia was not telling the truth. I did not believe, even then. It was only when the other convict supported the one with the broken arm that I believed. Garcia had two against him. What better proof could you want?"
"You are not out of patience with us for what my friends did in helping me escape from you?"
"No! It was a gr-r-rand fight! You and your two friends worsted me, Captain Enrique Sandoval, and three marines. Of course, had I been armed with my pistol, the result would have been vastly different. Yet you escaped, after bidding defiance to all the Chilian authorities in Punta Arenas. Ah, marvelous! I am filled with admiration for your disregard of life. All Punta Arenas is talking about it. No one was killed, no one was even hurt, and yet you were rescued. I am glad it was so. How would I have felt had I been compelled to face you in your prison room at the harbor master's house, and admitted that I had made a mistake? What could I have said to his excellency, the American consul? I should have perished of shame and mortification. I have your pardon, señor?"
"You have," said Matt, very gravely but with a mischievous twinkle in his gray eye. "We are friends, captain?"
"Forever!"
The smoke of the Jap steamer was vanishing rapidly to southward. TheSalvadore, a few minutes after the captain ceased speaking, turned her bow on the other tack and started in pursuit.
"What do you think of that, Glennie, you and Carl?" queried Matt.
"It shows," replied the ensign, "how fortune changes when you least expect it. I was counting, first, on losing theGrampus; then, when the war ship showed up, I was thinking only that we should have to return to PuntaArenas. And now here we are, safe on the high seas, with not even the Japs to molest us!"
"Von enemy has peat off der odder!" said Carl.
"That's the way of it," said Matt. "If——"
Some one called from the periscope room. Glennie bent down to hear what was said.
"It's Dick," said Glennie, looking toward Matt with a smile. "The tank valves are fixed, and he wants to know if we are ready to dive."
"Tell him no," answered Matt, "and add that, if the valves had been in shape, when we first sighted the Jap steamer, we would have dived and would have missed the biggest chance that has come our way since we left Port of Spain—the chance to make a friend out of an enemy, and to set our new-made friend against our implacable foes, the Sons of the Rising Sun."
Glennie repeated this somewhat lengthy statement to Dick.
"Dick says he can't understand it," said Glennie, "and wants you to come down and make it clear."
"We might as well go down," said Matt.
"Ve ditn't got no fighdt oudt oof dot," remarked Carl, with a disappointed air, "so ve mighdt as vell go pelow und shday dere. It looks like dere vouldn't be any fighding any more for anypody."
NORTHWARD BOUND!
It was a jovial crowd that the submarine carried into Smyth Channel, practically free of the strait and ready to reach out along the coast up the western edge of two continents.
Speake was serving dinner, and all were in the periscope room with the exception of Gaines and Clackett, who had to be on duty below. But Gaines and Clackett were listening at their speaking tubes and hearing all that was taking place in the chamber overhead.
"These experiences of ours, during the last few days," said Glennie, "prove that luck wears as many disguises as those Japs."
"Dot vas some deep talk," said Carl; "so deep, py shinks, dot I can't onderstand id."
"You're getting terribly thick-headed all at once, Carl," said Dick.
"Oh, I don'd know," said Carl easily. "Who vas id got loose mit himseluf in der beriscope room und got pack derGrampusfrom der gonficts? Leedle Carl, I bed you. A feller vat vas t'ick-headed couldn't do dot. Hey, Matt?"
"You're right, Carl," laughed Matt. "It took a pretty bright fellow to do that; and your brightness flashed up at just the right time."
"And then flashed out again," said Dick, with a wink at Matt, "and we haven't seen it since."
"Vell, meppy," observed Carl. "Anyvay, subbose Glennie oxblains vat he means ven he say dot luck vears so many tisguises as der Chaps. I nefer see luck but in two vays—von iss goot luck, und der odder iss pad luck. I can shpot dose fellers so far as I can see dem."
"Do you know good luck when you see it, Carl?" went on Glennie.
"Don'd I say dot? Sure I do."
"Well, was meeting those convicts good luck or bad for Motor Matt and the rest of the motor boys?"
"Vat a foolish kvestion!" muttered Carl. "It vas pad luck righdt from der chump off. Ditn't Modor Matt, und you, und Tick come pooty near going off der poat drying to ged dose fellers? Vas dot goot luck?"
"Well," went on Glennie, "what was it when Captain Sandoval made up with Motor Matt and went after the Japs' steamer, thereby leaving us free to proceed north without having anything to fear from the Sons of the Rising Sun?"
"Dot kvestion iss more foolish as der odder," said Carl disgustedly; "dot vas goot luck."
"Then if we hadn't had the bad luck we couldn't have had the good luck."
"You vas gedding grazy, Glennie. I von't lisden to sooch a ignorance."
There was a general laugh at this.
"Now, wait a minute, Carl," proceeded Glennie. "I want to change your views on the subject of luck. If we had not taken the convicts aboard we should not have delivered them to Captain Sandoval; and——"
"Und oof ve hatn't telivered dem to Santoval," continued Carl, taking up the theme, "Matt vouldn't have gone on der poat und got indo drouple."
"And if Matt hadn't got into trouble, we should not have put in at Punta Arenas; and if we hadn't stopped there, we wouldn't have got Matt away from Sandoval; and if Sandoval hadn't been trying to test Matt's story about the convicts, he wouldn't have come after us when we fled from Punta Arenas; and if he hadn't found us and made his peace with Matt, he wouldn't now be chasing the Sons of the Rising Sun or——"
"Ach, himmelblitzen!" groaned Carl, clapping his fingers over his ears, "shdop it! You vill haf me grazier as a pedpug."
"Well, you see, don't you, that helping the convicts, which you called bad luck, really resulted in bringing us in touch with Captain Sandoval, who is now our friend and doing his utmost to overhaul the Japs. He will keep the Sons of the Rising Sun so busy that they won't have any chance to follow us up the coast."
"You've run the bell with your remarks, Glennie," said Dick. "We can't always tell whether things are happening to us for the better or for the worse. But, taking 'em full and by, they usually pan out what's best for us."
"My little scheme for gaining time on the Japs by sending them around the Horn didn't work," put in Matt.
"It was a clever scheme, all right," declared Glennie, "and it would have worked if the motor hadn't balked on us and compelled us to lose a day."
"We've given the Sons of the Rising Sun something to think about," said Dick. "Keelhaul me if I don't think they'll just about throw up their hands and quit after this."
"If Sandoval gets them," returned Glennie, "he'll keep them in Punta Arenas until we reach Mare Island."
"And if he don't get them," queried Matt, "what then?"
"There's no doubt about his getting them, old ship!" exclaimed Dick. "The war ship is a faster boat than the steamer."
"But Sandoval hasn't the cunning nor the brains that the leader of those Japs has!"
"That may be, but it doesn't take much cunning or brains for a straight-away race. The fastest boat will win, and I'm banking on theSalvadore. You don't mean to say, matey, that you're expecting to meet the Young Samurai somewhere up the coast?"
"I'm not expecting it, Dick," answered Matt, "but I'm not going to let anything surprise me. The things you least expect are the things those Japs are certain to do."
"I hope like anyt'ing dot der resdt oof dis gruise don'd vas going to be some Suntay-school bicnics," piped Carl grewsomely. "I vould like to haf a leedle chincher shdill lefdt in der expetition."
"I guess we'll have ginger enough left, Carl," said Glennie, "even if we don't have anything more to do with the Sons of the Rising Sun."
"Where's our next port of call, matey?" queried Dick, directing the question at Matt.
"You know what Brigham said we were to do when we mentioned any place where we were to put in with theGrampus?" laughed Matt.
"He said," replied Glennie, "that we ought to go down in the deepest part of the ocean and then whisper it."
"Vat dit he mean by sooch grazy talk as dot?" inquired Carl.
"He meant," said Matt, "that the Japs were full of guile, and that the plans we least expected them to overhear would be the very ones they discovered. We came down the east coast of the continent from Brazil and the River Plate, and laid in at Gallego Bay. If we hadn't done that, we shouldn't have discovered that the Japs were following us, their boat newly painted and two wireless masts on her deck. Those lads had their wits about them when they did that wireless work; and it was only an accident that enabled us to catch their messages, and answer them, putting them on a wrong tack."
"But that isn't telling us, mate, where our next port of call is to be."
"I was trying to emphasize Mr. Brigham's advice of keeping such matters to ourselves."
"But it isn't necessary, now that the Sons of the Rising Sun are out of the running."
"Possibly it isn't. Well, we shall have to have more gasoline about the time we reach Valparaiso. You can draw your own inferences from that."
"That means," said Dick, "that we put in at Valparaiso. That will do, fine. I've been there a lot of times, and I'm a Fiji if I wouldn't like to renew some old acquaintance among the Chilians and the English colony. Let's lay over a day or two, Matt, when we get there, and not just paddle ashore, get the gasoline, and put to sea again."
"How long we stay in the place, Dick," returned Matt, "will have to depend on circumstances. We've got to make good, you know, by delivering theGrampussafely at Mare Island Navy Yard."
"Well, I guess we've nothing but plain sailing ahead of us," said Dick. "You won't have to set a pattern of defiance for the rest of us again, or use our wireless apparatus to send a disguised Jap steamer around the Horn."
"When we ought to have gone around the Horn ourselves," added Matt.
"I don't agree with you there," said Glennie. "By coming through the strait you took the most dangerous passage, and it will count more as a test of the submarine's capabilities than rounding the Horn."
"I agree with you on that point, Glennie," returned Matt, "and I am glad you take that view of a case that was practically forced upon us by the Sons of the Rising Sun."
"To their own undoing," finished Glennie.
THE END.
THE NEXT NUMBER (20) WILL CONTAIN
Motor Matt Makes Good;
OR,
Another Victory for the Motor Boys.
Off the Chilian Coast—Hurled into the Sea—Saved by a Torpedo—Weighing the Evidence—A Surprising Situation—Another Attack—A Bad Half Hour—Chasing a Torpedo—Northward Bound—A Halt for Repairs—Dick Makes a Discovery—A Wary Foe—Pluck that Wins—A Little Work On the Inside—A Star Performance—Conclusion.
Off the Chilian Coast—Hurled into the Sea—Saved by a Torpedo—Weighing the Evidence—A Surprising Situation—Another Attack—A Bad Half Hour—Chasing a Torpedo—Northward Bound—A Halt for Repairs—Dick Makes a Discovery—A Wary Foe—Pluck that Wins—A Little Work On the Inside—A Star Performance—Conclusion.
NEW YORK, July 3, 1909.
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I.
Not officially: I don't pretend to say that. You might travel the West from fresh water to salt without ever locating the Spider Water, by map or by name.
But if you should happen anywhere in the West to sit among a gang of bridge carpenters, or get to confidence with a bridge foreman; or find the springy side of a road master's heart—then you might hear all you want about the Spider Water; maybe more.
The Sioux named it; and, whatever their faults, no man with sense ever attempted to improve on their names for things—whether birds, or braves, or winds, or waters; they know.
Unfortunately our managers hadn't always sense, and one of them countenanced a shameful change in the name of Spider Water. Some idiot dubbed it the Big Sandy; and the Big Sandy it is to this day on map and in folder. But not in the heart of the Sioux or the lingo of trackmen.
It was the only stream our bridge engineers could never manage. Bridge after bridge they threw across it—and into it. One auditor at Omaha, given to asthma and statistics, estimated, between spells, that the Spider Water had cost us more than all the other watercourses together from the Missouri to the Sierras.
Then came to the West End a masterful man, a Scotchman, pawky and hard. Brodie was his name, an Edinburgh man, with no end of degrees and master of every one. A great engineer, Brodie, but the Spider Water took a fall even out of him. It swept out a Howe truss bridge for Brodie almost before he got his bag opened.
Then Brodie tried—not to make friends with the Spider, for nobody could do that—but to get acquainted with it. For this he went to its oldest neighbors, the Sioux. Brodie spent weeks and weeks, summers, up the Spider Water, hunting. And with the Sioux he talked the Spider Water and drank fire water. That was Brodie's shame, the fire water.
But he was pawky, and he chinned unceasingly the braves and the medicine men about the uncommonly queer creek that took the bridges so fast. The river that month in and month out couldn't squeeze up water enough for a pollywog to bathe in, and then, of a sudden, and for a few days, would rage like the Missouri, and leave our bewildered rails hung up either side in the wind.
Brodie talked cloudbursts up country; for the floods came, times, under clear skies—and the Sioux sulked in silence. He suggested an unsuspected inlet from some mountain stream which, maybe, times, sent its stormwater over a low divide into the Spider—and the red men shrugged their faces.
Finally they told him the Indian legend about the Spider Water; took him away up where once a party of Pawnees had camped in the dust of the river bed to surprise the Sioux; and told Brodie how the Spider—more sudden than buck, fleeter than pony—had come down in the night and ambushed the Pawnees with a flood. And so well that next morning there wasn't enough material in sight for a ghost dance.
They took Brodie himself out into the ratty bed, and when he said heap dry, and said no water, they laughed, Indian-wise, and pointed to the sand. Scooping little wells with their hands, they showed him the rising and the filling; water where the instant before was no water; and a bigger fool than Brodie could see the water was all there, only underground.
"But when did it rise?" asked Brodie. "When the chinook spoke," said the Sioux. "And why?" persisted Brodie. "Because the Spider woke," answered the Sioux. And Brodie went out of the camp of the Sioux wondering.
And he planned a new bridge which should stand the chinook and the Spider and all evil spirits. And full seven year it lasted; and then the fire water spoke for the wicked Scotchman, and he himself went out into the night.
And after he died, miserable wreck of a man, the Spider woke and took his pawky bridge and tied up the main line for two weeks and set us crazy, for it cost us our grip on the California fast freight business. But at that time Healey was superintendent of bridges on the West End.
His father was a section foreman. When Healey was a mere kid, he got into Brodie's office doing errands. But whenever he saw a draughtsman at work he hung over the table till they kicked him downstairs. Then, by and by, Healey got himself an old table and part of a cake of India ink, and with some cursing from Brodie became a draughtsman, and one day head draughtsman in Brodie's office. Healey was no college man; Healey was a Brodie man. Single mind on single mind—concentration absolute. Mathematics, drawing, bridges, brains—that was Healey. All that Brodie knew, Healey had from him, and Brodie, who hated even himself, showed still a light in the wreck by moulding Healey to his work. For one day, said Brodie in his heart, this boy shall be master of these bridges. When I am dust he will be here what I might have been—this Irish boy—and they will say he was Brodie's boy. And better than any of these doughheads they send me out he shall be, if he was made engineer by a drunkard. And Healey was better, far, far better than the doughheads, better than the graduates, better than Brodie—and to Healey came the time to wrestle with the Spider.
Stronger than any man he was, before or since, for the work. All Brodie knew, all the Indians knew, all that a life's experience, eating, living, watching, sleeping with the big river, had taught him, that Healey knew. And when Brodie's bridge went out, Healey was ready with his new bridge for the Spider Water, which should be better than Brodie's, just as he was better than Brodie. A bridge like Brodie's, with the fire water, as it were, left out. And after the temporary structure was thrown over the stream, Healey's plans for a Howe truss, two-pier, two-abutment, three-span, pneumatic caisson bridge to span the Spider Water were submitted to headquarters.
But the cost! The directors jumped the table when they saw the figures. Our directors talked economy for the road and for themselves studied piracy. So Healey couldn't get the money for his new bridge, and was forced to build a cheap one which must, he knew, go some time. But thedream of his life, this we all knew—the Sioux would have said the Spider knew—was to build a final bridge over the Spider Water, a bridge to throttle it for all time.
It was the one subject on which you would get a rise out of Healey any time, day or night, the two-pier, two-abutment, three-span, pneumatic caisson Spider bridge. He would talk Spider bridge to a Chinaman. His bridge foreman, Ed Peeto, a staving big one-eyed French-Canadian, had but two ideas in life. One was Healey, the other the Spider bridge. And after many moons our pirate directors were thrown out, and a great and public-spirited man took control of our system, and when Ed Peeto heard it he kicked his little water spaniel in a frenzy of delight. "Now, Sport, old boy," he exclaimed riotously, "we'll get the bridge!" And after much effort by Healey, seconded by Bucks, superintendent of the division, and by Callahan, assistant, the new president did consent to put up the money for the good bridge. The wire flashed the word to the West End. Everybody at the wickiup, as we called the old division headquarters, was glad; but Healey rejoiced, Ed Peeto burned red fire, and his little dog Sport ate rattlesnakes.
There was a good bridge needed at one other point, the Peace River, a treacherous water, and Healey had told the new management that if they would give him a pneumatic caisson bridge there, he would guarantee the worst stretch on the system against tie-up disasters for a generation; and they had said go ahead; and Ed Peeto went fairly savage with responsibility and strutted around the wickiup like a Cyclops.
Early in the summer, Healey very quiet, and Peeto very profane, with all their traps and belongings, moved into construction headquarters at the Spider, and the first airlock ever sunk west of the Missouri closed over the heads of tall Healey and big Ed Peeto. Like a swarm of ants the bridge workers cast the refuse up out of the Spider bed. The blowpipes never slept, night and day the sand streamed from below, and Healey's caissons sank like armed cruisers foot by foot toward the bed-rock. When the masonry was crowding high-water mark, Healey and Peeto ran back to Medicine Bend to get acquainted with their families. Peeto was so deaf he couldn't hear himself sing, and Healey was as ragged and ratty as the old depot; but both were immensely happy.
Next morning, Sunday, they all sat up in Buck's office reading letters and smoking.
"Hello," growled Bucks, chucking a nine-inch official manila under the table, "here's a general order—Number Fourteen."
The boys drew their briars like one. Bucks read a lot of stuff that didn't touch our end, then he reached this paragraph:
"The Mountain and Inter-mountain divisions are hereby consolidated under the name of the Mountain Division, with J. F. Bucks superintendent, headquarters at Medicine Bend. C. T. Callahan is appointed assistant of the consolidated divisions."
"The Mountain and Inter-mountain divisions are hereby consolidated under the name of the Mountain Division, with J. F. Bucks superintendent, headquarters at Medicine Bend. C. T. Callahan is appointed assistant of the consolidated divisions."
"Good boy!" roared Ed Peeto, straining his ears.
"Well, well, well," murmured Healey, opening his eyes, "here's promotions right and left." Bucks read on:
"H. P. Agnew is appointed superintendent of bridges of the new division, with headquarters at Omaha, vice P. C. Healey."
"H. P. Agnew is appointed superintendent of bridges of the new division, with headquarters at Omaha, vice P. C. Healey."
Bucks threw down the order. Ed Peeto broke out first: "Did you hear that?"
Healey nodded.
"You're let out!" stormed Peeto. Healey nodded. The bridge foreman dashed his pipe at the stove, jumped up, stamped across to the window, and was like to have sworn the glass out before Healey spoke.
"I'm glad we're up with the Spider job, Bucks," said he. "When they get the Peace River work in, the division will run itself for a year."
"Healey," said Bucks, "I don't need to tell you what I think of it, do I? It's a shame. But it's what I've said for a year—nobody will ever know what Omaha is going to do next." Healey rose to his feet. "Where you going?"
"Back to the Spider on Number Two."
"Not going back this morning. Why don't you wait for Four to-night?"
"Ed, will you get those staybolts and chuck them into the baggage car for me when Two pulls in? I'm going over to the house for a minute."
They knew what that meant. He was going over to tell the folks he wouldn't be home for Sunday as he expected—as the children expected. Going to tell the wife—the old man—that he was out. Out of the railroad system he had given his life to help build up and to make what it was. Out of the position he had climbed to by studying like a hermit and working like a hobo. Out—without criticism or reason or allegation. Simply, like a dog, out.
Bucks and Callahan looked down on the departing train soon afterward, and saw Healey climbing into the smoker. Every minute he had before the new order beheaded him he spent at the Spider. One thing he meant to make sure of—that they shouldn't beat him out of the finish of the Spider bridge as he had planned it. One monument Healey meant to have; one he has.
After he let go on the West End, Healey wanted to look up something East. But Bucks told him frankly it would be difficult to get a place without a regular engineer's degree. It seemed as if there was no place for Healey but just the mountains, and after a time finding nothing, and Bucks losing a roadmaster, Healey—Callahan urging—agreed to take the little job and stay with his old superintendent. It was a big drop, but Healey took it.
Agnew meantime had stopped all construction work not too far along to discontinue. The bridge at the Spider was fortunately beyond his mandate; it was finished to a rivet as Healey had planned it. But the Peace River bridge was caught in the air, and Healey's great caissons gave way to piles, and the cost came down from a hundred to seventy-five thousand dollars. Incidentally it was breathed from headquarters that the day for extravagant appropriations on the West End was passed.
That year we had no winter till spring, and no spring till summer; and it was a spring of snow and a summer of water. The mountains were lost in snow even after Easter. When the snow let up, and it was no longer a matter of keeping the track clear, it was a matter of lashing it to the right-of-way to keep it from swimming clear. Healey caught it worse than anybody. He knew Bucks looked to him for the track, and he worked like two men, for that was his way in a pinch. He strained every nerve making ready for the time the mountain snows should go out.
There was nobody easy on the West End. Healey least of all, for that spring, ahead of the suns, ahead of the thaws, ahead of the waters, came a going out that unsettled the oldest calculator in the wickiup. Brodie's old friends began coming out of the up-country, out of the Spider Valley. Over the Eagle Pass and through the Peace Cañon came the Sioux in parties and camps and tribes. And Bucks stayed them and talked with them. But the Sioux did not talk, they grunted—and traveled. After Bucks Healey tried, for the braves knew him and would listen. But when he accused them of fixing for a fight, they denied and turned their faces to the mountains. They stretched their arms straight out under their blankets like stringers, and put their palms downward and muttered to Healey, "Plenty snow."
"I reckon they're lying," growled Bucks listening. Healey made no comment; only looked at the buried mountains.
Now the Spider wakes regularly twice; at all other times irregularly. Once in April; that is the foothills water. Once in June; that is the mountain water.
Now came an April without any rise; nothing rose but the snow, and May opened bleaker than April; even the trackmen walked with set faces. The dirtiest half-breed on the line knew now what the mountains held.
Section gangs were doubled, night walkers put on. Bypasses were opened, bridge crews strengthened, everything buckled for grief. Gullies began to race, culverts to choke, creeks to tumble, rivers to madden. From the Muddy to the Summit the water courses swelled and boiled; all but the Spider; the big river slept. Through May and into June the Spider slept. But Healey was there at the wickiup, with one eye always running over all the line and one eye turned always to the Spider, where two men and two, night and day, watched the lazy surface water trickle over and through the vagabond bed between Healey's monumental piers. Never an hour did the operating department lose the track. East and west of us everywhere railroads clamored in despair. The flood swept from the Rockies to the Alleghanies. Our trains never missed a trip; our schedules were unbroken; our people laughed; we got the business, dead loads of it! Our treasury flowed over; and Healey watched, and the Spider slept. But when May turned soft and hot into June, with every ditch bellying and the mountains still buried, it put us all thinking hard. It was the season for floods.
TO BE CONCLUDED.