The Banner-Democrat. [volume] (Lake Providence, East Carroll Parish, La.) 1892-current, 1901-04-20

| skate, barring MS eyes.
which were long, narrow
Sits. apparently expressing nothing
but indifference to the world In gener-
nj. But they would light up some
times with a merry twinkle. when the
old rogue would narrate some Of his
past villainies.
He came to Samoa In the old days,
long before treaties and Imperial Com
n;ssioners and other gilded vanities
we're dresmt Of by US poor, hard work
Ing traders. He seemed to have
dropped from the sky when one after
Boon, as Tom Denison and some Of his
friends sat ON Charley the Russians
veranda, he marched up to them, sat
down on the steps and said Good
evening""
"Hello," said Schluter, the skipper of
the Anna Goddeffroy. "Who are you?
Where do you come from?'
He waved a short, stumpy and black
clay pipe to and fro, and replied vague
ly, "Oh, from somewhere"
lone one laughed, surmising, cor
rectly enough, that he had run away
from a ship. TAen they remembered
that no vessel had even touched at
Apia for 6 month. Later on he told
Denison that he had jumped overheard
from a Bakers Island guanoman as
she was running down the coast and
swan ashore, landing at point twen-
ty miles distant from Apia. The ma
lives in the various villages had given
him food, 50 when he reached the town
he was not hungry.
"What do you want, anyway" asked
Schluter.
"Some tobacco. please. And dollar
or two. can pay you back"
"When?" said Hamilton, thu pilot,
lncredulously.
The pipe described semi-circle.
oh, tomorrow night; before. per-
| haps."
They gave him soma tobacco and
matches and four Bolivian "iron" half
dollars. He got up and went across
to Volkner's combined store and grog
shanty over the way.
Hes gone to buy bottle Of square
face," said Hamilton.
HE deserves It," said Denison,
| Eloomily. "a man of his age who could
Jump overheard and swim ashore to
this rotten country should be presented
with q case and knife to cut his
! throat with after he had finished It,"
| In about ten minutes the old fellow
came out of Volkner's store. carrying
two or three stout fishing lines. sev-
eral packets Of hooks and half dozen
ship biscuits. He grinned as he passed
| the group on the veranda. ant. then,
squatting down on the sward near by,
began to uncoil the lines and bend on
the hooks. Denison war interested.
went over to him, and watched the
swift, skilful manner in which the
thin brown fingers worked.
where are you going to fish," he
Inquired.
The broad, fiat face lit up. "Outside
In the deep water-sixty. eighty.
ta'am."
| Denison left him, and went aboard
the ancient, cockroach infested craft
of which he was the ..eartbroken su-
percargo. Half an hour later REQ
padded past the schooner In a wretch
ed old canoe. whose outrigger was so
insecurity fastened that 1t threatened
to come adrift every instant. The old
man grinned as he recognized D,nison;
then, pipe in mouth, he went boldly
out through the passage between the
lines of roaring surf into the tumbling
blue beyond.
At 10 o'clock, just rs the supercargo
and the skipper were turning in, the
ancient slipped quietly alongside in his
canoe and clambered on deck. In his
right hand he carried a big salmon
like fish. weighing about twenty
pounds. Laying it down on the deck,
he pointed to it.
PLENTY more in canoe like that. You
| want SOM more"
| Denison went to the side and looked
over. The canoe was loaded down to
the gunwhale with the weight o. fish
6sh that the lazy. loafing Apian ma
tives caught but rarely. The old man
passed up two or three more, and pad
died ashore.
Next morning he repaid tue bor-
roved money and showed Denison SIS
the result of his first nights work In
Samoa. The saloonkeepers and other
white people said he was a treasure.
Fish In Apia were dear and hard to
get.
| On the following Sunday marriage
procession entered the Rarotongan
| Chapel in Matafele, and Tarreo (other-
wise 'Reo) was united to one of the
prettiest and least disreputable native
girls In the town, whose parents recog-
nized that REQ was likely to prove an
eminently lucrative and squeezable
son-in-law. Denison was best man,
and gave the bride a fiye-dollar gold
piece (having previously made a priv
ate arrangement with the bridegroom
that he was to receive value for it In
SSH.
'Reo's wife's relatives built the new
ly married couple house on Matautu
Point, and REQ spent $50 in giving the
brides local connections a feast. Then
the news spread, and cousins and
second cousins and various breeds of
aunts and half unc:es travelled up to
Matautu Point to partake of his hos
pitality. He did his best. but, in q day
or 90. remarked sadly that he could
not catch fish fast enough In a poor
canoe. II he had boat he could make
$50 /. week. he said: and with $50 q
week he could entertained bis wife'a
honored friends continuously and in q
teattinG manner, The relatives con.