Twice-a-week plain dealer. (Cresco, Howard County, Iowa) 1895-1913, 1901-05-28

coined an invitation rendered on ac-
count of her advanced years.
It'll be just as bad if go and ask
her now." said Butt, testify "The
others will take offense, and life's
too short for shipmaster to be ex-
planning to lot of women why they
can't all come at once on the bridge.
I'll have 'em up to-morrow-any
three you say"
But when the morrow came he
didn't "have 'em up!" Maidie had
pleaded loyalty for her associates,
but was too proud or sensitive to so
inform them. The captain had said
he would do that, and meanwhile she
tried not to feel exasperated at the
injured airs assumed by several of
the band and the cutting remarks Of
one or two of their number.
That afternoon, however, the skies
became overcast and the wind rose.
That night the sea dashed high to-
wards the rail and the Sacramento
wallowed deep in the surges. Next
morning the wind had freshened to
gale. All air-ports were closed. The
spray swept the promenade deck
along the starboard side, and the Red
Cross and two-thirds of the martial
passenger-list forgot all minor ills
and annoyances in the miseries of
NAL de mer. Three days ard nights
were most of the womenfoll1 cooped
in their cabins, but Miss Ray was an
old sailor and had twice seen far
heavier weather on the Atlantic.
Sheltered from the rain by the
bridge-deck and from the spray and
gale by heavy canvas dashed athwart-
ship in front of the captains room,
and securely strapped in her reclin-
ing-chair, this young lady fairly re-
joiced in the magnificent battle with
the elements and gloried in the
bursting seas. Sandy too, albeit
trifle upset, was able to be on deck,
and one of the subs from the port
side, hearing of it, donned his outer
garments and cavalry boots and
Joined forces with them, and Stuyve-
SAINT, hearing their merry voices, de-
clared that he could not breathe in
his stuffy cabin and demanded to be
dressed and borne out on deck too.
At first the surgeon said: NO"
whereupon his patient began to get
worse.
So on the second day the doctor
yielded, and all that day and the
third of the storm, by which time the
starboard deck was slowly becoming
peopled with few spectral and bare
ly animate feminine shapes, Stuyve-
SAINT reclined within arms length of
the dark-eyed girl who had so en-
tranced him, studying her beauty,
drinking in her words, and gaining
such health and strength in the life
giving air and such bliss from the as
ISOLATION that Sturgis contemplated
with new complacency the happy re-
suit of his treatment, for when the
gale subsidized, and on the fourth day
they ran once more into smooth and
lazy waters, it was Stuyvesant's con-
Stunning desire to take up his bed and
walk, except when Miss Ray was
there to talk or read to him.
And this was the state of affairs
when the Sacramento hove in sight
of the bold headlands, green and
beautiful, that front the sea at the
northeast corner of mountainous
Luzon. Once within soundings and
close to treacherous shore, with
only Spanish authority to rely on as
to rocks, reefs and shoals, no wonder
old Butt could have no women on the
bridge, this too at the very time they
most wished to be there, since every-
thing worth seeing lay on the port
or southern side, and that given up
to those horrid officers and their
pajamas.
Not until his anchor dropped in Ma
Mia bay did the master of the Sacra-
mento think to redeem his promise
to bid the ladies of the Red Cross to
the sacred bridge, and incidentally to
tell them how Miss Ray had urged it
in their behalf while they were out
on blue waters-but now it was too
late.