The silver messenger. (Challis, Idaho) 1890-1912, 1902-10-21

Mine, that used to be pilot boat, ant
would sail in any kind of weather thai
a flynn fish would live in. We cruis &c
around in the northwest trades foI
awhile loolin' for sperm calf, for Kear
ney said that TO get the best result,
from education you must catch 'en
Toung.
u won't bore you tellin' about tina.
cruise. though 1t would make might,
good story itself, but at last we caugh.
our calf and h'isted him into t,anl
on deck. Kearney named him I.3tl,
Willie, after n kid of his own. Their
we put for the reef, which had smooth
lagoon inside of it, and was altogethe.
as well cut out for a whale academy n,
any place you could find in the geog
raphy.
"Kearney's idee was to use hi,
whales mostly for rams, though some.
times for torpedo boats. So he had
harness fitted over Little Willie's head
with steel spur in front, and he
trained him to go full tilt at an ole
hulk that was moored for a target.
How did he make him do it? Why
every time little Willie would hit the
hulk fair and square, Kearney would
give him lump of sugar You don't
mean to say you didn't know that
whales liked sugar. Next time yor
meet one, you just offer him lumI
and see what he does.
We'll, as things went on the expert.
ment seemed to be success. Little
Willie absorbed education as if his
father had been college president
He would lie pointing at the target
with his fukes a-quiverin' like a cats
tail when she's watching for a mouse.
and then when Kearney would give the
signal by proddin' him with a harpoor
he would shoot forward like a bullet
and hit that hulk swipe that would
rattle it like a dynamite blast. Then
he would swim back, happy and proud,
for his sugar, with a smile on his face
that would take in four-horse truck.
Sometimes Kearney would rig him
up with a spar torpedo, and he was
trained to stop at them times and back
away as soon as the spar touched the
target.
We'll, was worried all the time. for
| didn't know where all this was goin'
to end. Little Willie kept CROWN big
ger and bigger, and we had to keen
fittin' him with new ram bows in place
of those he'd outgrown and gettin'
more hulks to take the places of those
he was smashing into kindlin'. 1t
looked to me as if there was trouble
ahead, and sure enough there was.
Zone day Kearney was in bad hui
NOR and absent-minded. When he
started out for target practice he
iabbed Little Willie with the harpoon
before he got him headed in the right
direction. Off he shot, as he'd been
taught.
"Kearney tried to call him back, but
you know yourself it wasn't reason
able to exnect he'd hear it. In another
minute Little Willie had smashed clean
through the side of the Lady Mine,
and then he came back. innocent and
self-satisfed, for his sugar.
well, you never saw man so crazy
with rage as what Kearney was. AL
though the thing was entirely his own
Ianlt' ne laid 1t all to that poor. in
offensive beast. and when Little Will
lie swum up, expectin' to be prais I'd
and rewarded, as he had a perfect
right to, Kearney yelled: Get away,
you hubert and give him kick.
We'll you know Little Willie never
rad such an insult before. and il
knocked him all in heap. He looked
1T us reproachful for a minute, and
hen he turned around on his tail, dig
1ified and deliberate. and put to sea.
We never seen him again.
Now you see what happened to the
Kathleen. don't you? The whale was
layin' head on the ship when they
run the harpoon into him. He took |
hat for the signal, and without stop-
'in' to think he carried out his train
n.
"And I'm bettin' that if those men
hadn't been too flustered to look.
hey'd have seen that there whale
lad on ram bow"--N. Y. Sun.