Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1904-04-09

And some he Scot-but the worst of the lot
-Kiplings Ballad.
The keen brown hawks of the American
Pacific are ready to pounce with two-fold
impudence this year on the seal and whale
preserves of the Russ in the Okhotsk and
the Japan seas, and even in the Gulf OF
Tartary itself. For they who laugh each
year at Russia when she is free to move
against them will not fail to take advan-
tage of her stress.
There isn't much that is secret abou.
these bucca neers of the twentieth century
They don't rush into print: but in the Ash
attic ports-Yokohama. Nagasaki, Hako-
date-men talk as a matter of course of
''the poaching fleet" just as the folk in
New Bedford and Gloucester speak of the
fishing fleet
But Kipling is wrong when he says in his
ballad that the sealer that is caught must
''lie for rotting contraband on VIadivos-
tok slip for the Russian naval men and
civil governors are of too economical turn
of mind to waste a swift, beautiful Ameri-
can schooner that way.
Nladivostok Is full of captured American
poachers: but they are busy working. The
prizes taken by the Russ in the Russ-Amer-
lean warfare of the Siberian coast are
bought and chartered by the Russian trad
ers and fishermen.
AsuSSAoA iIAc xnOuSy.
The Russian sailors do not aim to sink
q poacher who has sealskins on board be-
cause the officers get share of the prize
money accruing from the sale of the seized
pelts. and from the charter price that the
vessel brings in Vladivostok Consequently
they will exhaust every inch of speed in
the cruiser before they resort to the eXpe-
dent of sinking the poacher with a shot.
The poachers know that they know
n x.I.
chosen grounds, from the ways of the fog
10 the exact armament and speed of every
Russ ship that patrols the Siberian coast.
! SO there pretty races every season
between sails and steam between egg
shell wooden craft of New England and
Oregon and steel-clad warships from the
Neva yards; and If you will sit in the
sailor taverns of Yokohama or Nagasaki
you will hear of them as told by the chief
actors.
When they are caught they go to the un-
known prisons of Siberia. When they es-
cape they fit into the fog and presently
lie up against another island of the misty
cold seas and load on more of the seals
That are sacred to the white car and pro-
tected by tremendous international agree
ments
The Russ never can catch enough poach-
ers 10 scare the rest. The brown New
England and Oregon sailor men will tell
you that they can sail around him every
time- And even when he takes to shooting
they rarely heave 10; for there is a mes
sage on the Okhotsk sea, and it runs that
Jew Russian gunners can hit a schooner
that Is Unanswered by an American skim
per. snip
Tough men are they. and they know each
year as they swarm out to the forbidden
grounds that capture means loss of ev
erythinS. including their liberty For they
are not men who can well appeal to their
nome government to help them
, A Real War.
So 1t Is very real war, with a bitter end
Tor the poacher If his skill is lacking in a
sudden emergency. There are fights that
would make books of stirring stories when
the sealers, hemmed in. resort to the land
anu MAKE last run for it. willing, in the
final act, even to use their great repeating:
use for seal.
ihere are enraged men on a cruiser in
Z VladlVoStok who have prayed steadily to
get mold OF an especial one of these poach-
ers ana MS snip; for they will never for
give him.
When that poacher and that cruiser first
met II was near Boring Island The poach-
er lay under a riding sail of the land. while
ali the crew Were wading around ashore
among murdered seals, covered with blood
as they skinned the carcasses in mad haste
They had made great killing-wonder-
1ui even Tor those wonderful seal roosts.
But on the line of the horizon keen eyes
mad sighted smoke. And smoke in those
waters meant cruiser.
But these poachers hung on. filing their
boats with bleeding pelts and hustling them
aboard. Not till the Russian ship was
plain in sight did they tumble aboard them
selves and stand out for the open sea.
They had cut II a bit too fine. AS the
Russian headed toward them. both sides
realized that the cruiser would head off
the schooner in another mile: and, fast as
the booming sails Were driving her. steam
was sure to win against canvas III mile
race.
no hot
across the poaoher's bow. At once the
schooner came about and headed straight
toward the warsh!p. The latter stopped
her engines and waited, for naturally all
aboard thought that the seal thieves see
ing themselves caught had decided to sur
render
On came the schooner. flying. The Rus
sian lay still. waiting. Suddenly within
hundred feet of the PROV of the cruiser. the
schooner went about and was off again like
the wind. running wing and wing.
! The sudden maneuver took the Russian
by surprise. Before the astounded and in
furiated officers could get under way again
and acquire speed, the impudent schooner
was far ahead.
A Long Chase.
Twice the Russian fired blank shot as
he went In pursuit. but the pathetic request
remained unheeded. A third shot sent 4
solid steel proiectile through the poacher's
rigging but did no harm. A fourth and
nth shot went wide
/ The Russian, eager to save the valuable
prize. thus wasted half hour In fruitles3
attempts to cut away the masts of the
thieves without damaging the hull; and the
poachers were on the point of making their
escape when the wicked wind played a
prank on them. II headed them bit and
then died away just enough to give the
cruiser the advantage.
; At the end of another quarter of an hour
cruiser and schooner were almost abeam.
AT that moment when the Russians were
rubbing their hands. the American turned
again. ran straight at the cruisers side
and rammed her
Just in the nick of time the warship was
swung enough to make the blow a gancinS
one. Otherwise the impudent attempt
might have succeeded. AS 1t was the deck
o. the schooner was filled in a moment with
Russian sailors. and the schooner. made
fast ingloriously to tow rope. was being
dragged southwark along the Siberian
coast.
That night the warship and her prize an
chored in little bay in the Gulf of KANT
lschatks. Ten big. husky Russian sailors
sat on guard over the Americans on The
deck OF the schooner. The cruiser. lined