Los Angeles herald., 1907-09-15

tiny Taluan village faded away in the distance, he
glued his eyes the opposite side of the horizon
in search for the squat and ugly German tramp.
Paulu, in the Vaegan group, their next port
of CALL and the victory would be to the boat that
reached it first. 1t was race of a lifetime.
A suspicion of the story leaked out to the sail
| ors, who worshipped the ground on which their
chief trod, and they bubbled over with the ex-
citement of the chase.
| When the morning broke Palu was half-de6ned
shadow on the skyline and five miles ahead was
the German boat, belching forth from her red
tunnels column of black smoke. 1t was the
last lap of rafting race, and the Deutschland,
seeing the gunboat come bounding after her, STIR
red herself to greater speed. The column of black
smoke thickened, and the lieutenants brows knit
together as he watched her.
| What are we doing now, Mowbray?" he said
to the chief engineer, who was standing near the
door of the engine room.
| "a good ten knots sir"
| "Try and get twelve out of her, then"
The engineer hurried inside, and the race went
on. The stern rocked up and down like cradle
and lumpy sea washed over the decks; but.
straining every nerve, they gained their rival,
caught her and passed her. The battle was won.
They swung into Palu good hour in front, book
ed every ounce of copra, and spurted out to sea
again in time to see the Deutschland laborin,
heavily in rough, choppy water round the harbor
bluff. 1t then that Lieutenant Bobby Cookie,
on the bridge, was moved to an inscrutable smile,
and every man on the gunboat from the sub
lieutenant downwards gave a long, loud chuckle
| of triumph.
| From thence ensued struggling procession over
fifteen hundred miles of Pacific Ocean. First
came the Albatross slipping along like a racer
| well in hand; then the Deutschland, riding high
| in the water by reason of the emptiness of her
hold; and lastly sugging along at her maximum
speed of six knots, the Doris, freighted down al
most to Plimsoll-mark by her cargo of good isl
and copra.
| 1t was about month afterwards that the AL
batross again cast anchor in the little Taluan bay
and the lieutenant was able to tell the story over
lFenton's dinner table, while the trader slapped
Ibis sides and roared in merriment.
"You navy men beat the very Old Nick, when
you take thing in hand" he said, admiringly.
But what the lieutenant valued most about tn,
Il affair was the look of pleasure in Iris Fenton.
leyes when she knew the man she hated had beer
outwitted.
Nieburg, by reason of the unaccountable failure
! Of the Taluan run, transferred by his firm
in New Guinea to another station where th
: wages were small and the Work arduous and i
said to swear in cultural accents that it is his de
sire to go to another planet which is not infested
with British gunboats darling about in every hol
t and corner to spoil his trade.
!, But the crew Of the Albatross know the com
t lmander they worship too well to think him who'll,
interested in trade and with the deep and un
erring wisdom of the fo'c'sle, suspect that, lik
}, as not,i in most Of the movements of man ther
v was girl in the case.
T And perhaps, in view Of the fact that Lieut.
; Bobby Cookie has recently married Miss Iris Fer
o ton, the most beautiful girl in all the Pacific
their suspicious are not without foundation.