Evening star., 1914-11-15

SO Viking won his last race with the
cutters.
Here is the tale of how Capt. Richie
sailed the kinsei Maru to disaster on
ST Paul Island. July %, 1908. 1t is
tale of bluff, raids and ravagings. tale
wherein a trim schooner changed over
night to Il ghost-white sloop of war and
struck cold terror to the hearts of the
Aleuts Smonoski Island.
But the tale very properly begins in
the late nineties, when capt. Rlcnle
sailed from port unnamed across the
shambling Pacific, took bloody toll OF
holluscnickie seal. laughed at Russian
patrol and revenue cutter and became
prize much to be desired.
Richie did his own sweet Will in
Rering sea for five long years. Day
and night cutters and patrol boats held
in his wake, but he always got away
with his kill His luck held until
1898, when he planned and executed a
raid, and sailed away III the track OF
a seal herd which left the rocks in
September. dropped below the horizon
and was gone.
Ten years later she Kinsei Maru, long.
narrow of beam and loose forward SO
that she wriggled through the water
like a snake, sailed into Bering sea.
She was tall-sparred and black-hulled.
but. her trimness was marred by loose
rope ends that trailed carelessly over
her rail. japanese flag flew from her
fore.
y sNoW, in those ten years, the old Ca
madam sealing fleet, which Mclean and
Richie had known, had been superseded
by nondescript japanese craft Then,
from the lips of terror-stricken natives
ON Simonoski Island there was CLEANED
q tale of Il ghostly sloop of war which
had stood far off shore, with never d
sign of smoke from her crusted funnel
The night after the sloop was sighted,
said the natives, crew of fiends swept
down upon their village. The natives
fled for their lives, and when they re-
turned they found their cattle butchered
and their stores pillaged. They vowed
the sloop was no ship, but the phantom
of a ship, and that her crew were evil
spirits.
From other points along the coast
came tales of plunder Here Il store
house was looted; there natives were
beaten and robbed; always, said report,
when these incursions took place, some
where in the oiling, stood the ghost
white sloop, a long black schooner.
Always Were these ships apparently
between ports, yet never were they seen
at any pier.
:: ::
To the Attorney-General i'll Washing
ton the tales of plunder came. He
moved the wheels of government which
sent the cutter Bear scurrying to the
ravaged coast, and in the changel1ng
sloop and in the raids the officials
thought they saw the hne mana Oh
Richie.
But Richie, they were told by sailor
mems gossip, had retired to Hakodate
and had married u Japanese WIFE so
they duly chronicled their suspicious
in official report, and the Bear secured
the waters of the north Pacific for the
mysterious craft. Capt. Bertholf, IN
command of the cutter, knew that a
sailing schooner could be changed to
a sloop by the simple means OF a
Quaker" funnel of painted cloth and
guns cut from pine logs, and that even
the color of a hull might be changed by
covering it with IL stripping or Whlte
cloth. And so, firm in the bellef that
Richie had sailed forth from Hakodate,
he hunted for the kinsei Maru.
Great gray splotches of fog covered
the face of the sea July 22, l9oS.
Through the thick mist the cutter
Bear poked her nose, smelling out the
Japanese terror. Through the log
there came the sound of many shots,
for the hunters of the kinsei Maru
and the Saikai Maru were among
swimming herd of seal.
Bertholf slowed the cutter down to
minimum of noise and crept forward
on his quarry, suddenly dropping a
boatload of armed men into the midst
of the sealers. who. caught rcdhanded,
did not resist. sixty Japanese hunters