Evening capital news. (Boise, Idaho) 1901-1927, 1916-11-26
<fJAF'FERY"

| trivial and mechanical reason. Flo
could not burn the papers in his fiat.
because he had no ftre-only the cleo
| trio radiator.
Luckily, l have kept most of Jat
fery's letters written to me from all
| quarters of the globe Excepting those
| concerned with the voyage OF the s. 8.
Vesta, they were rare phenomena
Ordinarily, IL / heard from him thrice
a year l had to consider that he was
| indulging in an orgy of correspondence
But what with Doria and Adrian and
Liosha, and what with Barbara and
myself being SO intimately mixed up in
the matters which preoccupied his
mind, the voyage of the Vesta covered
period of abnormal epistoiary, ac-
tivity. Instead of a wife, our amateur
He wrote reams. He had the jour
naiist's trick OF instantaneous COM
| position. Like the Ouidaesque hero,
who could ride Derby winner with
one hand and stroke a university crew
to victory with the other, Jaffery could
with one hand hang onto a. rope over
| = yawnins abyss, while with the other
| he could scribble a graphic account OF
] the situation on--a knee supported
writing pad.
TITS a grand hfe. my boy! You're
against realities all the time. Not a
! EHan1 WITHIN the horizon. gu eat I'LL
/ you burst, work TAI you sleep, and sleep
till you're kicked awake. You should
| just see Liosha. Maturin gays he has
! only met one other woman sailor like
her. and that was the daughter of
| trader sailing among the islands. who
| had lived all her life since birth on
his ship, and had scarcely slept ashore.
| She's as much born to II as any shell
back on board. She has the amazing
| gift OF looking part of the tub, like O.
stockers and the man at the wheel
! Unlike another woman, she's never in
| the way, and the more work you can
| give her to do, the happier she Is She's
in magnificent health and as strong as
a horse. At first the hands didn't know
what to make of her; now she's friends
with the whole bunch"
At last he had something less trivial
to write about They were in the
Mozambique channel making for Mad
agascar:
Now that this darned cabin table is
comparatively straight, I can scribble
few lines to you. We've had beast
of a time. The dirtiest weather ever
| since we left Beira, and the cranky old
! tub rolling and pitching and standing
on her head as I've never known a
ship to do before Consequently the
cargo got shifted and there was list
! TO port, so that every time she ducked
that side, she shipped half the channel.
Skies black as thunder and the sea the
| color of inky water. We had the devil s
own job getting the cargo straight. OF
course, l had to go down into the in
ferno of the hold like the others. Part
Of the days work: but l didn't like 1t;
no one liked 1t.
when the order was given all hands
tunlbled up to the hatchway and be-
gan warming down the iron ladder.
1t was swaying, staggering crowd.
| When you stand on a wet deck at an
angle of forty-five degrees one way and
thirty five another and constantly
shifting both angles with nothing but
n rope dashed athwart the chip to catch
hold of, your mind is pretty we'll con
centrated on yourself. ] know mine
was. / slipped and wallowed ON my
belly, hanging on TO the rope like grim
death till my turn came for the lad
der. got my feet on the rungs. was
all right, when looking up onto the
livid daylight whom do you think
saw calmly preparing to follow mel
Liosha. I hadn't noticed her. She had
seaboots and a jersey and looked just
like q man. I roared:
Clear out. This is no place for you
I'm coming. Go along down
she put her foot on the rung Jus,
below my face. l gripped as much OF
her ankle as the stiff leather allowed
Clear out. Don't be a fool
I Andrews, the first mate, poured out
flood of blasphemy. What the this
that and the other were we waiting
, for?
80 I descended 1t was ordained
Losha followed. And once down we
were carried away out of ourselves by
a nightmare Of toll and peril Andrews
and second were there yelling orders
We obeyed in some subconscious way
How we heard | don't know. For peacs
md ciV hiatt Ioft nj
hours in semi darkness, scarce able t.
stand, fighting blind mad forces of hall
g. ton each.
'Liosha worked as we'll as any mar
| in the bunch. I only caught sight o.
her now ard then. you sc,
what we had to do don't yo1?
We had to secure all these inferno
, things that had got damned ON the por-
side. There were accidents Three OF
: four were knocked out. Petersen, tn,
Sweda had his leg crushed. Lioshs
r tofned me and we worked togethe-
without speaking. Her long, thick hal
had come down and she had hastily
r tied It In a knot, Just as you might II,
h knot In towel, and che had thrown
off things like everybody else, and onl,
f1imsy cotton, sleeveless bodice. o.
r whatever it's called drenched through
and sticking to her, made pretens'
OF covering her from her waist
I'VE had Just, with exhausted mus
. c1es, made whole stack fast, and wer,
, standing by, painting, ha@gard eyed, tn,
sweat running down anyhow, twenty o
US. Dagoes Dutchmen, Enslishmen. 4,
the dim twilight-just a shaft of pal
illumination coming slick down tn
y ladder where the hatch was open
t hanging ON to edges and corners o
cargo. when suddenly the ship, cau9h
Z on top of a wave. vibrated In a sicken
Ing shudder, plunged. and then with al
/ Impetus Of cataclysm. wallowed to star
board. Andrews shrieked, Stand cleari
r Most " the men leaped and nun,
o themselves away. But I stumbled an,
: fell. Before I realized the danger of ,
a vast sliding crate, two strong arm
: were curled around my waist and
;. was flung aside to slither and rol
down the swaylng deck until I wa
4 stopped by bullkhead. When | pickle,
o myself up. saw half the men securin,
the crate and the other half grovelIn,
n around something on the deck 1t wa
Z Liosha. She lay white and senseles