The Bottineau courant. (Bottineau, Bottineau County, N.D.) 1895-1929, 1916-08-03

IAV N"AAAAAAS 01AAAo ~
land. biting his nails to the quick.
CHAPTER XIV
"Hold That Vessel"
On the fifteenth day after leaving
Sydney, the Marriott family, four
strong, arrived in the harbor of Pa
petit, Tahiti Island, just before sun
down. 1880.
They went ashore with all their
trunks and baggage, which made quite
an imposing array. They found &C.
Communications in the little hotel, so
called, where the dashing beauty OF
young Mrs. Marriott and the girlish
loneliness OF the two daughters Great
ed considerable of 'commotion.
Next morning leaving the fair
members of his party to amuse them
selves as they saw fit, Marriott busted
himself making inquiries of the yacht
Runaway. While he felt he was on a
wild goose chase with about one
chance in a thousand of getting re-
suits, he was not the sort of man 10
neglect anything he had set out to do.
On the voyage from Sydney he had
enlisted the aid of several of the
| steamship officers. They were all fam
il1ar with the details of the robbery
and the getaway.
All San Francisco was talking about
it when their ship was last there. Mar
riott and the officers studied maps
| and charts and after eliminating n
place after another by a process Of
.lIreasoning, they finally came to the
Ieconclusion that Hemenway and his
1scrowd had gone exactly where they
ibid go; that is to say, they believed
the yacht sailed for the South Seas
land, carefully avoiding the well known
| islands, had put in, for a time at least,
| on some island seldom visited by the
J rowing trader.
China, Japan, the Philippines, and
| the islands of Oceanica where steam
ships called were crossed off the list
| Of likely places. The officers agreed
with Marriott that he could do no bet
ter than land at Tahiti, spend several
weeks there if necessary and inter-
view everybody, especially the cap
tains of trading vessels as they Iarriv-
| ed from time to time.
So Marriott first sought the Tahi-
| tian authorities where he learned that
l the San Francisco police had sent
them circulars relating to the ,sensa-
| tional affair. These circulars contain
ed pictures of the yacht and full :des-
criptions of Hemenway, Mcdonald,
Lent, and the Carteret twins.
There were five in the party, the
circular said, but Mcdonald was with
| It against his will.
The authorities, who were of the
1 lazy kind that infest that region, told
| Marriott they had NO information on
1.-THE matter. and confessed they had
flost no sleep over 1t. Trading vessels
arriving every little while, and
tMarriott was advised to seek informa-
ktion from them
For two days Marriott worked like
q. cub reporter. He combed the island
| dry for news Of the missing schooner
yacht, but met with no encourage
ment.
The Marriott party had been at
Papeiti nearly a week, during which
the female members of the family had
explored nearly everything on the is
; land that was worth exploring and
were beginning to tire OF it, when
quite, early M morning a trader sail
| ed into the harbor. dropped her sails,
and anchored.
Marriott was the first man to greet
the captain when he stepped from his
gig. He held a picture of the Runa-
way up Ito the gaze Of the s~eafaring
man, and said in 4 quick. businesslike
tone:
"Captafn, have You lately seen =
schooner yacht that looked like that
one?"
The ,captain, a gnarled and weather
beaten veteran of the tropics. fumbled
for his spectacle-case and put on q
pair of steel bowed glasses. Then he
looked Marriott over from head to
feet, after which he turned his atten-
ton to the picture. This he scanned
lOnS n earnestly.
At last he said:
"Why. yes, I cen n that looks
like her not three hours ago, but Run
away amt the name of her. At that
I'd come nea swearing it was the
same schooner"
Marriott grew visfbly excited.
Where is she now?, he demanded.
She'll be along: she1i be along.
She hailed me just after daylight this
morning. She was under short sail, and
I run up close to 9 what was want
cd. She lost her anchor somehow,
and wanted me to find out II there
was q small spare one in Papeiti
"She was to lay off outside. and II
there was I was to signal her and
make some sort Of arrangement to
get It on q raft or something 30 she
could sail in the harbor and lay to
while the anchor wal bent on the CO.
bic. You see, she can't take q chance