Evening Republican, Volume 20, Number 99, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 25 April 1916 — Page 2

The SEA WOLF

by JACK LONDON

SYNOPSIS. Humphrey Van Weyden, critic and dilettante, thrown into the water by the sinking of a ferryboat, on coming to nls senses, finds himself aboard the sealing schooner Ghost, Captain Wolf Larsen, bound to Japan waters. The captain refuse* to put Humphrey ashore and makes him cabin boy “for the good of his soul. He begins under the cockney cook. Mugridge. who steals his money and chases him whan accused of It Cooky is jealous of Hump and hazes Mm. Wolf .hazes a seaman and, makes it the basis for a, philosophic discussion with Hump. Wolf entertains Mugridge In his cabin, wins from him at cards the money he stole from Hump. Cooky and Hump whet knives at each other. Hump's Intimacy with Wolf Increases. Wolf sketches the story of his life, discusses the Bible, and Omar, and Illustrates the instinctive love of life by choking Hump nearly to death. A carnival of brutality breaks loose in the ship and Wolf proves himself the master brute. Wolf is knocked overboard at night, comes back aboard by the iogllne and wins clear In a fight In the forecastle. Hump dresses Wolf’s wounds and, despite his protest, is made mate on the hell-ship. Mr. Van Weyden tries to learn his duties as mate. Wolf hazes the men who tried to kill him. Van Weyden proves by his conduct in a blow, with all hands out in the boats among the. seal herd, that he has learned “to stand on his own legs.

CHAPTER XVll—Continued. Then they were gone astern. The spritsail filled with the wind, suddenly, careening the frail open craft till it seemed it would surely capsize. A whitecap foamed above it and broke across in a snow-white smother. Then the boat emerged, half swamped, Leach flinging the water out and Johnson clinging to the steering-oar, his face white and anxious. Wolf Larsen laughed, at the same time beckoning them with his arm to follow. It was evidently his intention to play with them, a lesson, I took it, in lieu of a beating, though a dangerous lesson, for the trail craft stood in momentary danger of being overwhelmed. Johnson squared away promptly and ran after us. There was nothing else for him to do. Still we Increased our lead, and when the boat had dropped astern several miles we hove to and waited. All eyes watched it coming, even Wolf Larsen’s; but he was the only unperturbed man aboard. Louis, gazing fixedly, betrayed a trouble in hia face he was not quite able to hide. The boat drew closer and closer, hurling along through the seething green like a thing alive, lifting and sending and uptosslng across the hugebacked breakers, or disappearing behind them only to rush into sight again and shoot skyward. It seemed impossible that it could continue to live, yet with each dizzying sweep it did achieve the impossible. A rain squall drove past, and out of the flying wet the boat emerged, almost upon us. “Hard up, there!" Wolf Larsen shouted, himself springing to the wheel and whirling it over. Again the Ghost sprang away and raced before the wind, and for two hours Johnson and Leach pursued us. We hove to and ran away, hove to and ran away, and ever r.stern the struggling patch of sail tossed skyward and fell into the rushing valleys. It ivas a quarter of a mile away when a thick squall of rain veiled it from view. It never emerged. The wind blew the air clear again, but no patch of sail broke the troubled surface. I thought I saw. for an instant, the boat’s bot-

"Good God, Sir, What Kind of a Craft Is This?”

tom show black In a breaking crest. At the best, that was aIL For Johnson and Leach the travail of existence had ceased. The men remained grouped amidships. No one had gone below, and no one was speaking. Nor were any looks being exchanged. Each man seemed stunned —deeply contemplative, as it were, and not quite sure, trying to realise just what had taken place. Wolf Larsen gavethemllttle time for thought. He at once put the Ghost upon her course —a course which meant the seal herd and not Yokohama harbor.' Put the men were no longer eager as they pulled and hauled, and I heard curses amongst them, which left their lips smothered

and as- heavy and lifeless as were they. Not so was it with the hunters. Smoke the irrepressible related a story, and they descended into the steerage, bellowing with laughter. As 1 passed to leeward of the galley on my way aft, I was approached by the engineer we had rescued. His face was white, his lips were trembling. “Good God! sir, what kind of a craft is this?" he cried. “You have 6yes, you have seen,’’ I answered, almost brutally, what of the pain and fear at my own heart “Your promise?” I said to Wolf Larsen. “I was not thinking of taking them aboard when I made that promise,” he answered. “And anyway, you’ll agree I’ve not laid my hands upon them.” "Far from it, far from it,” he laughed a moment later. I made no reply. I was incapable of speaking, my mind was too confused. I must have time to think, I knew. This woman, sleeping esan now in the spare cabin, was a responsibility which I must consider, and the only rational thought that flickered through my mind was that I must do nothing hastily if I were to be any help to her at all.

CHAPTER XVIII.

The remainder of the day passed uneventfully. Miss Brewster, we had learned her name from the engineer, slept on and on. At supper I requested the hunters to lower their voices, so she was not disturbed; and It was not till next morning that she made her appearance. It had been my intention to have her meals served apart, but Wolf Larsen put down his foot. Who was she that she should be too good for cabin table and cabin society? had been his demand. Wolf Larsen had little to say at first, doing no more than reply when he was addressed. Not that he was abashed. Far from it. His was the perfect poise, the supreme confidence in self, which nothing could shake; and he was no more timid of a woman than he was of storm and battle. “And when shall we arrive at Yokohama?” she asked, turning to him and loking him squarely in the eyes. There it was, the question flat. The jaws stopped working, the ears ceased wobbling, and though eyes remained glued on plates, each man listened greedily for the answer. “In four months, possibly three If the season closes early,” Wolf Larsen said. She caught her breath, and stammered, “I—l thought—l was given to understand that Yokohama was only a day’s sail away. It —” Here she paused and looked about the table at the circle of unsympathetic faces staring hard at the plates. “It is not right,” she concluded. “That is a question you must settle with Mr. Van W’eyden there,” he replied, nodding to me with a mischievous twinkle. “Mr. Van Weyden Is what you may call an authority on such things as rights. Now I, who am only a sailor, would look upon the sltuatinn somewhat differently. It may possibly be your misfortune that you have to remain with us, but it Is certainly our good fortune.” "I may be taken off by some passing vessel, perhaps,” she suggested. “There will be no passing vessels, except other sealing schooners,” Wolf Larsen nujde answer. “I haveno clothes, nothing,” she objected. “You hardly realize, sir, that I am not a man, or that I am unaccustomed to the vagrant, careless life which you and your men seem to lead.”

"I suppose you’re like Mr. Van Wey-| den there, accustomed to having things done for ycu. Well, I think doing a few things yourself will hardly dislocate any joints. By the way, what do you do for a living?” She regarded him with amazement unconcealed. "I mean no otFensd, believe me. People eat, therefore they must procure the wherewithal. These men here shoot seals in order to live; for the same reason I sail this schooner; and Mr. Van Weyden, for the present at any rate, earns his salty grub by assisting me. Now what do you do?” She shrugged her shoulders.. “At present,” she said, after slight pause. “I earn about eighteen hundred dollars a year.” With one accord, all Ayes left the plates and settled on her. A woman who earned eighteen hundred dollars a year was worth looking at. Wolf Larsen was undisguised in his admiration. ‘‘Salary or piecework?” he asked. “Piecework,” she answered promptly. “Eighteen hundred," he calculated. “That’s a hundred and fifty dollars a month. Well, Miss Brewster, there is nothing small about the Ghost. Consider yourself on salary during the time You remain with us.” She made no acknowledgment She was too unused as yet to the whims of the man to accept them with equanimity. —r- 'nr . "I forgot to inquire,” he went on

THE EVENING REPUBLICAN, RENSSELAER, IND.

IT/t*HE STORY Of\ 1 A MAN WHO i \IN HIS OWN Tittle world/ WAS A LAW

suavely, “as to the nature of your occupation. What commodities do you turn out? What tools and material do you require?” “Paper and ink,” she laughed. “And, oh! also a typewriter? 1 “You are Maud Brewster,” I said slowly and with almost as though I were charging her with a crime. Her eyes lifted curiously to mine. “How do you know?” “Aren’t you?” I demanded. She acknowledged her identity with a nod. It was Wolf Larsen’s turn to be puzzled. The name and its magic signified nothing to him. 1 was proud that it did mean something to me, and for the first time in a weary while I was convincingly conscious of a superiority over him. “I remember writing a review of a thin little volume—” I had begun carelessly, when she Interrupted me. “You!” she cried. “You are—” She was now staring at me in wideeyed wonder. I nodded my Identity, in turn. “Humphrey Van Weyden,” she concluded; then added with a sigh of relief, and unaware that she had glanced that relief at Wolf Larsen, "I am so glad.”

“I remember the review,” she went on hastily, becoming aware of the awkwardness of her remark; "that too, too flattering review.” “Not at all,” I denied valiantly. “You impeach my sober judgment and make my canons of little worth. Besides, all my brother critics were with me. Didn’t Lang include your ‘Kiss Endured’ among the four supreme sonnets by women in the English language?” “You are very kind, I am sure,” she murmured; and the very conventionality of her tones and words, with the host of associations it aroused of the old life on the other side of the world, gave me a quick thrill —rich with remembrance but stinging sharp with homesickness.

“And you are Humphrey Van Weyden,” she said, gazing back at me with equal solemnity and awe. “How unusual! I don’t understand. We surely are not to expect some wildly romantic sea story from your sober pen?” “No, I am not gathering material, I assure you,” was my answer. “I have neither aptitude nor inclination for fiction.” "Tell me, why have you always buried yourself in California?" she next asked. “It has not been kind of you. We of the East have seen so very little of you—too little, Indeed, of the Dean of American Letters, the Second." I bowed to, and disclaimed, the compliment. “I nearly met you, once, in Philadelphia, some Browning affair or other —you were to lecture, you know. My train was four hours late.” And then we quite forgot where we were, leaving Wolf Larsen stranded and silent in the midst of our flood of gossip. The hunters left the table and went on deck, and still we talked. Wolf Larsen alone, remained. Suddenly I became aware of him, leaning back from.the table and listening curiously to our alien speech of a world he did not know. I broke short oft in the middle of a sentence. The present, with all ita perils and anxieties, rushed upon me with stunning force. It smote Miss Brewster likewise, a vague and nameless terror rushing into her eyes as she regarded o Wolf Larsen. He rose to his feet and laughed awkwardly. The sound of It was metallic. “Oh, don’t mind me," he said, with a self-depreciatory wave of his hand. “I don’t count. Go on, go on, I pray you.” But the gates of speech were closed, and we, too, rose from the table and laughed awkwardly.

CHAPTER X-IX. The chagrin Wolf Larsen felt from being ignored by Maud Brewster and me in the conversation at table had to express itself In some fashion, and it fell to Thomas Mugridge to be the victim. He had not mended his ways nor his shirt, though the latter he dontended he had changed. The garment itself did not bear out the assertion, nor did the accumulations of grease on stove and pot and pan attest a general cleanliness. “I’ve given you warning, Cooky,” Wolf Larsen said, “and now you’ve got to take your medicine.” Mugridge’s face turned white under Its sooty veneer, and when Wolf Larsen called for a rope and a couple of men, the miserable cockney fled wildly out of the galley and dodged and ducked about the deck with the grinning crew in pursuit Few things could have been more to their liking than to give him a tow over the side, Tor to the forecastle he —had — sent messes and concoctions of the vilest order. • As usual, the wrtches below and the hunters turned out for what promised sport Mugridge exhibited a nimbleness and speed we did not dream he possessed. Straight aft he raced, to

the poop aad along the poop to the stern. So great was his' speed that as be curved past the corner of the cabin he slipped and fell. Nilson was standing at the wheel, and the cockney’s hurtling body struck his legs. Both went down together,but Mugridge alone arose. By some freak of pressures, his frail body had snapped the strong man’s leg like a pipestem. Parsons took the wheel, and the pursuit continued. Round and round the decks they went. Mugridge sick with fear, the sailors hallooing and shouting directions to one another, and the hunters bellowing encouragement and laughter. Mugridge went down on the fore-hatch under three men; he emerged from the mass, bleeding at the mouth. The battle was over, and Wolf Larsen rove a bowline in a piece of rope and slipped it under his shoulders. Then he was carried aft and flung into the sea. Forty, fifty, sixty feet of line ran out, when Wolf Larsey cried “Belay!” Oofty-Oofty took a turn on a bitt, the rope tautened, and the Ghost, lunging onward, Jerked ths cook to the surface. I had forgotten the existence of Maud Brewster, and I remembered her with a start aa she stepped lightly

He Was Carried Aft and Flung Into the Sea.

beside me. It was her first time on deck since she had come aboard. A dead silence greeted her appearance. Her eyes lighted on Oofty-Oofty, immediately before her, his body instinct with alertness and grace as he held the turn of the rope, _ "Are "you fishing?” she asked him. He made no reply. His eyes, fixed intently on the sea astern, suddenly flashed. “Shark ho, sir!” he cried. “Heave in! Lively! All hands tail on!” Wolf Larsen shouted, springing himself to the rope in advance of the quickest. (TO BE CONTINUED.)

TIMBERING MINES IS COSTLY

Owners Compelled to Put Millions of Dollars Underground Every Year of Operation. Nearly 90,000,000 cubic feet of tim ber are placed in the anthracite mines of. Pennsylvania every year, if an estimate in the Colliery Engineer, lately acquired by Coal Age, that the amount of timber in anthracite mines is approximately one cubic foot for every ton of coal mined, is correct. The timbered gangways and drifts cover a vast extent, exceeding 7,000 miles, and the closely timbered shafts with their miles of heavy guide timbers which must be constantly replaced, form a large item. The total output since the beginning of anthracite mining is over 2,500,000,000 tons. A billion tons of water, or over 11 times as many tons as the coal produced during the year, must be pumped out of the anthracite mines every year. According to the chief of the Pennsylvania department of mines the timbering is an even greater expense than the pumping. The cost of placing this vast forest below ground is staggering.

The cost of the material is given as about 6.5 cents per cubic foot for round timber and 20 cents per cubic foot for sawed timber. At the lower figure this would make 90,000,000 cubic feet cost $5,850,000. In addition to this, there are millions of mine ties, and heavy white oak is used for the mine cars. The use of steel timbers, which are being adopted on account of their longevity, for main gangways, turnouts, pump rooms and shaft and slope bottoms, will add to the total cost of mining for the next few years, but will effect a final saving. Most of the timber now used in the anthracite mines is yellow pine from the South.

Successful Brain Amputation.

The Paris Journal cites a surgical miracle. Doctor Guepin expounded before the Academy of Science the case of a soldier of twenty-two years of age, who had to undergo a partial amputation of the brain. The wounded man has so far recovered tflat he will not be discharged from the active army. The doctor verified the fact that the rapid removal of a part of the cerebral matter has been productive of no appreciable trouble. The operation depends for its success on speed and boldness. -

Kind Words.

Belle—l think the short skirts ar* so becoming to most girls, and that'i why I like them. Nell—That's real noble <4 your dea; with your feet, toq> ‘

Playground Is Now A Battleground

THE rising generation will know more of geography than any of Its predecessors. Nothing teaches geography like war, more than any other, this war. South Africa, the Cameroons, East Africa, the Sinaltic peninsula, the PerSian gulf, Armenia, the Dardanelles and all central Europe have been the scenes of dramatic events in which everyone has been forced to take interest. And those events have in every case been conditioned by the formation and climate of the countries in , which they have occurred. The world scene of warfare has become real to us through the many detailed accounts printed by the newspapers and the memory of what has thus been impressed upon us will not soon pass away. Nothing was further removed from the minds of most peace-time tourists in their wanderings than to look at the countries through which they passed -as likely in their own day to be devastated by war. Occasionally one becomes conscious of the existence of forts in recondite lofty positions, but these he was not permitted to approach and seldom wanted to. Jf he crossed the Brenner by railway from Innsbruck to Italy he could scarcely avoid noticing the fortifications of Franzensfeste, but why they should be there and what they were expected to attain —as to all that the mere tourist thought little and cared less. For no landscape in the world is less suggestive of war than a mountain landscape. Nature seems to have built up mountains to keep hostile people apart. She might have done the work a great deal better. Why did she leave here and there such notable gaps in their ranges? Why did she spread those ranges out so widely from side to side, and dip into them such attractive valley approaches? Form No Racial Boundary. There is hardly a mountain range in the world that does not Invite men to traverse it somewhere. The Alps are particularly thus breached, with the result that for all their formidable

appearance they have ns often connected as sundered the peoples on either side of them. They form today no racial boundary. From the earliest ages the people in the north have pressed down over them and even the loftiest Italian valleys on the south slope of Monte Rosa itself are colonized by a Teutonic stock. Thus it happens that the Italian Ticino and Italian Tyrol both remain under Teutonic government and the frontier of the Alps has never, In fact* been the political frontier of Italy. The Alpine playground of Europe takes a great deal of knowing. In a visitor’s first season the great snow mountains impose their eminence upon him, and If he is likewise a climber he will have little attention to spare for valleys, but will spend his wonder upon the glaciers and the high crags and the great phenomena of the central mountains. But when the first flush of novelty has passed from them the maturer lover of the Alps finds delights no less keen at lower levels. The valleys have each a character of their own and the mountains themselves are not all alike. There are mountains built hf rryßtAllina rock and others of limestones of different qualities and colors. It is not necessarily the highest and hardest that take the firmest hold upon our affections. The great Matterhorns and Schreckhorns are always glorious, but so are

the smaller peaks of the Maritimes, of the graceful Cottians.'or of recondite Dauphine. To each region there is a charm all its own. And as with the peaks, so with the valleys. The better we come to know them the more varied do we find them. We soon learn to divide them into two main contrasting groups: Those that incline northward, mainly into German lands, and those that bend south down to the rich Italian plain, and these latter are far more charming than the others. Are Essentially Different. In ancient days the region north of the Alps was mainly a dense forest. South of them has always been the open fertile Italian plain. The winds from the north were dry and cold; those from the south warm and laden with fertilizing moisture. Thus nature herself Imposed a different atmosphere upon these two sundered regions; and though now, on both sides,, the forests have been driven aloft and the lands suitable for it have been tamed beneath the plow, the essential difference abides. Fertile Italy climbs aloft from one side; strenuous Germany from the other. The very domestic architecture proclaims the difference. The Italian valleys of the Alps are old friends of the sun and of the vine. Bacchus and Pan are there at home. They seem to open to the visitor a warm heart. Even where the lemon cannot bloom the scent of it seems to penetrate. The southern valleys always seem to draw one from the Alpine heights as those to the northnever can. You may not be able to see the Mediterranean far to the south, but you know and seem to feel that it is there, and thither you are impelled by the strange force that has drawn the men of the north southward since the days when the Dorians swept down upon the Aegean and long before. This southward tendency it was that brought the Germans over into Italy—the Franks under Charlemagne, the Ottonlans and the Hohenstaufen later —and it is the remnant of their con-

View From the Breuil Forest.

quests of Italian soli that Italy Is now seeking to rend from the grasp of the Hapsburgs. • A glance at the map shows that tongue of hill country, by nature Italian, which Austria holds —the west side of it stretching down due south from near the Stelvio to the head of Lake Garda, whence its eastern boundary slopes northeastward up to the ridge of the Carnlc Alps. Within this triangle is contained one of the loveliest £lll countries in the The great snowy groups of Ortler, Oetzthal, Zlllerthal and the Tauern do not belong to it. They are essentially German, these severe crystalline ranges. But all that Is below —the smiling valleys, the crimsoned limestone peaks and walls of the Dolomites, the rich valleys that drain Into the Adige or into Garda—these are .Italian, Italian in atmosphere, in color, In vegetation, in architecture, m language and sentiment, and whatever else gives character to a land. -——— To the traveler it is the Dolomite mountains rather than the folk or any other feature that distinguish this region. They are in their way good to climb, but they are far more wonderful to look at Half a century ago their peaks were mostly untrodden; how guns have been mounted upon points whose first ascent may have been proudly chronicled within the memory of living men.