Evening Republican, Volume 22, Number 175, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 July 1919 — Page 2

PIECES OF EIGHT

CH APTE R tl n u ed. ’ —l2 "We needn't go any farther,” said, the “king.” “It’s the same all the way along to the mouth —all overgrown as you see, all the way, right out to the ‘white water' as they call it—which is four miles of shoal sand that Is seldom deeper than two fathoms, and which a nor’easter is Hable to blow dry for a week on end. Naturally it’s a hard place to'find, and a hard place to get off!—and only two or three persons besides Sweeney —all of them our friends —know the way in. Tobias may know of it; but to know It is one thing, to find it is another matter. I could hardly be sure of it myself—-if I were standing in from the sea, with nothing but the long palmetto-fringed coast line to go by. “Now you see it? I brought you here, because words —” “Even yours, dear ‘king,’ ” I laughed. « —could not explain what I suggest for us to do. You are interested in Tobias. Tobias is interested in you. lam interested in you both. And Calypso and I have a treasure to guard.” “I have still a treasure to seek,” I said, half to myself. “Now, to be practical. We can assume that Tobias Is on the watch. I don’t mean that he’s around here just now, for before we left I spoke to Samson and Erebus and they will pass the word to four men blacker than themselves; therefore we can assume that this square mile or so is for the moment ‘to ourselves.’ But beyond our fence you may rely that Tobias and his myrmidons—is that the word?” he asked with a concession -to his natural foolishness —“are there. “So,” he went on, “I want you to go down to your boat tomorrow morning to say goodby to the commandant, the parson and the postmaster; to haul up your sail and head for Nassau. Call in on Sweeney on the way, buy an extra box of cartridges, and say ‘Dleu et mon Droit’ —it is our password; he will understand, but, if he shouldn’t, explain in your own way that you come from me. and that we rely upon him to look out for our interest. Then head straight for Nassau; but, about eight o’clock, or anywhere around twilight, turn about and head —well, we’ll map It out on the chart at home —anywhere up to eight miles along the coast till you come to a light low down right on the edge of the water. As soon as you see It drop anchor; then wait till morning—the very beginning of dawn. As soon as you can see land look out for Samson —within a hundred yards of you—all the land will look alike to you. Only make the captain head straight for Samson, and just as you think you are going to run ashore— Well, you will see!”

CHAPTER V. Old Friends. Next morning I did as the “king” had told me to do. The whole program was carried out just as he had planned it. I made my goodbys in the settlement, as we had arranged, not forgetting to say “Dieu et mon Droit” to Sweeney, and watching with some humorous intent how he would take it. He took it quietly, as a man j in a signal box takes a signal, with j about as much emotion and with just the same, necessary seriousness. “Tell the boss,” he said—of course he meant the “king"-—“that we are looking after him. Nothing’ll slip through here, if we can help it. Good luck I” . So I went down to the boat —to old Tom once more, and the rest of our : little crew, who had long since ex- i hausted the attractions of their life' ashore and were glad, as I was, to “H’ist Up the John B. Sail.” Down in my cabin I looked over; some mail that had been waiting for i me at the post office. Amongst it was a crisp, characteristic word from Charlie Webster—for. whom the gun ; will ever be mightier than the pen: “Tobias escaped—just heard he is on your island —watch out. Will follow in a day or two.” ■ I came out on deck about sunset. We were running along with all our sails drawing like a dream. 1 looked back at the captain, proud and quiet and happy there at the helm, and nodded a smile to him, which he returned with a flash of his teeth. He loved his boat; he asked nothing better than to watch her behaving just as she was doing. And the other boys seemed quiet and happy too. lying along the sides of the house, ready for the captain’s order, but meanwhile content to look up at the great sails and down agaiii at the sea. We were a -ship and a ship’s crewall at peace w»th one another, and contented with ourselves —rushing and singing and spraying through the water. We were all friends —sea and sails and crew together. I couldn't help thinking that a mutiny would be hard to arrange under such a combination of influences. . , /-/• . Tom was sitting forward plaiting a rope. For all our experiences together he never implied that he was!

anything more than the ship's cook, with the privilege of waiting upon me In the,Cubin at my meals. But of course he knew that I had quite another valuation of him, and as our eyes met I beckoned to him to draw closer to ine. “Tom,” I said, “I -have found my treasure.” “You don't say so, sar.” “Quite true, Tom,” I continued; “you shall see my treasure tomorrow; meanwhile read this note.” Tom was so much to me that I wanted him to know all about the details of the ententrise we shared together, and in which he risked his life no less than 1 risked mine. Tom took out his spectacles from some recess of his trousers and applied himself to„ Charlie Webster’s note, as though it had been the Bible. He read it as slowly, indeed, as if it had been Sanscrit, and then folded it and handed it back to me without a word. But there was quite a young smile in his old eyes. ‘“The wonderful works of God,!” he said presently. “I guess, sar, we shall soon be-able to ask him what- he meant by that expression.” Soon the long, dhrk shore loomed ahead of us. I had reckoned it out about right. But the captain announced that we were in shoal water. “How many feet?” I asked, and a boy threw out the lead. “Sixteen and a half,” he said. “Go ahead,” I called out. “Do you want to go aground?” asked the captain. For answer I pushed him aside and took the wheel. I had caught the smallest glimmer, like a night light, floating on the water. “Drop the anchor,” I called. The light inshore was clear and near at hand, about one hundred yards away, and there was the big murmur and commotion of the long breakers over the dancing shoals. The tide was running out very fast, and the white sand coming ever nearer to our eyes in the moonlight; and Samson's light, there, was keeping white and steady. With the thought of my treasure and the “king” so near by it was hard to resist the temptation to plunge In and follow my heart ashore. But I managed to control the boyish impulse, and presently we were all snug, and some of us snoring below decks, rocked In the long swells of the shoal water that gleamed milkily like an animated moonstone under the stars — old Sailor curled up at my feet, just like old .times. I woke just as dawn was waking too. very still and windless; for the threatening nor'easter had changed its mind, and the world was as quiet as though there weren’t a human being in it. As the light grew I scanned the shore to see whether I could detect the entrance of the hidden creek; but, though I swept it up and down again and again, it continued to justify the “king’s” boast. There was no sign of an opening anywhere. Nothing but a straight line of brush, with man-

“Drop the Anchor!" I Cried.

groves here and there stepping down in their fantastic way into the water. And yet we were but a hundred yards from the shore. Certainly “Blackbeard" —if the haunt had really been hts —had known his business; for an enemy could have sought him all day along this coast and found no clue to his hiding place. But presently, as my eyes kept on seeking, a figure rose, tall and black, near the water's edge, a little to our left, and shot up a long arm by way of signal. It was Samson ; and evidently the mouth of ttie creek was right thebe in front of us—under our very noses, so to hay—and yet it was Impossible to make it out. However, at this signal, I stirred up the still sleenina crew, and presently we had

Copjright by Doubled*y, Page A Company.

THE EVENING REPUBLICAN. RENSSELAER. IND.

By Richard Le Gallienne

Being the Authentic Narrative of a Treasure Discovered in the Baha'ma Islands in the Year 1003. Now First Given to the Public.

the anchors up, and the engine started at the slowest possible speed. The tide was beginning to run in, so we needed very little way on us. I pointed out Samson to the captain, and, following the “king’s” instructions, told him- to steer straight for the negro. Samson stood there and called: “All right, sar. Keep right on. You'll see your way in a minute.” And, sure enough, when we were barely fifty feet away from the shore, and there seemed nothing for it but to run dead aground, low down through the floating mangrove branches we caught sight of a narrow gleam starting inland, and in another moment or two our decks were swept with foliage as the Flamingo rustled in, like a bird to cover, through an opening in the bushes barely •’twice her beam; and there before us, snaking through the brush, was a lane of water which immediately began to broaden between palmetto-fringed banks, and was evidently deep enough for a much larger vessel. —r— . “Plenty of water, sar,” hallooed Samson from the bank, grinning a huge welcome. “Keep a-going after me,” and he started trotting along the creek side. ® Samson went trotting along the twisting banks, we cautiously feeling our way after him, for something like a quarter of a mile; and then, coming round a sudden bend, the creek opened out into a sort of basin. On the left bank stood two large palmetto shanties. Samson indicated that there was our anchorage; and then, as we were almost alongside of them, the cheery halloos of a well-known voice hailed us. It was the “king;” and as I answered his welcome the morning suddenly sang for me —for there, too, was Calypso at his side. The Water ran so deep at the creek's side that we were able to moor the Flamingo right up against the bank, and when I had jumped ashore and greeted my friends, and the “king” had executed a brief characteristic fantasia on the manifest advantages of having a hidden pirate’s creek in the family, he unfolded his plans, or rather that portion of them that was necessary at the moment.

CHAPTER VI. An Old Enemy. Charlie Webster’s laconic note was naturally our chief topic over breakfast. “Tobias escaped—just heard he is on your island. Watch out. Will follow in a day or two.!’ The “king” read it out, when I handed him the note across the table. w Your friend writes like a true man of action,” he added, “like Caesar — and also the electric telegraph. We must send word to Sweeney to be on the lookout for him. I will send Samson the Redoubtable with a message to him this morning. Meanwhile we will smoke and think.” Then for the next hour the “king” thought—aloud; while Calypso and I sat and listened, occasionally throw-ing-in a parenthesis of comment or suggestion. It was evident, we all agreed, that Calypso had been right. It had been Tobias and none other whose evil eye had sent her so breathless back to me, waiting in the shadow of the woods; and it was the same evil eye that had fallen vulture-like on her golden doubloon exposed on Sweeney’s counter. It was clear that there were such coins on the island in somebody’s possession. Then, when he had watched Calypso bn her way home —and without any doubt been the spectator of our meeting at the edge of the wood though we had been unable to catch sight of him —there would of course be a suspicion in his mind that my quest might at least ’be approaching success, and that his ancestral millions might be almost in my hands. That there might be some other treasure on the island with which neither he nor his grandfather had any concern would not occur to him, nor would it be likely to trouble him if it did. My presence was enough to prove that the treasure was his—for was it not his treasure that I was after? Logic irrefutable! How was he to know that all the treasure so far discovered '\as that modest hoard —Unearthed, as I heard, in the garden —the present whereabouts of which was known only to Calypso. The “king” had interrupted himself at this point of argument. “By the way, Calypso, where is it?” he asked unexpectedly, to the sudden confusion of both of us. “Isn't it time you revealed your mysterious Aladdin’s cave?” At the word “cave” the submerged rose in Calypso’s cheeks almost came to the surface of their beautiful olive. “Cave!” she countered manfully, “who said it was a cave?” i. “It was merely a figure of speech, which—if I may say so, my dearmight apply with equal fitness, say—to a silk stocking.” v And Calypso laughed through another tide of rose-color. “No. dad, not that, either. Never

mind where it is;” It is perfectly safe, I assure you.” “But are you sure, my dear? Wouldn’t it be safer, after all, here in the house? How can you be certain that no one but yourself will accidentally discover it,?” “I am absolutely certain that no one will,” she answered, with an emphasis on the last three words which sent a thrill through me, for I knew that it was meant for me. “Of course, dad,” she added, “if you insist —you shall have it. But seriously I think it is safer where it is, and if I were

“Isn’t It Time You Revealed Your Mysterious Aladdin’s Cave?"

to fetch it, how can I be sure that no one” —she paused, with a meaning which I, of course, understood —“Tobias, for instance, would see me going—and follow me.” “To be sure —to be sure,” said the “king.” “What do you think, Friend Ulysses?” “I think It morg than likely that she might be followed,” I answered, “and I quite agree with Miss Calypso. I certainly wouldn’t advise her to visit her treasure just now—with the woods probably full of eyes. In fact,” I added, smiling frankly at her, “I could scarcely answer for myself even —for I confess that she has filled me with an overpowering curiosity.” “So be it then,” said the “king;” “and now to consider what our friend here graphically speaks of as those eyes in the woods.” The “king” then made a determined descent into the practical. The woods, most probably, were full of eyes. In plain prose, we were almost certainly being watched. Unless —unless, indeed, my bogus departure for Nassau had fooled Tobias as we had hoped. But, even so, with that lure of Calypso’s doubloon ever before him, it was too probable that he would not leave the neighborhood without some further investigation—“an investigation,” the “king” explained, “which might well take the form of a midnight raid; mtjrdered in our beds, and so forth.” That being so, being in fact almost a certainty—the “king” spoke as though he would be a much disappointed man otherwise —we must look to our garrison. After all, besides ourselves, we’had but Samson and Erebus and their dark brethren of doubtful courage, while Tobias probably had command of a round dozen of doughty desperadoes. On the whole, perhaps, it might be* best to avail ourselves of the crew of the Flamingo—“under cover of the dark,” he repeated with a smile. While we'Tiad'been talking Samson had long since been on his way with thb word to Sweeney to look out for Webster, and as he had been admonished to hurry back it was scarcely noon when he returned, bringing in exchange a verbal message from Sweeney. “The pockmarked party,” ran the message as delivered by Samson, “had left the harbor in his sloop that morning. Yes, sar!” “Ha! ha I” laughed he “king,” turning to me. “So two can play at that game, says Henry P. Tobias, Jr. But if we haven’t fooled him let’s make sure that he hasn’t fooled us. We’ll bring up your crew all the same—what do you think?” “Under cover of the dark,” I assented. The “king’s” instructions to me were that I was not to ’show my nose outside the house. I must regard myself as -a prisoner with the entire freedom of his study—a large, airy room on the second floor, well furnished with all manner of books, old prints, strange fishes in glass cases, rods, guns, pipe racks, curiosities of every kind from various parts, of the world. (TO BE CONTINUED.)

GAS BILLS ARE REDUCED WHEN TRICKS DF COOKING RANGE ARE KNOWN TO HOUSEWIFE

Removable Oven Saves Gas With Dishes Requiring Short-Time Baking.

(Prepared by the United States Department of Agriculture.) Are you acquainted with your gas range? If you are not, it will pay you well to take time to learn more about it. Many experiments are being tried on gas ranges in the experimental kitchen of the office of home economics, United States department of agriculture, and interesting results are being obtained. You will find it worth while to try some of the same experiments with your stove; others will probably suggest themselves, and your acquaintance with the stove w’ill increase accordingly. How much gas do you use when you are getting the Sunday dinner? You can find out by reading the gas meter before the cooking starts and after the cooking is done. If you do not remember just how to read It, ask the gas man to explain it to you when he comes around the next time. The habit of reading the meter once a week andjeomparing amounts used will help to keep gas saving in mind and make 1 it possible to calculate your gas bill. In the preparation of that dinner count the ways by which you could save gas. If you are one of the many who light the gas before the teakettle is filled and who forget to turn off the heat the minute the pie is baked, you will find those are good times to begin to save. If you test the heat given by various kinds of flames, you will find that the short, stiff, clear, blue flame brings best results. It is a waste of time and gas to use the high, smoking, yellow flame, which results when too much air is mixed with the gas and which you can prevent by partially closing the air shutter. Never turn the flame so high that it is brought up close to the kettle and flares around it, for this wastes gas, makes the flame less hot and blackens the kettle. Try the Simmerer. Many gas stoves have at least four kinds of burners— including a giant burner and a simmerer and a large part of gas economy consists in knowing which one to use, and when. If you consider the little simmerer burner on your range a mere ornament and of no real use you are underrating, its value. It uses from onefifth to one-sixth as much gas as the other top burners and will keep a kettle boiling after it has been brought to the boil on one of the other top burners. The giant burner uses from three to six cubic feet an hour more than the other top burners, so it should be used only when absolutely necessary. As soon as a kettle boils, see how far you can turn the gas down and still keep it boiling. The experimental kitchen has found that it will continue to boil with the burner turned down from one-half to one-third. Also, if that pan or kettle is large bottomed, the gas will be better utilized than if it is smaller than the burner. Keep the Burners Clean. The easiest way to keep burners clean, of course, is by the ounce-of-prevention method. Never allowing boiling over is the best way of keeping the burners clean, but if the accident should happen the burners can be removed easily and scrubbed in soap and water. A wire will assist in cleaning the holes if they still remain clogged. Removable Oven In Gas Saving. The range oven requires much more gas an hour than one top burner does, so it must be used carefully if the gas bill is to be reduced. If you do much baking in small Quantities you can save gas with a small removable oven to be used on the top of the stove. Tests showed a great difference when one-egg cakes were baked for one hour at the same temperatures in the small and range ovens. In rhe small oven the cake requires seven cubic feet of gas while in the range oven it required twelve cubic feet, u difference in cost, when figured at $1

for 1,000 cubic feet, of one-half cent for the one cake. The time required to heat the oven before baking begins also varies greatly in the two kinds. The small oven will come up to 500 degrees F. in five minutes while the range oven requires twenty to thirty. Therefore, if the oven is to be used for only a short time the small oven would be a great advantage. The small oven, nevertheless, has Its disadvantages. A cake so big that its edges are rather close to the sides of the oven will not be well baked, because the heat at the sides will be much greater than in the center. Dishes requiring an even temperature, a very high or a very low temperature for a certain length of time, are not successfully baked in the small oven unless close attention is paid to the regulation of the heat. This is true because the temperature of the oven is variable. Its sides are thin and the bottom does not well retard the passage of heat. For the breakfast muffins or the baking powder biscuits for dinner, however, the small oven is excellent. If one dish of the meal should re-‘ quire the range oven, plan to bake as much of the remainder of the dinner as possible, for in that way the heat will not be wasted. For instance, if the main dish of the meal is to be a big casserole of tomato, cheese and rice, it would be wise to choose baked potatoes rather . than boiled, and a baked dessert In preference to a pudding made in the double boiler. If oven room permits, muffins or biscuits would add greatly to the meal and would require little extra fuel.

OBSERVE THESE TEN RULES IN SAVING GAS

(Prepared by the United States Department of Agriculture.) Read your meter each week, calculate for yourself Jhe cost of the fuel that cooks your meals. Light the flame just as it is to be used. Turn the gas off as soon as the cooking is done. Use a short, clear, blue flame. Use the simmerer whenever possible. Always turn the burner down after the kettle starts to boil. Use the utensil which has a bottom of the right size to utilize the heat most effectively. .» Keep the burner clean. Use small oven whenever possible. When range oven is used be sure all the heat is utilized.

JUICE OF GRAPES FOR PIES

Used Instead of Vinegar in Making Mincemeat Will Add Rich and Delicious Flavor. When making mincemeat try using the juice of grapes or any other kind of fruit instead of vinegar, or use part vinegar and part fruit juice. The pies will be much richer and have a delicious flavor.

HOUSEHOLD QUESTIONS

Use gelatin immediately after dissolving for ice cream. * » • Wash black silks in water in which pared potatoes have boiled. There is uo question of the value of green salads in any dietary. Rubber-headed tacks should ba used on the backs of pictures.