Evening Star Newspaper, April 6, 1924, Page 78

4 —_— JONAH HEN first he was " M\‘ Baliang he wore one leg | of @ pair of trousers and | two weeks' growth 4»[: bristly gray beard and little of an; this scant but patri- archal attire he appeared at the Rev. David Colhoun's evening service, | where he fluttered the faithful Gilbert Islanders with wixed emotic They | peeped between their devotional fin- | gers and shuddered at the shameless | stranger who issucd from the saffron | sunset, somewhere behind the spiky | line of the mission jack fruit trees. | I The Rev. David Colhoun was not | thing else. In pleased. For terror dwelt on | License and pillage had ruled peaceful isle all day, and rum had | flowed like cocoanut milk. Back in the lagoon lay the ruffian ship of | pirates and pearl poachers, who had | come to rob and stayed to riot. The very singing of the hymns had been ! punctuated with the pinging of r volver shots. In this dark hour who <hould remain—aye, and did remain— the sole shield of his people against alien outrage? Who but the Rev David himself” No onc had ever questioned the courage of the gaunt Scots missio ary of Baliang. He had proved it that day. Three times he had faced leader of the villainous crew of alloway Lass below and three times had won his polnt, singl handed, until even that great, dark sleepy-eyed devil had given up trying | to frighten him And here in his own chapel he stood ready for further defene, if need should be. But the stranger 1ade no provocative move. He stayed clinging to a post, blinking in upon that s and hostile gathering until, with a tardy start and an oddly deprecatory gesture, as if conscious e first time of the | and the presence he had invaded. he sidled to the end of a bench and dropped there Colhoun's nervous hand caught up the = and cast it dramatically into h newed petitic. He finished in a f t that whipped » eolor to his eck. The con- sation T zced, perhaps, on word in ten—it is not easy to pra ex tempore the Gilbert Island tongue—but aught his drift quite well. Earnestly, then, with simpls ness that lent a sudden dignity and | pathos to the effort, they lifted their ' volces in the final hymn they followed their pastor he had taught them, stumbling the hard meaning, perhaps, but finding a subtler truth, bravely, one und all in they D’'o num-'res hosts of mi-dy foes D'o earth and hell my way op-pose 2 save-ly leads me still a-lon’, h ow stron’ lov'n k-ind-"e H lov'n k-ind- s lov'n k-ind-'ess, 'J oh ‘ow stron’ 'Es lov'n k-ind-'es! THEREAFTER under benedi tion they broke up, hurrying | away each man of them to bar his hut and lie hid until morning | ‘Amen'” they murmured one to an- | other, to complete the rite . understood it. 'Ah—me} A shifting of shadow were gone, dispersed into the russe dusk, and had left the chapel empty— | «mpty save for Colhoun and the lone | visitor who had sat on the end of a hench and who echoed curiously, ten- | tatively, to himself in a dry whisper: “Amen! Amen!" The Rev. David stepped down the 2isle and spoke over at him. “What | do you want?” The man lifted a face like the shell of a nut, as brown and weather! beaten. “Who—me? Nothin' much, mister, and no offense. 1 take it vou're the lad as does th sionaryin’ here, ain’t you His voice was low and husky. and vet in other ways he hardly met the «lergyman’s her academic concept of the spirituous as opnosed to the epiritual state. “This is my ehurch.” He turned Ms slow “An honest-t' heaven church? It don't look it.” “It was consecrated by a bishop. £aid the Rev. David, quite sharpl for he was touchy on the point. “Bishop—eh?" The other seemed res’ler mis- misson, yes. My saze around What? to extract an obscure satisfaction from the title. “Well, that makes it churchier, don't it? Mister, I been looking for a real church and a real preacher. 1 come a long ways lookin'." “Where on earth do vou hail from Mele. Mele? In the Marshalls? Two hunner miles!” “With a bit of a proa—sail and paddie. T smashed her on the reefs gettin® ashore just now.” The stranger was silent a <pace. “Mister, it comes hard to me to holler for help and 1 dunno' quite how to put the case, bein' rough and tough and not in your line. But one | thing Tl make bold. About these here natives—Gilbert Islanders, we'll say, Uke~your own—I want to ask you somjaghing that may sound queer.” Wgl12" said Colhoun. marveling. “Well—here's you whose business is ghod works for the black heathen, I Welieve, and here’s me that never | givig_ them a thought except at so much per head, you might say. And | what T want to know is this: Has a negro got a soul®" Sitting there beside beneh the castaway listened in silen while Colhoun made his brief apswer, speaking as was given him to speak in that moment, and for a time only the muttering diapason of the reef filled the prelude. “A month ago T wasn't askin' fa- vors,” began th3 stranger presently, “T was doin’ of them. Leastways I aid when it seemed good business. 1 had & fine ship under me and a likely crew and you'd a' found few men be- tween Nukahiva and the Pelews but would give me room as I nreded it. “} nad a tip on & shipment of beche | de mer that one of the native traders | gad been savin’ up. The stuff is prime | in the Marshalls—real tiger fish—and | 1 had a chance for a turn if I could | Seat down his price. What made me | all the keener, the very afternoon 1 got in, here come a dirty, little lop- | sided ketch poking her sly nose up the passage. I wasn't goin’ to have | no Cooktown clam digger snaffle that cargo away from me, so I put quick 18 shore. But 1 couldn’t find my trader. An 414 beggar party on the beach told e Be lived on Vatu, a flea-bite of an isle some miles off. I figgered I could | him on the | | A jwhat had th | creature in sight nor any trace of the ' ! strong fella sick. All fella i what it | repel Villainy, Vengeance and Adventure in the South Seas leave my mate to set up and overhaul | have nobody else touch his old man— some needed repairs whil~t I chased |not him! right after that beche de mer. His old man was dead. . . . ¥ g ok w GOV BLL, T done it. W sail me over in the whale boat, therg bein’ no proper anchorage fo @ schooner yonder, and 1 told Far- well—that was my mate—he sh'd send ! ‘em back again after me the next day. But he never did. And they I hud my boys | chump a bit after that. wouldn't ook at no mowre: nor yel torie: Stories now- But stiffied oath. “What kind of stories?” never should have, been the sacrifice. For | done compared with | 0f Story he'd ever heard, and thal was the only kind he wanted. He re me? And yet | buried them, the few | I could find of ‘em after, in the coral ! Membered the book bein' full of most \d by the water's edgge. ., . They'd | Wonderful matters. He remembered. been shot to pieces as they lay ! “Bivle stories, @' ' see, mister? He “I landed on Vatu along in the ! called for ‘em. There he lay in the afternoon. 1 walked up from the!lEt of the lamp with the red flush | lagoon and there swasn't a living O% his sunken cheek and his eves so But he needn't a’ worried. | zames didn't hold his sick-boy fancy. echoed Colhoun, for the | other had checked on a sound like a came. No, they never. And I would| “What kind would you think?" think it the 1 ctrange but that!vcdme the harsh response. “It seems | Parwell, my mate, and cvery other @ tramp missionary passing by Vatu man of my érew, white or black, |had once preached from the white man's Book. That was the only kind ¢! G he wanted Bible stories. And me— “It looked queer: the boats were M€ Ididn't know any gone from the beuch, the curing : t the: fow. that count il sheds v empty. Thinks L w pered: [Cothaun. ever: dy's off on a bl anoe festi “How should 1 know, mister, what val, or elseway, and so I squatted in | count: Who was 1 to know? He the shade till they should please to asked for Bible talk, and the only { come home again lsingle blame thing 1 could tell “After 3 while I got the notion you ' Lim J get of somebody spyin' on y', and | “wel sure enough when I turned my head | «p'y want to know? Jonah' Ave, I saw a kid—Jjust one. Maybe he Was [, (ounas like a poor sort of jest. cight year old, a brown bit of a|gon i nows But it wasn't to him, scamp peekin’ from the' doorway at | me through his olly ringlets, clever | as 2 mouse with his bright little eyes. | % e I beckoned him over, but he whipped | NOt a8 you would likely inside, and when I went after him he barred the door. “Well, 1 seen I was stuck for the duy, anyhow, Just nie kid—and him o perk and s nor yet to me—worse I told him the story of Jonah. ! Book 1'd be afrai to think. liked it. Ile made and over. And him ain one night as he dozed. at Vatu and the y—and luck—nor to tell it, and {how far off from what's writ in the But he me tell him over last T was tolliag run the show, I says. ‘'E'll see rea- son." " “And did you say so, Gunny??” pur- | “I tbink he nfust a’ gone off RIS red the skipper, with his sleepy-eyed Toys n.' t smile. “Well—well—here’s loyalty.” In the band of his sash hung a little double-ended bag of fine cocoanut fiber that gave the faintest tinkling music as he ran it through his fingers. “Now just for that—what will you have? A fistfull of beanties like these? A hat- ful of Chile dollars? Name your will jand say your pleasure, my lad., You shall have your pick from our very Text haul—within twenty-four hours unny's jaw dropped. “You're going on with it?’ { “I'm going on." Prompt as at a cue there rose & isudden hail from overside that brought them both arbund, tensed. “What's there?’ called the skipper. “Cap'n,” came a voice. “Cap'n’— ¥ bright and eager. He was dyin' and jquiet and mysterious out of the leaden Have |Bloom that foreruns the dawn. iyou room for an extra hand, {Here's a man to work his pa: “A man—what kind of a man? “A white man—an able man.” “And what kind of a passage” “Anywheres at all, so long as it's off this ruddy beach, s the calm reply. “I just heard there was a ship bere. Wherever you're goin' is the place for me. And if you want to catch this tide—there's a whiff of breeze stirring mow. Come aboard, " he added, as he stood on the ew back ide over Then th head and hig the skipper th laughed fanned his check and the schooner hud swung on the first of the ebb. | “self-acting erimp!” | *T'bat setties it. I couldn’t better. capn! | 4 1 water, for it was true a warm breath | | he chuckled | jone tack the Gallowa <0 I laid a reg’lar siege to catch that ow the word of the Lord come | A]] hands——" ha cried. “Heave short chap. So I took my knife and & bit junto Jonah' 1 says—recallin’ that {and stand by to break out. Gunny'” of driftwood I found and down | part quite pat as I heard it the once | He found the mate creeping up be to whittle a Kkind of jumping ta¥.!from a Navy chaplain—Now the hind and nalled him there at a grab which I hadn't done since I Was & \word of the Lord come unto Jonah,' | Hag-ridden by his fears, the creature kid myself. i and the rest in beche de mer | had whipped up a degree of despair- U haardihin stitcinc atitiopstano :0. and when [ luoked at him where | ing courage. but I mever let on. and pretty soon | on wy arm—why—he was! “You can't do it," he stammered. here he come sneakin’ around behind j 0 B ‘ou daren‘t try! My Gaw, we ain't me for a better look. 1 tossed the | 3 Loy fit—a ship like us on an errand like jigger to him and he made a dive “Well—1 gut back. Too late: andj o 0,1 ¢eql you there's a fearful tor it and T near grabbed him, but he | when I scen the whalehoat would ,yoo B (o5 "l oot blows so dark went up a tree smart as a squirrel. | never come, 1 managed o fit out a’ ot L0l T R S T vot king “*You white fella mahrster. hehali-built proa from the canoe NOUSe, | o upane are we with all we got bang- chatters at me, ‘you get to the devil fund with that 1 worked my way back | ovor us—wot kind of a 'oly captain | Get to the devil long $crub®” he says. | 1o Mele Vot woo—io Tk & Heckosty now i “‘Oh-ho.” I says, ‘my bold bucc = | It was like T said. Those strange | gtorm and big waters” And be- neer, you talk blg for such a SPry | white men had simply jumped my |yides—" He sgulped. “The glass! What name you so much fright? ‘One f one. *Me no fright’ he says. man, me?’ and made off. Kanaka | it! You no run like devil, | ®o. Is von littl run like devil. b around those parts in a little ketch how they hired some native divers from Vatu and went grubbing the reefs after pearls and how two weeks Xk % ¥ pper of the Gallow ¥ 4 on! 1 says, a-t of ? i | him. ‘If you're man why ain't vou off ; SWeep and a finished job. It's done, { with the rest of the bunch? All fella |“Pd I'm done. and that's all.” Kanaka he go fish, only pickaninny “Never thi it,” said the Rev. i he stop home. Pickaninny. vou. 1i'.l\l<| standing and swaying in a **No fish!" he cries. ck! Plenty | rapt renewal of faith. Heaven's purpose does not fail us | the falntly lightening 4 ve brown child to |her, with rigging set slackhanded and | | plenty soon you catch’'m strong fel ed in vain? Shall they not an- sick—my word! Close up vou die!swoer? y altogether.” | ever they be—even as that man be- | “Sick, 4’ y' see, mister? Ah. that |lew whom I fear no longer for a' his was it. He told me what had bLap- |wicked triumph—even as he must | pened on Vatu. How a crew Of lanswer fn due time—even as Cap'n | strange white men had showed up 'y Jeffrey o' the Gallowas Lass' before they'd put those unlucky divers | was doing own waiting, by his back on shore again to die. Ave,|own be i pashing isiecienn: mister—of me e: That w s their |er's de ness that sweeps l pay, the big s island bare. Naturally the people had | wavman's furious eagerness to be | them: of chance, delays still clogged his | | cleared like frightened rats, scatter- ing for safety through the round i, .. about group—all except this one boy. | = “‘Me no fright.” he says. ‘One fella | nan, me’ And by heaven, he was!| He had staved. Knowing quite well meant, he had stayed. And | served as mate. why? ‘Father blong me plenty too | and you can t much sick,’ he says. Because there | Feai that air was nobody else to look after his old | finzer and besides there's making,” it snapped man as was dyin’ all alone in that |“Like gum, it Is. We won't be leaving house.” t tide.” “But the boy was doomed.” he cried. | .o ' You mean you hope we won' “Surely you should have scen that!” | s you say, mister,” returned the the darkness. He “I been a good deal amongst nig- | Gunny winced and shrank. gers in my time’ resumed the stranger. “A nigger has always been |, a nigger to me, black or brown or [ . pipe-colored. But that little kid now | -——he was different. “He was sickenin’ for it himself, of course, and even whilst he sat up there in the tree a-cussin’ of me the | 1 ain't said no—'ave 1?7 | they wantea to eross vou.” “Ah? And why?" fever was on him. But I couldn't|{ “Jump the only man we got dm; coax him down. He was leary of knotws ‘ow to navigate, white men, and perhaps he had rea- 'Gunny, eagerly. “Not me! son. those divers, you see. Not a step| would he come until T thought to ! he came fast enough, all hands 1015 'im respectful like, that we Won'" boarders. “AND AT LAST 1 WAS muplg)(; &!y AGAIN ONE NiGHS AS HE somethin’ observed for perhaps the | {tenth time the lank youth who had “Somethin’ making e your colonial oath. He wet a bony fore- nervously. corrected his chief, never 8o amiable other. “1 saw that quite well—for 1|as When he was raging. “I can't | nurs him the three days and |blame you, Gunny, my lad. If we get | nights. a breeze you'll have to sweat sail on The Rev. David sat very still in|her all by vour precious sel: moved a pad-foot nearér and “Oh, you needn’t get your monkey Didn't T vour side when the rest was clamoring to be off the cfulse two | d#¥s ago? 1 wouldn't stand it awhen protested | ,ompanion again Leave it pyaking lip talk against the wind un- His father had been one of ito him,' I told 'em. 'E ain't no Ways| i his chiet impatlently called the, more anxious than us to swing: and | nsarest hand to tHe wheel and step- ain't ‘e due to swing the first of all| | walk away into his house, and then lif once ws get shopped? Just put it | t He wasn't goin' toltake no more risks, and leave 'im to crew in the dark and murdered them | D' you know—d' yvou know where it} . and what else about it | none could say. or ever will. A elean | fallin is? . . . Down below 29.85 and still “I krow,” said the skipper. grimls. * % * ¥ HIE Galloway Lass might once have been the trader of the isles she er believe | purported to be; her look belied it as revealed anyhow, her decks a sloven litter of 1. whosoever and whereso- | M1th, loose cordage and empty bot- les. All about her maln hatch was trewn a mess of rotting pearl shell nd here and thers lay an outsprawl- ed figure—as if these too had been left to yield some potential gem only through eorruption. Their faces showed putty-white with soot-ringed ANWHILE the pearl-poaching .(‘)‘Q!> ely and cruel. Lass ¢ |1ooking down from knotted black | Straddling wide-legged on the deck, |brows and lowered lids, the skipper like a big caged cat. He|passed them in contemptuous review. nted to be gone, he had all & high- | And there he made his deflance of of cvents, of ail checks and bars—the unconquored embodiment of evil and evil will. | “I'm speaking to you,” he said | “This crulee goes through, weather jor wina or erew as may be. It goes through and all heaven or hell can't stop it now. Tyree, Molloy, Silveira— and you over there, whatever's vour | beach-combing name before 1 sign | you on with a boot's end—vou hear me? Jump!™ They jumped. With a racing tide and a hot, pufty wind out of the northwest that made he salls to bulge like fat cheeks, the Galloway Lass shot the narrow pas- sage and stood off to sea. The skipper made his first conces- {sion when he relaxed to wipe away |a stinging blink of sweat and sum- | monea Gunny twith a jerk of his | head ou that's so claver at the glass,” | he sald, with an unwonted fasp, “hop below and see what it reads now.” ! The unfortunate mate, who scemed {to move in a state of stupor, went limply sliding and dangling to obey. A moment later he crawled up the and clung there pea over. | _“I said, where'd you shift it?" piped |cflmny. | “Shift what? " “The anerold.” | The skipper dived past into the !cabin and presently returning took #hlm softly by the feck and buolled Bim backward. | ‘12 you a1a that—1 he began. | But Gunhy's fluttéring lids coverea | fo sseret thia time. | "My Gaw, wot -Iwulaz do it for? |1 come to look like you s#id—and the | thifg ain't thére! That's all T know.” “It anybody thinks he can make me |turn back that way he's due for a | shock,” sald the pearl-poacher. | They had more to puzzie them erc jlong. Fai and clear of all weather {bFéaks in the coral group thé achoon- €r had now to labor the great ground s#ell and shé met It but sluggishly. Too sliggishly. They learned why When Giinny, dispatched on another errdnd, cafié staggering aft with the sounding rod. “A foot an’ a half," he cried. makin' fast!” ’ His chief tiined a conVuised face o him 2nd Would have Struck him to the deck, for hal? the men had heard, but just then a black squall | sént a1t reeltng ana, white they seram- bled in the wash, with a rending jar izn main top-mast shapped short. | Bedltm broke with ah uproar of pahic volce: plunging seas, until the skipper's bel- lowing challénge mountdd it, until-he sprafg on thé man at the wheel and Plucked him off. “Gunfy!” he cilléd présently, in a chafged and hurrled tone. “Gunny, #ee Here.” 'The mite brought up ia his grip. “What's b the Courser “Why, West By south din't 1t Wil ¥ou thll Ee what Fou dee a that aara? And Gunny lobked, and had rea- “And | ©f slatting canvas @nd; |you damned ass. chn Russell *# * % ** ** HE STAYED ON THE RATLINES —A SQUAT, STUBBLE-BEARD- ED. SOMEWHAT SHRU LITTLE FAT MAN. THE_ SUNDAY STAR, WASHINGTON, D. ¢. APRIL. 6, - 1924 -PART 5. By son to look, (for within some short|Did you never see an electric storm E was part way up with one hand | but ¢ reaching for a ratline when the | and-by on the Lass had man interval runr aged to swing through nearly one! hundred and eighty degrees and wa now scooting back on her tracks— that was the Impossible thing the compass said. nny swept his hop . ha gaze about the curtained ring of sea We'rs done. Something's queered it. Something’s queered the whole craft—us and her and the whole show I knew ‘ow it would be, along of all this cross-work It's a cur on us!™ 2 ox ot Bl I' the skipper had caug from the deck a blown strand small rope and was thrusting it at him and speaking short and thick Something — something —? How about this? It's the lanyard—the lan- ard from that top-mast back-stay Cut! She didn't give, she was cut! Something queered us?” The blood congested in his swarthy cheek “Somebody. you mean! Somebody did that, somehody crabbed the glass and faked the card with an iron. Som body's queered us—and by the holy cripes somebody's going to die for 1 A commotion forward among the crew arrested his questing glance and following their lifted faces he stared aloft upon a singular &ight As if the ship had been one gigan- | tic candelabrum, from, every point of her rigging palld, ghostly flames {were weaving upward. Edeh mast and spar was tipped with them, and at the center of the display, in the cros trees, sat the hand who had climbed there to clear away the rafe of the broken top-mast. His head was bare and around and over him the spectral fluid played like & nimbus £o that his hair stoed on end and the very tips of his fingers crackled with it. The schooner wallowed on and still those uncarthly fires wavered about her in will-o'-the-wisp ribbons, and still the man wrought calmly it his task, It was all too much for the craven lot of the Galloway Lass. ‘Thelr wi ing rose along the decks and they cowered. All but Gunny; Gunhy, with his sharper trick of vision, who stabbed the air. “That's the man!” he velled. “Hey?" said the skipper, blinking, and shook | himself together with a brutal oath. “It's only the corposants, Natural enough. !. shipboard—= But Gunny's claw sank into hisarm. “T'm tellin' you that’s 'im—tha rour man-—the somebody you're {1ookin® for.” I W ! | “Look at 'im now.” And so the skipper did, and so did all |the erew. They glared at the hand {in the rigging. | He bad finished his job and now |lowered himself soberly by the | shrouds until he was half way down and there, suddenly aware of their fixed regard, he stopped. He stayed on the ratlines, peering through at them, a squat, stubble-bearded, some- | what shrunken little fat man, garbed !in a complete but very ill-fitting suit | of rusty blacks, whereof the coat was {buttoned straight to the chin—the un- | mistakable sign of a clergyman the | worla around “What are you doing in those sho my 1ad?" the skipper asked pl lantly. “Never tell me it's your trade | The man above stood there with tag ends of the garments flapping | about him in the wind he said. They was loaned to me. “Ah? What for>” “To wear aboard this craft.” | “And what for that?’ | “So I could wreck her” said the | stranger, calmly. | “So I could bring you to answer.’ | he continued. *For Baliang, for Mele | for Vatu—for all crimes and all the { wrong you done in those islands and i meant to do. For my men you killed, < | my ship vou stole—for the sakg of all {the poor souls, black and White against your score. And au | Will. You'll never find that leak, fo one thing—T know the poor old girl too well. you see—and for another, | the riggin's all cut and slashed . . ! your piratin' crulse is ended here, you big, bloody-handed murderer, for you and all your outfit!” The crew swarmed at him in a { snarling pack. “Chuek ’im over! Smash ‘im— drown'd 'im!" The skipper took a step on the | shrouds, looking up, and his teeth were bared to the gums. “Will you come down?" he purred | in his throat. | The other did mot stir. | “Well" grinmed the skipper, “T'll | be most highly pleased to fetch you " And he began to climb. er you i | vessal swung over on the next deep swell—and in that instant the man 1bove merely dropped on him. Drop- d like a blotchy black spider from w his shoulders, about his 1 to . neck, and wrenched him away in the impact. The two bodies fell grap- pled together, struck the chanmel with a shock that quivered through the ship, bounded off into the sea— and disappeared. Not finally. The condemned crew of the Galloway Lass hau one more last, dim adumbration of its closing gesture. Through the smother they half submerged, low and rolling in the gray spume. And there they presently saw, or seemed to see, two figures rise to a footing, giant and pigmy, and meet. But the pigmy must somehow have gained a de- claive apon, for he struck from a raised arm and the one that fell was the giant. Then a great biack shadow as of brooding wings swept through the upper air, the wind leaped shouting | @own, and they saw no more. When next he arrived on Baliang he wore the garb of modesty, still sopping from the sea, but quite com- plete, and he carried a short, tipped lance on which he bore as a taff. In this pigrim guise he stumbled a painful and laborious way up the beach among the jack- fruit trees, many times pausing, leaving an errant track in the coral and, but at length appearing in the ‘trong morning Jight at the site of the Rev. David Colhoun's mission. And the Rev. David himself was out hope for a beaten cause, when he was aware that he had lost the attention of hi¢ audience. Iintered to him and to them the stranger, and while they gazed at him with bulging eyes, dropped heavily on the end of a bench. “You——!" gasped the Rev. David “Man alive—how on earth did you got back here?” The stranger raised a face seamed and drawn. “Who—me?" he said dully. enough. There He swaved and “Easy whale—-"" have fallen was would a glimpse of that deadly struggle, the | discerned a huge bulky body floating | steel- | making his final plea and one with-| shouid. | remember? mister? On with the harpoc fw I jon paStways a9 b [ might have dome, for that was t | way it happen to me—you fir. ! mine out there on the reefs, ¥ You n £ the word of the Lord col u d the w. unto Jonal, it says. ‘Now the word of Lomd come unto Jonah' And it rtainly did, mister, because that's me" § “How?" said Colhoun, pitvingly. He feared to see a troub! the blua | eves, but they were bright and clear, {enly very, very weary “Aye—Jo! For so T m, aml s I was christened, and « Ton rey of the Gallowa I've been t | the same token T I too, mister, and t 3 He braced his ling strength with an effort and, fumbling in the breast L ars, s is wh And b to thank you, of his coat, drew out a little domb! ended bag of fine coconut fiber made the faintest tinkling music as he placed it in the pastor's hand “The pearls!” cried Colhoun. “Tha pearls ‘o' the mission! “And now you'll be buildin® that church, won't you? An homest-t- | heaven church, as you meant? maybe—maybe a school for the 1 kids as well—what? To teach | To teach the little nigger kids, Ana em. mies ter, that never had no ol and never knew no better, and give ‘em what_they need—the books and the stori€s and tho good words— “And the songs?" asked gently, with a true i ct. Aye—and the songs.” arnestly then, and eagerly at theie misslonary’s signal, the faithful littls group lifted their voices in the favor« ite hymn: “D'o num-'res hosts of mi-dy foes D'd ‘arth and hell my way op-post ’E save-ly leads me still a-lon "Es lov'n k-ind-'ess, oh ‘ow stron s lov'n k-ind-"ess, 'Es lov'n k-inds Colhoun, “ess, "Es lov'n k-ind-'ess, oh ‘ow stron’* “Amen! Amen!" br-athed Ca Jonah Jeffrey (Copsright, 1021.) orth Pole Discovered by Peary, U.S. Explorer, 15 Years Ago Today Story of Remarkabl.e Dispute Told by Witness BY HUGH C, MITCHELL, S. Coast and Geodetic Survey, N the sixth day of April, 1909, just fifteen years dgo today, an Amerfcan citizen stood on the top of the world and unfurled our glorious flag to the breezse. The north pole, the goal of cen- ‘turies of heroic endeavor on the part of intrepid explorérs, had been at- tained, and to Robert Edwin Peary, officer of the United States Navy, be- longed the great honor of giving to his country a new dominion—aver ice and sea—and of standing, the first man, at that point on our globe where the breezes blow only from the south and where all meridians converge to a point. While at the time of his discovery of the pole Peary Was an officer of the United States Navy and was re- warded for his exploit by retirement with the grade of rear admiral, hé was at the time also acting uhder in- structions from tie United States coast and geodetic survey—instruc- tions relating to tidal and- current work, in the fulfiliment of which he carried a light sounding apparatus on the dash to the pole. Whether or not Peary actually at- tained the pole was a subject of con- siderable diseussion in the months following his return theyefrom, a question hardly second to that otHer one, “Was he the first man to h the D3le?” proinpted by one the most remarkable Incidents the world has éver witnésséd. It wis acoording- 1y with a great deal of interest that the author embraced the opportunity of making a mathematical discussion of the astronomical observations made at the pole by Peary and en route theéreto by Bartlett and other mem- bérs of his party. Through this op- portunity the cuthor was able to determine definitely. that Peary did reach the north pole, and that hé was the fifst and only one to do so, o One day in the fall of 1910 Dr. 0. H. Tittmann, at that time superintend- ent of the coast and geodetic survey, sent for me. I was then a geodetic and astronomical computer in that bureau. He asked me if I would care o undertake a mathemastical reduc tion of Peary’s astronomic observa. tlons at the north pole. It was a most unexpected question. i had, like many othér membérs of thé American public, Eivén only cursory attention to the contest, it I may call it by that name, which was then raging in the press rela- tive to the discovery of the nofth pole; and, like many members of the same publlc, my sympathies were somewhat inclined, in a more or less séntimental way, toward Peary's op- ponént. I knew neither of the men pérson- ally. Had T known Peafy then as I Wwas 16 know hif later—as 2 man not only incapabe of fasehood himsef but also of even tolerating it in others; a8 & man in whose pFesence false- hood must at once wither and die— | 1 wotld have been eager to accede t8 Dr. Tittmann's request I did agres, however, to undertake the th the computations, bat not wi thusthas Which ciie after my Arst’ meeting with the famous explorer— an enthusiasm which became more in- tense the better I eafmed to know and appreciate the man. When Peary returned from his last and successful expedition into the far north he reported his success formally to the National Geographic Society, his sponsor in the undertak- Ing. That society immediately re- ferred the report to its research com- mittee, ang the question of passing on the report was finally delegated to a subcommittee of that main commit- tee. This subcommittes was com- posed of three men of unquestioned réputation in geographica science— H. Tittmann, head of the coast and geddetic survey; Henry Gannett, a geographer ol the geoogita sur- vey, and Admiral Colby M. Chester of the United States Navy. These thiés men met at the home of Admiral Chester, examined the records presented by Peary, took a look at his iistruments and réported | back to the society through the com- mittee that Peary had discovered the north pole. Bllls and resolutions were intro- ducéd in Congresa to provide federal | recognition of Peary’s accomplish- ment, and & réward In the form of retirement with the grade of rear admiral. These watters were referred to the Hoise committes on naval af- fairs and ‘placed in the charge of a subcommittee of that main commit- tee. The chairman bf the subcom- mittee was Thomas S. Butler of Penn- sylvasia 3 Hearings on the Peary bills were commenced before this subcommittee on March 4, 1910, Dr. Pittmann be- . B ing the first witness to appear. Ho was before the subcommittee only short time when he was excused, as he was due before the appropriations committes in his official capacity head of the coast and geodetic s vey. Dr. Tittmann was followed by as ur- Mr. Gannett, chairman of the National Geographic Society's subcommittee, who for several days answered a steady fire of questions put by mem- bers of the congressional subcom- mittee. It was unfortunats that at that (time certain contracts which Peary haé with his publishers precluded his placing all his polar data without reservation before the corzressional committee; but such an act virtually would have amounted to publication, and the same character of absolute honesty to which I have already re- ferred as being, to me, Peary's pre- dominating characteristic, prevented his breaking faith with his publish~ ers, even for the coveted congre sional honors. Hearings were therc- fore discontinued for indefinite period. 1 do not recall the exact date when T first met Peary, though I can never forget the event. I kept no diary of our meetings—A fact which [ have often regretted, though, except to re- call dates, a diary is hardly needed. The man, his rugged personality, his tremendous physical and mental force, his searching gaze, are still indelibly impressed on my memory. Every de- detail of that first meeting, as off (Continued on Sixth Page) an