The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, March 8, 1903, Page 5

he Gh (C , by New York Herald Co. 1 , the president of the South Pacific Exploita- had at last got h of a “proposition”— schemes were. in his vernacular, “‘propositions” not only profitable beyond prece or beltef, so was, wonderful to say, more or less legitimat He had not discovered Ryder had r his stoes for twenty years other than the promenade deck of the ferry-boat San Rafael, that takes him home to Berkeley every e ng after “business” hours. He had not discovered it, Ol emary,” captain of the ba tine Scottish Ck of Blyth, } done th thing, and, dying before he was able to perfect the t er his interest in it to his best friend and old comrade T. 'Old Rosen y,” I am told, first on the island—it in the later '60's. He established its location and took nd longitude, but as minutes and degrees mean noth- 2y reader, let it be sald that the nd of Paa lies just 209 miles west of Gilberts and 1600 sbane, in Au lia. is six miles f prevailing winds and precipitous acter of the coast can only be approached from the west during December and January “Old Rosemary landed on the island, raised the American e crew witness the doc- virtue of which he made himself the possessor, and then, re- g to San Franc! , forward. ed to the Becretary of State at Washington application for title was withheld till it could be that no other nation had a claim. While “Old Rose- was working out the proof and the whole matter was in abeyance till Cyrus Ryder 1 By then there was a in Washington and times were changed, so that the government of Ryder’s native land was not so averse toward acquir- ! ing eastern possessions. The Sec- retary of State wrote to Ryder to ! say the application would be grant upon furnishing a bond | for $0,000; and you may believe tt 2 e bond was forthcoming. For 1 CALLED THE THREE his first report upon Paa BLACK CROWS TO HIM. | “Old Rosemary” had used the magic word “guano.” He sverred, and his crew attested over their sworn statements, that Paa was covered to an average depth of x feet with the stuff, so that this last and biggest of . * Ryder’s propositions was a vast slab of an extremely mar- ketable product six feet thick, three miles wide and six miles long ¥ no sooner had the title been granted when there came a ais in the proceedings that until then had been going for- wa smoothly. Ryder called the Three Black Crows to him R T o B A NS M A M A MM A A ) ure, one certain afternoon in the month of April. They s very best agents. The plums that the “company” had at generally went to the trio, and if any man could hrough” a dangerous and desperate plece of work Strakher, rg and Ally Bazan were those men. they had been unlucky, and the affair of the contra- hich had ended in fallure of cataclysmic operations, in Ryder’s memory, but he had no one else to whom rust the present proposition, and he still believea to be the best boss on his list. was to be fought for Hardenberg, backed by Strakher Ally Bazan, was the man of all men for the job, for it looked gh Ry would not get the island of Paa without a fight itrate beds were worth fighting for. ¢ it's this way,” Ryder explained to the three as 1d the spavined table in the grimy back room of It's this way. There’s a scoovy after Paa, says he was there before ‘Rosemary,’ which is a lie, gov'ment has given him title. He's got a kind of ip Portland way and starts for Paa as soon as ever He's got no title, in course, but if ‘he gits there and takes possession it'll take fifty years o' lawing ning to git him orf. So hustle is the word for you rd ‘g0’ We got a good start o’ the scoovy. He can't put within a week, while over yonder in Oakland basin there's Idahc as gocd a schooner, boys, as ever wore paint, all ready but to fit her new sails on her. Ye kin do it in »osal R eetetelsfdetateted ottt dofmfataeldaos dofedafdatafafafedtefefefeefeiatafafafefafofafetotaetelepjotafafelte) his dish we w el et pd et ® dedeitetetetet el the oSt In°t Bl ? .— less than no time. The stores will be goin' into her while ye're workin’, and within the week I expect to see the Idaho Lass showing her heels to the Presidio. You see the point now, boys. 1f we beat the scoovy—his namne is Petersen, and his boat is ealied the Elftruda—we're to the wind'ard of a pretty pot o' money. If he gets away before you do—well, there’s no telling, we prob'ly lose the island.” i1 About ten days before the morning set for their departure 1 went over to Oakland Basin tc see how the Three Biack Crows were getting on Hardenberg welccmed me as my boat bumped alongside and extending a great tarry paw, hauled me over the rail. Th schooner was a wilderness of confusion, with the sails coverinZ apparently, nine-tenth of the de the remaining tenth encum- bered by sp cordage, tangled rigg chains, cables and the like, all helter-skeltered tugether in such a maze of entangiements thaet my heart misgave me as I looked on it. Surely order would not issue from this chaos in fcur days’ time with only three men to speed the work But Hardenebrg was reassuring, and little Ally Bazan, the colonial, told me they would “snatch her shipshape in the shorter end of two days, if so be they must.” I stayed with the Three Crows all that day and shared their dinner with them on the quarierdeck, when, wearied to death with the strain of wrestling with slatting canvas and ponderous boom they at last threw themselves upon the hamper of “‘cold snack’ I had brought off with me and pledged the success of the venture in tin diopers of Pilsener. “And I'm thinking.” said Allv Bazan, *“as 'ow ye might as well turn in along o' us on board ‘ere, instead o’ hykin' back to town to-night. There’s a fairish set o' currents, up and daown ‘ere abaout this time o’ dyve and ye'd find it a stiff bit o' rowing.” ‘We’ll sling a hammick for you on the quarterdeck, m'son,” urged Hardenberg. And so it happened that I passed my first night aboard the Idaho Lass. We turned In early. The Three Crows were very tired, and only Ally Bazan and 1 were left awake at the time when we saw the 8:3 ferry-boat mnegotiating for her slip on the Oakland side. Then we also went to bed. And now it becomes necessary, for better understanding of what is to follow, to mention with some degree of particularization the places and manners in which my three friends elected to take their sleep, as well as the condition and berth of the schooner 1daho Lass. Hardenberg slept upon the quar- terdeck, rolled up in an army blanket and a tarpaulin. Strakher turned in below in the cabin upon the fixed lounge by the dining ta- ble, while Ally Bazan stretched himself in one of the bunks in the fo'c’s’le. As for the location of the schoon- er, she lay out in the stream, some three or four cables’ length off the yards and docks of a ship- / building concern. No other ship or boat of any description was an- 7 chored nearer than at.least 300~ ASSUMED AN ERECT AT- yards. She was a fine, roomy yes- sel, three-masted, about 150 feet in length over all. She lay head up stream, and from where 1 lay by Hardenberg on the quar- terdeck 1 could see her tops sharply outlined against the sky above the Golden Gate before I went to sleep. I suppose it was very early in the morning—nearer 2 than 3— when 1 awoke. Some movement on the part of Hardenberg—as 1 afterward found out—had aroused me. But I lay inert for a long minute trying to find out why I was not in my own bed, in my own home, and to account for the rushing, rippling sound of the tide eddles sucking and chuckling around the Lass' rud- der post. Then I became aware that Hardenberg was awake. T lay In my hammock, facing the stern of the schooner, and as Harden- berg had made up his bed between me and the wheel he was di- rectly in my line of vision when I opened my eyes and I could see him without any other movement than that of raising the N eyelid Just now, as T drifted more and more into wakefulness, 1 grew proportionately puszzled and perplexed to account for a singularly strange demeanor and conduct on the part of my friend. He was sittijig up in his place, his knees drawn up under the e = blanket, ane arm thrown around both, the hand of the other ~ arm’ resting on the neck and supporting the weight of his body. > and He was broad awake. I could see the green shine of our riding lantern In his wide open eyes, and from time to time I could hear him muttering to himself, “What is it? What fs it? What ] the devil is it, anyhow?” But it was not his attitude, nor the fact of his being so broad awake at the unseasonable hour, nor yet his unaccountable words, tifgt puzzled me the most. It was the man's eyes, and the direction in which they looked that startled ¢ g His gaze was directed not upon anything on the deck of the boat, nor upon the surface of the water near it. but upon some- thing hehind me, a a great height In the air. 1 was not ong In getting myself broad awake. him forward and we bunked him aft, for some one had pointed m out that the “ha'nt” walked only at the times when the colonial siept 1 e fo'c’s'le. We -found this to be true. Let the little T rolled out on the deck and crossed over to where Harden- fojlow watch on the quarterdeck with us and the night passed Lerg sat huddled in his blankets. without urbance. As soon as he took up his quarters forward “What the devil"—— 1 began the haunting recommenced. Furthermore, it began to appear that He jumped suddenly at the sound of my veice, then raised the “ha'nt” carefully refrained from appearing to him. He, an arm and pointed toward the top of the foremast of us all, had never seen the thing. He, of all of us, was spared “D'ye _see it?”” he muttered. “Say ih? D'ye see it? 1 the chills and the harrowings that laid hold upon the rest of us thought I saw it last night, but I But there’s no during those still gray hours after midnight when we huddled on mistake now. D've sce it, Mr. Dixor the deck of the ldaho Lass and watched the sheeted apparition in I looked where he pointed. The schooner was riding easily t0 the rigging; for by now there was no more charging forward anchor, the surface of the bay was calm, but overhead the high in attempts to run the ghost down. We had passed that stage white sea fog was rolling in. Against it the foremast stood out Jong since ;2 like the hand of an illuminated town clock, and not a detail of ut so far from rejoicing in-this immunity or drawing courage its rigging that was not as distinct as if etched against the sKY. therefrom, Ally Bazan filled the air with his fears and expos- 450 FNCT et othing, tulations. Just the fact that he was in some way differentiated i Where?" I demanded, and again’and again “‘Where?' from the others—that he was singled out, if only for exemption, “In the crosstrees,” whispered Hardenberg. “Ah, look there.” (irked upon him \d that he was unable to scale his terrors He was right. Something was stirring there, something that py actual sight of their object excited them all the more. Vo i PR 'x»:".nrai‘;‘:]‘:fl?lk L And there issued from this a curious consequence. FHe, tha uprirht. 1t asiumed’an eraot: sttitude, it took the cutlinés of a - YeI¥~ one "who had neter seen the haunting, wka alsc the very huma ing. From head to heel a casing housed it in, a cising One fo unsctile what litfte common “ense vet r:n‘;«:»{d - h!f(u;d: that might have beenianythiug at that hour of the night ang ©nbers and Strikher. He never a e o bt Ulrane, Olncesw: &iiroud: 1t you 11ke; a. windldg: eueet— nured, never lust an cpportunity of refexiing to the doom thed arythin nd it 15 without shamie that I confess to a creep of O€rhung the vesscl. Ky the bour he poured into the ears of ks the most disagrecable sensation I have ever knows as I stood at friends lugubrious tales of ehips, warned x.~“‘m~ doa. wous, v:n: Hardenberg's side on that s fosky night and watched the Cleared from port never to be seem A Hy sicalind to thet stirring of that nameless, forn shape standing gaunt and tail Minds parallel incidents that they themse \h»s "z\d i;::_‘.l " S and ey and wrapped BAKE wilding: sheet’ upon the ‘cronstrees -, I tREThie g the, ldaho Lass whem Che S uld lie be . hind and she should be alone in midocean with this horrid su- g e oL e ,I,(;'.‘,h,‘_. s oAb At wt_ Then the Dercargo that took liberties with the rigging, and at last one par- creature on the foremast laid a hand upon the iashings of the UGWAF morfing. twe 4’<‘\‘_1;»'“‘U:h;;:ff:“:jd“;"f 3o, :’;:3*(;‘:: tops'l and undid them. Thea it turped, slid to the deck, by [ [{200TPF S (L T N e e krnow not what strange process, and. siill hooded 1 shroude HavEsme Do e ctukis Stand IR S . ger, § i Wrappings, selsed a. Tope's couldn’t, so help him: that if the others were wishful for ta put in&t the- night wind. . The taps'l: followed.. Then the:figure At to dle, an’ was gaing to quit that blessed day. moved forward and passed behind the companionway of th For the sake of appearances, Hardenberg and Strakher blus- fo'e’s'le. We looked for it to appear upon the other side, but tered and fumed, but 1 c ! hear the crack in Strakher's voice Jooketk i vais” ¢ e Ba 1t nbmsve Whatinis as plain as in \ ship’s bell. I was not surprised at what What Hardenberg an. 1 told each other between the time happened iater when he told the others that he was of the disappearing and the Lour of breakfast [ am now ashamed very sick \genital stomach trouble, it seemed—or to recall. But at we Agreed to say nothing to the otbers— Was it liver compl d found him out again. He had con- for the time being. Just afier breakfast, however, we two had tracted it when at Trincomalee, diving for pearls; it was & féw words by the wheel on the quarterdeck. Ally Bazan and acutely painful it appeared. Why, gentlemen, even at that very Strakhcr were forward. “The proper thing to do. said I—it moment, he stood there talking—Hi, yi! O Lord!—talking, it was was a glorious, exhilarating morning, and the sunlight was flood- a-griping of him something uncommon, so it w And no, it ing every angle and corner of the schooner—“the proper thing to Wwas no manmer of use for him to think of going on this vovage; do Is to sleep on deck by the foremast to-night with our pistols sorry he was, too, for he'd made up his mind, so he had, to find handy and interview the—party if it walks again. out just what was wrorg with the foremast, ete. “Oh,._yes,' cried Hardenberg heartily. *Oh, yes, that's the And hereupon Hardenberg proper thing. Of course it is. No manner o' doubt about that, swore a at oath and threw Mr. Dixon. Watch for the party—yes, with pistols. Of course down the capstan bar he held in it's the proper thing. But 1 know o mun that ain't going to his heWd. ch thing.” “Well, then,” he cried, wrathful- I remember to have shid reflectively, “Well--1 guess I ly, “we might as well chuck up another.” the whole business. No use go- But for all our resolutions to say nothing to the-others about ing to sea with a sick man and a the night's occurrences, ve forgot that the tops'l and jib were scared man ; both set and both draw “An' there's the t word o A w'at might be the blcomin’ notion o' setting the bloomin' sense,” cried Ally Bazan, “T've 4 jib?" demanded Ally Bazan not half an hour after break- heard this long day. ‘Scared,’ he 2 melessly Hardenberg, at a loss for an answer, feigned s: aye, right ye are, me bull an interest in the grummets of the hfeboat cover and left me “It's Cy Ryder's J* the fo lie -t 1 might. three declared after hours’ But it i not easy to explain why one should raise the sails talk. “No business giving us a of an anchored skip during the night and Ally Bazan grew very schooner with a ghost aboard. suspleious. Strakher, 100, had something to say, and in the end Scoovy or no scoovy, isfand or no the whole matter came out. island, guano or no guano, we Trust a sailor to give full value to anything savoring of the don't go to sea in the haunted supernatural, Strakher promptly voted the ship a ‘“queer old hooker called the Idaho La: bocker anyhow, and about as seaworthy as a hencoop.” He held . No more they did. On board the forth at great length upon the subjec schooner they had faced the su- “You mark my words, now,” he said. “There's been some pernatural with some Kkind of fishy doin’s in this 'ere vessel, and it's like somebody done to courage born of the occasion. Once < death crool hard, an’' 'e wants to git aw from the smell o' on the shore, and no money could N land, just like them as is killed on blue water. That's W'y 'e hire, no power force them o &0 jppp pio @ . takes an’ sets the sails between dark am’' dawn.” aboard a second time. But Ally Bazan was thoroughly and wholly upset, so much The affair ended in a grand wrangle in Cy Ryder's back of- so that at first he could no: speak. He went pale and paler fice, and just twenty-four hours later the bark Elftruda, Captain while we stood talking it over, and crossed himself—he was a Jens Petersen, cleared from Portland, bound for “a cruise to Catholic—furtively behind the water butt. South Pacific ports—in ballast “I ain’t never 'a’ been keen on ha'nts anyhow, Mr. Dixon,” & z % 3 2 P> % Le tola me aggrievedly at dinner that evening. “I got no use Two years after this I tock Ally Bazan with me on a duck shotting excursion in the tules back of Sacramento, for he is a handy man about a camp and can row a boat as softly as a drifting cloud. ~ We went about in a cabin cat of some thirty feet over all, the rowboat towing astern. Sometimes we did not ge ashore to camp, but slept aboard. On the second night of this expedient I woke in my blankets on the floor of the ¢abin to see the square beside them watching. The same figure again towered, as before, of gray light that stood for the cabin door darkened by—it gave gray and ominous in the crosstrees. As before, it set the tops’l; me the same old start—a sheeted figure. It was going up the two as before it came down to the deck and raised the jib; as be- steps to the deck. Beyond question it had been in the cabin. I fore, it passed out of sight amid the confusion of the forward started up and followed it. I was too frightened not to—if you deck. can see what I mean. By the time I had got the blankets off and But this time we all ran toward where we last had seen it, had thrust my head above the level of the cabin hatch the fig- stumbling over the encumbered decks, jostling and tripping, but ure was already in the bows, and, as a matter of course, holsting keeping wonderfully close together. It was not twenty seconds the jib. from the time the creature had disappeared before we stood pant- I thought of calling Ally Bazan, who slept by me on the cabin ing upon the exact spot we had last seen it. We searched every floor, but it seemed to me at the time that if I did not keep corner of the forward deck in vain. We looked over the side. that figure in sight it would elude me again, and, besides, if I The moon was up. This nigiit there was no fog. We could see went back in the cabin I was afraid that I would bolt the door for miles each side of us, but never a trace of a boat was visible and remain under the bedclothes till morning. I was afraid to and it was impossible that any swimmer could have escaped the go on with the adventure, but I was much more afraid to go merciless scrutiny to which we subjected the waters of the bay back. in every direction. So T crept forward over the deck of the sloop. The “ha'nt™ Hardenberg and I dived down into the fo'c's’le. had its back toward me, fumbling with the ends of the jib hal- was sound asleep in his bunk and woke stammering, yards. 1 could hear the creak of new ropes as it undid the knot, and bewildered by the lantern we carried. and the sound was certainly substantial and commonplace. I “I sye,” he cried, all at once scrambling up and clawing at was so close by now that I cculd see every outline of the shape. our arms. “D'd the bally ha'nt show up agyne?” And as we It was precisely as it had appeared on the crosstrees of the Idaho, nodded he went on more aggrievedly than ever: “Oh, I sye, y* only seen without perspective, and brought down to the level ‘of know, I daon’t like this. I eyen't shipping In no bloomin' ‘ooker the eye it lost its exaggerated height. wot carries a ha'nt for supercargo. They waon't no good come o It had been kneeling upon the deck. Now, at la it rose this cruise—no, they waon't. It's a sign, that's wot it is. I eyen’t and turned about, the end of the halyards In its hand. The light goin’ to buck again no signs—it eyen't human nature, no it eyen't. of the earliest dawn fell squarely on the face and form and I You mark my words, ‘Bud’ Hardenberg, we clear this port with saw, if you please, Ally Bazan himself. His eyes were half shut, a ship wot has a ha'nt an’ we waon't never come back agyne, and through his open lips came the sound of his deep and reg- my hearty.” ‘ ular breathing. That night he berthed aft with us on the quarterdeck, but At breakfast the next morning I asked, “Ally Bazan, did you though we stood watch and watch till well into the dawn, noth- ever walk in your sleep? ing stirred about the foremast. So it was the next night, and so ‘Ave,” he answered, “years ago, when I was by wye o the night after that. When three successive days had passed peing a lad, I used allus to wrap the bloomin’ sheets around me. without any manifestation the keen edge. of the business became An' erysy things I'd do the times. But the ‘abit left me when a little blunted and we declared that an end had been made. 1 grew old enough to tyke me whiskey strite and ‘ave ‘air on me Ally Bazan returned to his bunk in the forecastle on the fourth gyce ™ night, and the rest of usslept the hours through um.‘l.zncernedly. I did not “explain away” the ghost in the crosstrees, neither duz;’;":s ‘;‘;J‘:'n"" there were the Jib and' tops’l set and ¢, Anly Bazan mor to,the other two “Black Crows.” Further- more, I do not now refer to the island of Paa In the hearing of L T the trio. The claims and title of Norway to the island have long Iv. since been made good and ccnceded—even by the State Depar- - ment at Washington—and I understand that Captain Petersen After this we began experimenting—on Ally Bazan. We bunked has made a very pretty fortune out of the affair. for 'em. I ain’t never known any good to come o' anything with a ha'nt tagged to it, an’ weTre makin' a ill beginnin’ o' this island business, Mr. Dixon—a blyme ill beginnin’. I mean to stye awyke to-night.” But if he was awake the little colonial was keeping close to his bunk at the time when Strakner and Hardenberg woke me at about 3 in the morning. I rolled out and joined them on the quarterdeck and stood Ally Bazan blinking