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About The Loup City northwestern. (Loup City, Neb.) 189?-1917 | View Entire Issue (Feb. 3, 1916)
rrwESTORY OF^ j 1 A MAN WHO j \l N HIS O W N j Little world/ ABOARD/SHTP wa s a law --UNTO" HIMSELF SYNOPSIS. —4— Humphrey Van Weyden, critic and dilet tante. is thrown Into the water by the sinking of a ferryboat In a fog in San I* randsco bay. and Incomes unconscious before help reaches him. On coming to bis senses be finds himself aboard the sealing schooner Ghost. Captain Wolf Larsen, bound to Japan waters, witnesses the death of the first mate and hears the captain curse the dead man for presuming lo die at the beginning of the voyage. The captain refuses to put Humphrey ashore and makes him cabin boy "for the good of his soul ” Humphrey sees the body of the mate dumped into the sea. He begins to learn potato peeling and dish washing under the cockney took. Mugridge, is caught by a heavy sea shipped over the quarter a® he is carrying tea aft and his knee is seriously hurt, but no one pays any attention io his injury. CHAPTER V—Continued. After breakfast I had another uti enviable experience. When 1 had fin ished washing the dishes I cleaned the cabin stove and carried the asbes up ou deck to empty them. Wolf Larsen and Henderson were standing near the wheel, deep in conversation I passed them and flung the ashes over the side to windward. The wind drove them back, and not only over me but over Henderson and Wolf Larsen. The next instant the latter kicked me vio lently. as a cur is kicked. 1 reeled away from him and leaned against the cabin in a half-fainting condition. But Wolf Larsen did not follow me up. Brushing the ashes from his clothes, he had resumed his conversation with Henderson. Johansen, who had seen the affair from the break of the poop, sent a couple of sailors aft to clean up the mess. Later in the morning I received a surprise of a totally different sort. Following the cook's instructions. I had gone into Wolf Larsen's state room to put it to rights and make the bed. Against the wall, near the head of the bunk, was a rack filled with books. 1 glanced over them, noting with astonishment such names as Shakespeare, Tennyson, Poe and De Quincey. There were scientific works, too, among which were represented men such as Tyndall, Proctor and Dar win. Astronomy and physics were represented, and I remarked Bulfinch's *‘Age of Fable,” Shaw's “History of English and American Literature,” and Johnson's “Natural History” in two large volumes. Then there were a number of grammars, such as Met calf s and Reed and Kellogg's; and I smiled as I saw a copy of "The Dean's English.” I could not reconcile these books with the man from what 1 had seen of him. and I wondered if he could possibly read them. But when I came to make the bed I found, between the blankets, dropped apparently as if he had sunk off to sleep, a complete Browning, the Cambridge edition. It was open at “In a Balcony,” and I noticed, here and there, passages un derlined in pencil. Further, letting drop the volume during a lurch of the ship, a sheet of paper fell out. It was scrawled over with geometrical dia grams and calculations of some sort. This glimpse 1 had caught of his other side must have emboldened me, for I resolved to speak to him about the money I had lost. “I have been robbed.” I said to him, a little later, when I found him pacing up and down the poop alone. “Sir,” he corrected, not harshly, but sternly. i nave Deen roDDea, sir," I amend ed. "How did it happen?” he asked. Then I told him the whole circum stance, how my clothes had been left to dry in the galley, and how, later, 1 was nearly beaten by the cook when I mentioned the matter. He smiled at my recital. “Pickings,” he concluded; “Cooky's pickings. And don’t you think your miserable life worth the price? Besides, consider it a lesson. You'll learn in time how to take care of your money for yourself. I suppose, up to now, your lawyer has done it for you, or your business agent.” I could feel the quiet sneer through his word3, but demanded. “How can 1 get it back again?" “That's your lookout. You haven't any lawyer or business agent now. so you’ll have to depend on yourself. When you get a dollar, hang on to it. A man who leaves his money lying around, the way you did, deserves to lose it. Besides, you have sinned. You have no right to put temptations in the way of your fellow-creatures. You tempted Cooky, and he fell. You have placed his immortal soul in jeopardy. By the way, do you believe in the immortal soul?" Hia lids liftod lazily as he asked the question, and it seemed that the deeps were opening to me and that I was gazing into his soul. But it was an illusion. Far as it might have seemed, no man has ever seen very far into Wolf Larsen’s soul, or seen it at all— of this 1 am convinced. It was a very lonely soul, I was to learn, that never unmasked, though at rare moments it played at doing so. "I read immortality in your eyes," I answered, dropping the "sir”—an ex periment. for 1 thought the intimacy of, the conversation warranted it. He took no notice. "Then to what end?” he demanded. “If I am immortal—why?” 1 faltered. How could I explain my idealism to this man? How could J put into speech a something felt, a something like the strains of music heard in sleep, a something that con vinced yet transcended utterance? “What do you believe, then?" 1 ' countered. “I believe that life is a mess.” he answered promptly. “It is like a yeast | a ferment, a thing that moves and may move for a minute, an hour, a year, or a hundred years, but that in the end will cease to move. The big eat the little that they may continue to move, the strong eat ibe weak that they may retain their strength. The lucky eat the most and move the longest, that is all. What do you make of those things?” He swept his arm in an Impatient gesture toward a number of the sail ors who were working on some kind of rope stuff amidships. “They move; so does the jellyfish move. They move in order to eat in order that they may keep moving. There you have it. They live for I 1 “They Live for Their Belly's Sake.” their belly's sake, and the belly is for their sake. It’s a circle; you get no where. Neither do they. In the end they come to a standstill. They move no more. They are dead.” "They have dreams," I interrupted, “radiant, flashing dreams—” “Of grub,” he concluded senten tiously. “And of more—” “Grub. Of a larger appetite and more luck in satisfying it." His voice sounded harsh. There was no levity in it. "You and I are just like them. There is no difference, except that we have eaten more and better. 1 am eating them now, and you, too. But in the past you have eaten more than I have. You wear the warm clothes. They made the clothes, but they shiver in rags and ask you, the lawyer, or the business agent who handles your money, for a job." "But that is beside the matter,” I cried. “Not at all.” He was speaking rap idly, now. and his eyes were flashing. “It is piggishness, and it is life. Of what use or sense is an immortality of piggishness? What is the end? What is it all about? To be piggish as you and I have been all our lives does not seem to be just the thing for immortals to be doing. Again, what's it all about? Why have I kept you here?—” "Because you are stronger,” I man aged to blurt out. “But why stronger?” .he went on at once with his perpetual queries. “Be cause I am a bigger bit of the ferment than you? Don’t you see? Don't you see?" “But the hopelessness of it,” I pro tested. “I agree with you." he answered. “Then why move at all, since moving is living? Without moving and being part of the yeast there would be no hopelessness. But—and here it is— we want to live and move, though we have no reason to. because it happens that it is the nature of life to live and move, to want to live and move. If it were not for this, life would be dead It is because of this life that is in you that you dream of your immortality. The life that is in you is alive and wants to go on being alive forever. Bah! An eternity of piggishness!" He abruptly turned on his heel and started forward. He stopped at the break of the poop and called me to him. "By the way. how much was it that Cooky got awray with?" he asked. "One hundred and eighty-five dol lars, sir," 1 answered. He nodded his head. A moment later, as 1 started dowm the companion stairs to lay the table for dinner. I heard him loudly cursing some men amidships. CHAPTER VI. By the following morning the storm had blown itself quite out and the Ghost was rolling slightly on a calm sea without a breath of wind. The men were all on deck and busy pre paring their various boats for the sea son’s hunting. There are seven boats aboard, the captain’s dinghy, the six which the hunters will use. Three, a hunter, a boat puller, and a boat steerer, compose a boat's crew. On board the schooner the boat pullers and steerers are the crew. The hunt ers, too. are supposed to be in com mand of the watches, subject, always, to the orders of Wolf Larsen. All this, and more, I have learned. The Ghost is considered the fastest schooner in both the San Francisco and Victoria fleets. In fact, she was once a private yacht, and was built for speed. Johnson was telling me about her in a short chat I had with him during yesterday’s second dog watch. He spoke enthusiastically, with the love for a fine craft such as some men feel for horses. Every man aboard, with the excep tion of Johansen, who is rather over come by his promotion, seems to have an excuse for having sailed on the Ghost. Half of the men forward are deep-wdter sailors, and their excuse is that they did not know anything about her or her captain. And those who do know whisper that the hunters, while excellent shots, were so notorious for their quarrelsome and rascally pro clivities that they could not sign on any decent schooner. I have made the acquaintance of an other one of the crew—Louis, he is called, a rotund and jovial-faced Nova Scotia Irishman, and a very sociable fellow, prone to talk as long as he can find a listener. In the afternoon, while the cook was .below and asleep and I was peeling the everlasting po tatoes. Louis dropped into the galley for a “yarn.” His excuse for being aboard was that he was drunk when he signed. He is accounted one of the two or three very best boat steerers in both fleets. Ah, my boy”—he shook his head ominously at me—“ ’tis the worst schooner ye could iv selected, nor were ye drunk at the time as was 1. Don’t I remember him in Hakodate two years gone, when he had a row an’ shot four iv his men? An' there was a man the same year he killed with a blow iv his fist. An’ wasn’t there the governor of Kura island, an’ the chief iv police. Japanese gentle men, sir, an’ didn’t they come aboard the Ghost as his guests, a-bringin’ their wives along—wee an' prettv little bits of things like you see 'em painted on fans. An’ as he was a-get tin’ under way. didn’t the fond hus bands get left astern-like in their sam pan, as it might be by accident? An' wasn’t it a week later that the poor little ladies was put ashore on the other side of the island, with nothin’ before ’em but to walk home acrost the mountains on their weeny-teeny little straw sandals, which wouldn’t hang together a mile? Don’t I know? 'Tis the beast he is? this Wolf Lar sen—the great, big beast mentioned in Revelation; an’ no good end will he ever come to. But I’ve said nothin’ to ye, mind ye. I’ve whispered never a word; for old, fat Louis’ll live the voy age out if the last mother’s son of yez go to the fishes.” “But if he is so well known for what he is,” 1 queried, “how is it that he can get men to ship with him?” An now is ii ye can get men to do anything on God’s earth an' sea?' Bonis demanded with Celtic tire "There's them that can't sail with bet ter men. like the hunters, and them that don t know, like the poor devils of wind jammers for'ard there.” "Them hunters is the wicked boys.” he broke forth again, for he suffered from a constitutional plethora of speech. "But wait till they get to cutting up iv jinks and rowin' 'round He's the boy'll fix 'em X.oolt at that hunter iv mine, Horner. Didn't he kill his boat steerer last year? An' there's Smoke, the black little devil—didn't the Roosians have him for three years in the salt mines of Siberia, for poach in' on Copper island, which is a Ron sian preserve? Shackled he was. hand an' foot, with his mate An didn't they have words or a ruction of some kind?—for 'twas the other fellow Smoke sent up in the buckets to the top of the miner an’ a piece at the time he went up. a leg today, an tomorrow an arm, the next day the head, an' so on.” "But you can't mean it!" 1 cried out, overcome with the horror of it. "Mean what?" he demanded. Quick as a flash. “ 'Tis nothin' I've said Deef 1 am. and dumb, as ye should be for the sake iv your mother; an' never once have I opened me lips but to say tine things iv them an' him. God curse his soul, an' may he rot in purgatory ten thousand years, and then go down to the last an’ deepest hell iv all!" Jonnson seemed tiie least equivocal ‘of the men forward or aft. He seemed to have the courage of his convic tions. the certainty of his manhood. Ii was this that made him protest, at the commencement of our acquaintance, against being called Yonson. And upon this, and him, Louis passed judg ment and prophecy. " 'Tis a line chap, that squarehead Johnson we've for’ard with us.” he said. "The best sailormun in the fo'c’sle. He's my boat puller. But it's to trouble he'll come with 'Wolf Larsen, as the sparks fly upward The Wolf is strong, and it’s the way of a wolf to hate strength, an’ strength it is he’ll see In Johnson—no knucklin' under, and a 'Yes. sir’ thank ye kindly, sir.’ for a curse or a blow." Thomas Mugridge is becoming unon durable. I am compelled to Mister him and Sir him with every speech. One reason for this is that Wolf Lar sen seems to have taken a fancy to him. It is an unprecedented thing, i take it. for a captain to be chummy with the cook: but this is certainly what Wolf Larsen is doing. Two or three times he put his head into the galley and chaffed Mugridge good naturedly. and once, this afternoon, he stood by the break of the poop and chatted with him for fully fifteen min utes When it was over, and Mug ridge was back in the galley, he be came greasily radiant, and went about his work, humming the coster songs in a nerve-racking and discordant fal setto. "I always get along with the offi cers,” he remarked to me in a confi dential tone. "I know the w’y, I do. to myke myself uppreci-yted. There was my last skipper. 'Mugridge,' sez 'e to me. ‘Mugridge,’ sez 'e. ‘you’ve missed yer vokytion.’ 'An' 'ow’s that? sez I. 'Yes should 'a' been born a gentleman, an' never 'ad to work for yer livin'.' God strike me dead. T’mp if that ayn’t wot 'e sez, an' me a-sittin' there in 'is own cabin, joliy-like an' comfortable, a-smokin' 'is cigars an drinkin' 'is rum.” This chitter-chatter drove me to dis traction. I never heard a voice I hated so. Positively, he was the most dis ever met. The tilth of his cooking was indescribable, and. as he cooked every thing that was eaten aboard, 1 was compelled to select what 1 ate with great circumspection, choosing from the least dirty of his concoctions. My hands bothered me a great deal, unused as they were to work. Nor was my knee any better. The swelling had not gone down, and the cap was still up on edge. Hobbling about on it from morning to night was not helping it any. What 1 needed w'as rest, if it were ever to get wey. Rest! 1 never before knew the meaning of the word. I bad been rest ing all my life and did not know it. But now, from half past five in the morning till ten o’clock at night. I am everybody’s slave, with not one moment to myself, except such as 1 can steal near the end of the second dog watch. Let me pause for a min ute to look out over the sea sparkling in the sun, or to gaze at a sailor going aloft to the gaff-topsails, or running out the bowsprit, and 1 am sure to hear the hateful voice, “ ’Ere, you 'Ump. no sodgerin'. I’ve got my peep ers on yer.” There are signs of rampant bad tem per in the steerage, and the gossip is going around that Smoke and Hender son have had a fight. Henderson seems the best of the hunters, a slow goir.g fellow, and hard to rouse; but roused he must have been, for Smoke had a bruised and discolored eye. and looked particularly vicious whan he came into the cabin for supper. (TO BE CONTINUED.! FATHER TIME NEVER BLUFFED Sooner or Later the Old Gentleman Gets Even With Those Who Practice Deception. Once upon a time there was a lady who wished to have her real age kept a secret In order to get away with it she instructed her son, in case anyone asked how old he was, to knock ofi about 50 per cent. She told people the boy was large for his age and explained the grufi tones of his voice by saying that his tonsils needed attention. One day the rector of the church called, and while waiting in the draw tng room for the lady to put the finish Ing touches to her make-up he talked with the boy, who was pretending to read "Little Lord Fauntleroy’’ for the seventeenth time. The boy volunteered the information that tomorrow would be his birthday. Ah,” said the rector, “and how old will you be then?” "Ten years old.” replied the boy. as Ter instructions. “Indeed!” said the rector. “I dare say you haven't any Idea what your mother is going to give you for a birthday gift.” “Oh, yes, 1 have,” was the unex pected answer. "She promised to give me a safety razor.” When the rector rushed into the hall to see what had caused the loud crash he had heard he found the boy’s moth er lying on the floor in a dead faint Moral: Old Father Time calls all bluffs. Appropriately Named. “1 tripped over something in the darkness and nearly broke my leg!” carped the Kansas City drummer who was marooned in Petunia overnight and bad ventured out to a picture show. “Why in torment do you peo ple brag of your White Way when there isn’t a street light going in town?" "Because it is tollable white when they are going,” replied the landlord of the tavern. “When they ain't, which 1 am compelled to say is every now and again, you turn white yourself for fear you’ll break your neck every Btep you take.”—Kansas City Star. REFLECTED FROM THE LAND Mirage Frequently Seen by Travelers Through the Red River Valley of Minnesota. That phenomenon known as the mi rage has always been of interest to travelers. Sometimes even people on the train can get a glimpse of such an illusion. In the Red River valley of Minnesota are occasionally to be seen some of its effects. In a guide book issued by the United States Geological survey Warren Upham says: "The mirage, typical of plains, country or the ocean, may be seen in the Red River valley almost any sun; shiny day in spring, summer or au tumn. This queer phenomenon makes the high land at the sides of the valley and the tops of the distant trees and houses appear to be raised a little above the horizon, with a narrow strip of sky between. The more complex and astonishing effect of mirage may be seen from the highland on either side of the lake-bed floor. There, in looking across the valley from one and one-half to two hours after sunrise on a hot morning following a cool night, the groves and houses, villages and grain elevators loom up to two or three times their true height and places ordinarily hidden by the curva ture of the earth are brought into view. Oftentimes, too. these objects are seen double, being repeated In an inverted image close above their real position and separated from it by a fogliVe belt. In its most perfect de velopment the mirage shows the up per and topsy-turvy portion of the view quite as distinctly as the lower and true portion. These appearances are due to refraction and reflection from layers of air of different densi ty such as are often formed above a wide expanse of level country in warm weather." The Geese and the Cranes. The Geese and the Cranes fed in the same meadow. A birdcatcher came ♦to ensnare them in his nets. The Cranes being light of wing, flew away at blB approach; while the Geese, be ing slower of flight and heavier in their bodies, were captured.—From Aesop's Fables. NORWEGIAN CITY THAT WAS DEVASTATED BY FIRE i General view of Bergen, one of the chief cities of Norway, which was partly destroyed by fire. At least 41>j buildings were burned and thousands of persons made homeless. FATAL BOWL FIGHT AT PENN UNIVERSITY J liis is a photograph taken during the annual bowl fight between the freshmen and sophomores of the Uni versity of Pennsylvania, in which one lad lost his life and six others were badly injured. At the left is a por trait of William Lifson of Elizabeth, X. J., who was killed. He was a member of the freshman class and was twenty years old. LAYING LABOR BUILDING CORNERSTONE Samuel Gcmpers, Secretary of Labor Wilson and others taking part in the ceremony of laying the cornerstone of the new building being erected In Washington as headquarters of the American Federation of Labor. OKLAHOMA OFF FOR STS TRIALS The battleship Oklahoma, latest superdreadnaught to be added to the United States navy, here seen as she passed beneath the Brooklyn bridge on her way to the coast of Maine for official trials, stood the first tests well She developed a speed of 21.47 knots. J INDIAN A CAPITOL GUARD Frank Janis, a Sioux Indian from Tripp county, South Dakota, is one ot the men employed by Uncle Sam to protect his property. He has joined the force of police that guard the capl tol at Washington. Janis is well edu cated, owns a big farm on the Rose Bud reservation and drives his own automobile. Rehearses in Six Languages. Richard Ordynski, the Polish pro ducer who is now in New York. Is very different from the average Broad way theatrical manager. The latter usually speaks but two languages— English and profane. Ordynski speaks eight. When Pavlowa was here he con ducted some of the rehearsals in six languages—conversing in Russian with the famous dancer, in Polish with some of her ballet, French with the conductor, Italian with the mem bers of the orchestra, German with the property men and English with the ; house manager. Professor Ordynski—he was once a member of the faculty of the Univer sity of Cracow, despite the fact that he is only thirty years of age—has been invited to deliver a course of lec tures on Polish literature at Colum bia university. USE FILMS FOR EDUCATION Authorities of State of Iowa Have a New Scheme, Which Promises to Be Successful. By co-operation with the motion pic ture producers of the state, Iowa main tains a film library which is expect ed to be an important part in the edu cational system of the state in years to come. Notable events in Iowa such as the state fair, the annual “$1,000-, 000“ stock parade, big football games, etc., are taken by motion picture com panies which exhibit the pictures until they are no longer commercially profit able when they are turned over to the curator of the historical department of the state who preserves them for edu cational uses. Street scenes In im portant cities, public buildings, the operation of Industrial plants, the Keo kuk dam and other aspects of the so cial and industrial activities of the state are shown in the collection, which Includes about 50,000 feet of film. Tho plan of collecting and pre serving Aims which portray social and industrial conditions of the day. sug gests possible revolutionary changes in teaching methods, particularly the teaching of tistory. Actual pictures will convey to posterity an idea of the life of a preceding age far more graph ically and economically than books or lectures. Taken In conjunction with * the phonograph, motion pictures mav leave to following ages a transcript of \ the events of the times and an imnre« ■ slon of its celebrities far cleared is now possible. ““