rant carpenter, and sixteen enlisted men of
the United States Navy could see she was shy of, except a wireless
outfit, and we soon fixed that by stringing a stretch of old wire
between her masts, with half a dozen old barrel hoops for a wireless
plant, and for fear there was anybody of Red Dick's party who knew
battle-ships only from pictures, I had the stokers keep feeding her
fires with whale-oil. After that, with the clouds of smoke belching out
of her, I felt sure nobody could doubt us--especially at a distance.

We gave three whistles and dipped the ensign to our navy friends, and
for the rest of that day and night, and all next day and night, we
steamed through the straits toward the Pacific. And on the second
morning we turned north and ran in among the islands off the Chilean
coast; and pretty soon we ran into the place I was bound for--a
bottle-shaped passage with a narrow inlet to each end and the shadow of
the Andes Mountains darkening all. And, laying to moorings there, was a
cargo steamer of perhaps fifteen hundred tons. Even if she wasn't too
big a steamer to be loafing there, I knew her of old. Red Dick was
handy. I took a look around to the north'ard, and at the other end of
the passage and jam in to the high rocks was a whaling steamer about our
own tonnage. I also knew her of old.

I might as well say now that Red Dick and I weren't strangers. We used
to be sort of friends, but not since the day we walked up the long
timber pier in Punta 'renas together and met Hilda with her father. She
was straight from school in Norway then, and 'twas the first time we'd
seen her. We looked out together on the wonderful straits, and 'twas me
she walked home with.

But that was a year back, and it was other business now. I had now to
make an impression, and right away, to back up our battle-ship looks. So
we cut loose and gave them, port and starboard, one after the other,
twenty-one whaling bombs in good, regulation style. They made a
terrible racket against the Andes Mountains, which come down here to the
water's edge.

[Illustration: 'Twas me she walked home with.]

And Red Dick's gang must have thought we were some awful power, for
there was soon great doings on the deck of the whaling steamer. Smoke
began to come out of her, and pretty soon she began to move; but when we
bore down, with a great white wave ahead of us and rolls of smoke over
us, they quit. Two boats dropped over her side and headed for a bit