ettings of his hair
relieved him from the headache that the sun's heat was bringing on; and
satisfied that the strong hand of local law had again closed over him,
he resigned himself to the situation, resenting only the absence of a
shade-tree or a hat. "Much better 'n the calaboose in El Paso," he
muttered, "or the brickyard in Chicago."

As he lolled on the sand, the glistening thing over at the western
point again caught his eye. After a moment's scrutiny he rose and
limped toward it, following the concave of the beach, and often pausing
to rest and bathe his head. It was a long journey for him, and the
tide, at half-ebb when he started, was rising again when he came
abreast of the object and sat down to look at it. It was of metal, long
and round, rolling nearly submerged, and held by the alternate surf and
undertow parallel with the beach, about twenty feet out.

He waded in, grasped it by a T-shaped projection in the middle, and
headed it toward the shore. Then he launched it forward with all his
strength--not much, but enough to lift a bluntly pointed end out of
water as it grounded and exposed a small, four-bladed steel wheel,
shaped something like a windmill. He examined this, but could not
understand it, as it whirled freely either way and seemed to have no
internal connection. The strange cylinder was about sixteen feet long
and about eighteen inches in diameter.

"Boat o' some kind," he muttered; "but what kind? That screw's too
small to make it go. Let's see the other end."

He launched it with difficulty, and noticed that when floating end on
to the surf it ceased to roll and kept the T-shaped projection
uppermost, proving that it was ballasted. Swinging it, he grounded the
other end, which was radically different in appearance. It was long and
finely pointed, with four steel blades or vanes, two horizontal and two
vertical,--like the double tails of an ideal fish,--and in hollowed
parts of these vanes were hung a pair of unmistakable propellers, one
behind the other, and of opposite pitch and motion.

"One works on the shaft, t' other on a sleeve," he mused, as he turned
them. "A roundhouse wiper could see that. Bevel-gearin' inside, I
guess. It's a boat, sure enough, and this reverse action must be to
keep her from rolling."

On each of the four vanes he found a small blade, showing by its
connection that it possessed range of action, yet immovable as the vane
itself, as though held firmly by inne