Foreigh Aid Fraud: Danvers Damsels - 9 (The Danvers Damsels series)

There, weaving in and out in the pattern of shadow, were black, noiseless forms; the hounds heard him at the window and looked up, expectantly, with their green eyes. Rainsford went back to the bed and lay down. By many methods he tried to put himself to sleep. He had achieved a doze when, just as morning began to come, he heard, far off in the jungle, the faint report of a pistol. General Zaroff did not appear until luncheon. He was dressed faultlessly in the tweeds of a country squire. He was solicitous about the state of Rainsford's health.

I am worried, Mr. Last night I detected traces of my old complaint. The fellow lost his head. He made a straight trail that offered no problems at all. That's the trouble with these sailors; they have dull brains to begin with, and they do not know how to get about in the woods. They do excessively stupid and obvious things. Will you have another glass of Chablis , Mr. You've had no hunting--" "I wish to go today," said Rainsford. He saw the dead black eyes of the general on him, studying him. General Zaroff's face suddenly brightened.

He filled Rainsford's glass with venerable Chablis from a dusty bottle. But may I not venture to suggest that you will find my idea of sport more diverting than Ivan's? This is really an inspiration. I drink to a foeman worthy of my steel--at last. Your woodcraft against mine. Your strength and stamina against mine. And the stake is not without value, eh? Of course you, in turn, must agree to say nothing of your visit here. Three days hence we can discuss it over a bottle of Veuve Cliquot , unless--" The general sipped his wine. Then a businesslike air animated him.

I suggest you wear moccasins; they leave a poorer trail. I suggest, too, that you avoid the big swamp in the southeast corner of the island. We call it Death Swamp. One foolish fellow tried it. The deplorable part of it was that Lazarus followed him. You can imagine my feelings, Mr. I loved Lazarus; he was the finest hound in my pack. Well, I must beg you to excuse me now.

I always' take a siesta after lunch. You'll hardly have time for a nap, I fear. You'll want to start, no doubt. I shall not follow till dusk. Hunting at night is so much more exciting than by day, don't you think? From another door came Ivan. Under one arm he carried khaki hunting clothes, a haversack of food, a leather sheath containing a long-bladed hunting knife; his right hand rested on a revolver thrust in the crimson sash about his waist. Rainsford had fought his way through the bush for two hours. I must keep my nerve," he said through tight teeth. He had not been entirely clearheaded when the chateau gates snapped shut behind him.

His whole idea at first was to put distance between himself and General Zaroff; and, to this end, he had plunged along, spurred on by the sharp rowers of something very like panic. Now he had got a grip on himself, had stopped, and was taking stock of himself and the situation. He saw that straight flight was futile; inevitably it would bring him face to face with the sea.

He was in a picture with a frame of water, and his operations, clearly, must take place within that frame. He executed a series of intricate loops; he doubled on his trail again and again, recalling all the lore of the fox hunt, and all the dodges of the fox. Night found him leg-weary, with hands and face lashed by the branches, on a thickly wooded ridge. He knew it would be insane to blunder on through the dark, even if he had the strength.

His need for rest was imperative and he thought, "I have played the fox, now I must play the cat of the fable. Rest brought him new confidence and almost a feeling of security. Even so zealous a hunter as General Zaroff could not trace him there, he told himself; only the devil himself could follow that complicated trail through the jungle after dark. But perhaps the general was a devil-- An apprehensive night crawled slowly by like a wounded snake and sleep did not visit Rainsford, although the silence of a dead world was on the jungle.

Toward morning when a dingy gray was varnishing the sky, the cry of some startled bird focused Rainsford's attention in that direction. Something was coming through the bush, coming slowly, carefully, coming by the same winding way Rainsford had come. He flattened himself down on the limb and, through a screen of leaves almost as thick as tapestry, he watched. That which was approaching was a man. It was General Zaroff. He made his way along with his eyes fixed in utmost concentration on the ground before him. He paused, almost beneath the tree, dropped to his knees and studied the ground.

Rainsford's impulse was to hurl himself down like a panther, but he saw that the general's right hand held something metallic--a small automatic pistol. The hunter shook his head several times, as if he were puzzled. Then he straightened up and took from his case one of his black cigarettes; its pungent incenselike smoke floated up to Rainsford's nostrils. Rainsford held his breath. The general's eyes had left the ground and were traveling inch by inch up the tree. Rainsford froze there, every muscle tensed for a spring. But the sharp eyes of the hunter stopped before they reached the limb where Rainsford lay; a smile spread over his brown face.

Very deliberately he blew a smoke ring into the air; then he turned his back on the tree and walked carelessly away, back along the trail he had come. The swish of the underbrush against his hunting boots grew fainter and fainter. The pent-up air burst hotly from Rainsford's lungs. His first thought made him feel sick and numb. The general could follow a trail through the woods at night; he could follow an extremely difficult trail; he must have uncanny powers; only by the merest chance had the Cossack failed to see his quarry. Rainsford's second thought was even more terrible.

It sent a shudder of cold horror through his whole being. Why had the general smiled? Why had he turned back? Rainsford did not want to believe what his reason told him was true, but the truth was as evident as the sun that had by now pushed through the morning mists. The general was playing with him! The general was saving him for another day's sport! The Cossack was the cat; he was the mouse. Then it was that Rainsford knew the full meaning of terror. His face was set and he forced the machinery of his mind to function.

Three hundred yards from his hiding place he stopped where a huge dead tree leaned precariously on a smaller, living one. Throwing off his sack of food, Rainsford took his knife from its sheath and began to work with all his energy. The job was finished at last, and he threw himself down behind a fallen log a hundred feet away.

He did not have to wait long. The cat was coming again to play with the mouse. Following the trail with the sureness of a bloodhound came General Zaroff. Nothing escaped those searching black eyes, no crushed blade of grass, no bent twig, no mark, no matter how faint, in the moss.

So intent was the Cossack on his stalking that he was upon the thing Rainsford had made before he saw it. His foot touched the protruding bough that was the trigger. Even as he touched it, the general sensed his danger and leaped back with the agility of an ape. But he was not quite quick enough; the dead tree, delicately adjusted to rest on the cut living one, crashed down and struck the general a glancing blow on the shoulder as it fell; but for his alertness, he must have been smashed beneath it.

He staggered, but he did not fall; nor did he drop his revolver. He stood there, rubbing his injured shoulder, and Rainsford, with fear again gripping his heart, heard the general's mocking laugh ring through the jungle. Not many men know how to make a Malay mancatcher. Luckily for me I, too, have hunted in Malacca. You are proving interesting, Mr. I am going now to have my wound dressed; it's only a slight one. But I shall be back.

I shall be back. It was flight now, a desperate, hopeless flight, that carried him on for some hours. Dusk came, then darkness, and still he pressed on. The ground grew softer under his moccasins; the vegetation grew ranker, denser; insects bit him savagely. Then, as he stepped forward, his foot sank into the ooze. He tried to wrench it back, but the muck sucked viciously at his foot as if it were a giant leech. With a violent effort, he tore his feet loose.

He knew where he was now. Death Swamp and its quicksand. His hands were tight closed as if his nerve were something tangible that someone in the darkness was trying to tear from his grip. The softness of the earth had given him an idea. He stepped back from the quicksand a dozen feet or so and, like some huge prehistoric beaver, he began to dig.

Rainsford had dug himself in in France when a second's delay meant death. That had been a placid pastime compared to his digging now. The pit grew deeper; when it was above his shoulders, he climbed out and from some hard saplings cut stakes and sharpened them to a fine point. These stakes he planted in the bottom of the pit with the points sticking up. With flying fingers he wove a rough carpet of weeds and branches and with it he covered the mouth of the pit. Then, wet with sweat and aching with tiredness, he crouched behind the stump of a lightning-charred tree.

He knew his pursuer was coming; he heard the padding sound of feet on the soft earth, and the night breeze brought him the perfume of the general's cigarette. It seemed to Rainsford that the general was coming with unusual swiftness; he was not feeling his way along, foot by foot.

Rainsford, crouching there, could not see the general, nor could he see the pit. He lived a year in a minute. Then he felt an impulse to cry aloud with joy, for he heard the sharp crackle of the breaking branches as the cover of the pit gave way; he heard the sharp scream of pain as the pointed stakes found their mark. He leaped up from his place of concealment. Then he cowered back. Three feet from the pit a man was standing, with an electric torch in his hand.

Rainsford, Ill see what you can do against my whole pack. I'm going home for a rest now. Thank you for a most amusing evening. It was a distant sound, faint and wavering, but he knew it. It was the baying of a pack of hounds. Rainsford knew he could do one of two things. He could stay where he was and wait. That was postponing the inevitable. For a moment he stood there, thinking. An idea that held a wild chance came to him, and, tightening his belt, he headed away from the swamp.

The baying of the hounds drew nearer, then still nearer, nearer, ever nearer. On a ridge Rainsford climbed a tree. Down a watercourse, not a quarter of a mile away, he could see the bush moving. Straining his eyes, he saw the lean figure of General Zaroff; just ahead of him Rainsford made out another figure whose wide shoulders surged through the tall jungle weeds; it was the giant Ivan, and he seemed pulled forward by some unseen force; Rainsford knew that Ivan must be holding the pack in leash. They would be on him any minute now. His mind worked frantically. He thought of a native trick he had learned in Uganda.

He slid down the tree. He caught hold of a springy young sapling and to it he fastened his hunting knife, with the blade pointing down the trail; with a bit of wild grapevine he tied back the sapling. Then he ran for his life. The hounds raised their voices as they hit the fresh scent. Rainsford knew now how an animal at bay feels. He had to stop to get his breath. The baying of the hounds stopped abruptly, and Rainsford's heart stopped too. They must have reached the knife. He shinned excitedly up a tree and looked back. His pursuers had stopped. But the hope that was in Rainsford's brain when he climbed died, for he saw in the shallow valley that General Zaroff was still on his feet.

But Ivan was not. The knife, driven by the recoil of the springing tree, had not wholly failed. Rainsford had hardly tumbled to the ground when the pack took up the cry again. A blue gap showed between the trees dead ahead. Ever nearer drew the hounds. Rainsford forced himself on toward that gap. It was the shore of the sea. Across a cove he could see the gloomy gray stone of the chateau.

Twenty feet below him the sea rumbled and hissed. He heard the hounds. Then he leaped far out into the sea. When the general and his pack reached the place by the sea, the Cossack stopped. For some minutes he stood regarding the blue-green expanse of water. He shrugged his shoulders. Then be sat down, took a drink of brandy from a silver flask, lit a cigarette, and hummed a bit from Madame Butterfly.

General Zaroff had an exceedingly good dinner in his great paneled dining hall that evening. With it he had a bottle of Pol Roger and half a bottle of Chambertin. Two slight annoyances kept him from perfect enjoyment. One was the thought that it would be difficult to replace Ivan; the other was that his quarry had escaped him; of course, the American hadn't played the game--so thought the general as he tasted his after-dinner liqueur.

In his library he read, to soothe himself, from the works of Marcus Aurelius. At ten he went up to his bedroom. He was deliciously tired, he said to himself, as he locked himself in. There was a little moonlight, so, before turning on his light, he went to the window and looked down at the courtyard. He could see the great hounds, and he called, "Better luck another time," to them. Then he switched on the light.

A man, who had been hiding in the curtains of the bed, was standing there. One of us is to furnish a repast for the hounds. The other will sleep in this very excellent bed. He had never slept in a better bed, Rainsford decided. Vast flats of green grass, dull-hued spaces of mesquite and cactus, little groups of frame houses, woods of light and tender trees, all were sweeping into the east, sweeping over the horizon, a precipice. A newly married pair had boarded this coach at San Antonio. The man's face was reddened from many days in the wind and sun, and a direct result of his new black clothes was that his brick-colored hands were constantly performing in a most conscious fashion.

From time to time he looked down respectfully at his attire. He sat with a hand on each knee, like a man waiting in a barber's shop. The glances he devoted to other passengers were furtive and shy. The bride was not pretty, nor was she very young. She wore a dress of blue cashmere, with small reservations of velvet here and there and with steel buttons abounding.

She continually twisted her head to regard her puff sleeves, very stiff, straight, and high. It was quite apparent that she had cooked, and that she expected to cook, dutifully. The blushes caused by the careless scrutiny of some passengers as she had entered the car were strange to see upon this plain, under-class countenance, which was drawn in placid, almost emotionless lines. They were evidently very happy.

And then after a while we'll go forward to the diner and get a big layout. Finest meal in the world. Why, that's too much -- for us -- ain't it, Jack? Later, he explained to her about the trains. He pointed out to her the dazzling fittings of the coach, and in truth her eyes opened wider as she contemplated the sea-green figured velvet, the shining brass, silver, and glass, the wood that gleamed as darkly brilliant as the surface of a pool of oil.

At one end a bronze figure sturdily held a support for a separated chamber, and at convenient places on the ceiling were frescoes in olive and silver. To the minds of the pair, their surroundings reflected the glory of their marriage that morning in San Antonio. This was the environment of their new estate, and the man's face in particular beamed with an elation that made him appear ridiculous to the negro porter. This individual at times surveyed them from afar with an amused and superior grin. On other occasions he bullied them with skill in ways that did not make it exactly plain to them that they were being bullied.

He subtly used all the manners of the most unconquerable kind of snobbery. He oppressed them, but of this oppression they had small knowledge, and they speedily forgot that infrequently a number of travelers covered them with stares of derisive enjoyment. Historically there was supposed to be something infinitely humorous in their situation. To evince surprise at her husband's statement was part of her wifely amiability. She took from a pocket a little silver watch, and as she held it before her and stared at it with a frown of attention, the new husband's face shone. A passenger, noting this play, grew excessively sardonic, and winked at himself in one of the numerous mirrors.

At last they went to the dining-car. Two rows of negro waiters, in glowing white suits, surveyed their entrance with the interest and also the equanimity of men who had been forewarned. The pair fell to the lot of a waiter who happened to feel pleasure in steering them through their meal. He viewed them with the manner of a fatherly pilot, his countenance radiant with benevolence. The patronage, entwined with the ordinary deference, was not plain to them.

And yet, as they returned to their coach, they showed in their faces a sense of escape. To the left, miles down a long purple slope, was a little ribbon of mist where moved the keening Rio Grande. The train was approaching it at an angle, and the apex was Yellow Sky. Presently it was apparent that, as the distance from Yellow Sky grew shorter, the husband became commensurately restless. His brick-red hands were more insistent in their prominence. Occasionally he was even rather absent-minded and far-away when the bride leaned forward and addressed him. As a matter of truth, Jack Potter was beginning to find the shadow of a deed weigh upon him like a leaden slab.

He, the town marshal of Yellow Sky, a man known, liked, and feared in his corner, a prominent person, had gone to San Antonio to meet a girl he believed he loved, and there, after the usual prayers, had actually induced her to marry him, without consulting Yellow Sky for any part of the transaction. He was now bringing his bride before an innocent and unsuspecting community. Of course, people in Yellow Sky married as it pleased them, in accordance with a general custom; but such was Potter's thought of his duty to his friends, or of their idea of his duty, or of an unspoken form which does not control men in these matters, that he felt he was heinous.

He had committed an extraordinary crime. Face to face with this girl in San Antonio, and spurred by his sharp impulse, he had gone headlong over all the social hedges. At San Antonio he was like a man hidden in the dark. A knife to sever any friendly duty, any form, was easy to his hand in that remote city. But the hour of Yellow Sky, the hour of daylight, was approaching. He knew full well that his marriage was an important thing to his town. It could only be exceeded by the burning of the new hotel.

His friends could not forgive him. Frequently he had reflected on the advisability of telling them by telegraph, but a new cowardice had been upon him. He feared to do it. And now the train was hurrying him toward a scene of amazement, glee, and reproach. He glanced out of the window at the line of haze swinging slowly in towards the train.

Yellow Sky had a kind of brass band, which played painfully, to the delight of the populace. He laughed without heart as he thought of it. If the citizens could dream of his prospective arrival with his bride, they would parade the band at the station and escort them, amid cheers and laughing congratulations, to his adobe home.

He resolved that he would use all the devices of speed and plains-craft in making the journey from the station to his house. Once within that safe citadel he could issue some sort of a vocal bulletin, and then not go among the citizens until they had time to wear off a little of their enthusiasm. A sense of mutual guilt invaded their minds and developed a finer tenderness. They looked at each other with eyes softly aglow.

But Potter often laughed the same nervous laugh. The flush upon the bride's face seemed quite permanent. The traitor to the feelings of Yellow Sky narrowly watched the speeding landscape. Presently the porter came and announced the proximity of Potter's home. He held a brush in his hand and, with all his airy superiority gone, he brushed Potter's new clothes as the latter slowly turned this way and that way.

Potter fumbled out a coin and gave it to the porter, as he had seen others do. It was a heavy and muscle-bound business, as that of a man shoeing his first horse. The porter took their bag, and as the train began to slow they moved forward to the hooded platform of the car. Presently the two engines and their long string of coaches rushed into the station of Yellow Sky. Before the train stopped, his eye had swept the length of the platform, and he was glad and astonished to see there was none upon it but the station-agent, who, with a slightly hurried and anxious air, was walking toward the water-tanks.

When the train had halted, the porter alighted first and placed in position a little temporary step. As he helped her down they each laughed on a false note. He took the bag from the negro, and bade his wife cling to his arm. As they slunk rapidly away, his hang-dog glance perceived that they were unloading the two trunks, and also that the station-agent far ahead near the baggage-car had turned and was running toward him, making gestures. He laughed, and groaned as he laughed, when he noted the first effect of his marital bliss upon Yellow Sky.

He gripped his wife's arm firmly to his side, and they fled. Behind them the porter stood chuckling fatuously. There were six men at the bar of the "Weary Gentleman" saloon. One was a drummer who talked a great deal and rapidly; three were Texans who did not care to talk at that time; and two were Mexican sheep-herders who did not talk as a general practice in the "Weary Gentleman" saloon. The barkeeper's dog lay on the board walk that crossed in front of the door. His head was on his paws, and he glanced drowsily here and there with the constant vigilance of a dog that is kicked on occasion.

Across the sandy street were some vivid green grass plots, so wonderful in appearance amid the sands that burned near them in a blazing sun that they caused a doubt in the mind. They exactly resembled the grass mats used to represent lawns on the stage. At the cooler end of the railway station a man without a coat sat in a tilted chair and smoked his pipe. The fresh-cut bank of the Rio Grande circled near the town, and there could be seen beyond it a great, plum-colored plain of mesquite.

Save for the busy drummer and his companions in the saloon, Yellow Sky was dozing. The new-comer leaned gracefully upon the bar, and recited many tales with the confidence of a bard who has come upon a new field. The drummer's tale was interrupted by a young man who suddenly appeared in the open door. The drummer, innocent and jocular, answered: Come in and have a drink, anyhow. But the information had made such an obvious cleft in every skull in the room that the drummer was obliged to see its importance.

All had become instantly solemn. The barkeeper went to the door and locked and barred it. Reaching out of the window, he pulled in heavy wooden shutters and barred them. Immediately a solemn, chapel-like gloom was upon the place. The drummer was looking from one to another. The young man who had warned them waved his hand. Anybody can get a fight out there in the street. There's a fight just waiting. The drummer seemed to be swayed between the interest of a foreigner and a perception of personal danger.

What are you going to do? Does this happen often? Does he rampage around like this once a week or so? Can he break in that door? But when he comes you'd better lay down on the floor, stranger. He's dead sure to shoot at it, and a bullet may come through. Thereafter the drummer kept a strict eye upon the door. The time had not yet been called for him to hug the floor, but, as a minor precaution, he sidled near to the wall. The voices had toned away to mere whisperings.

The drummer wished to ask further questions which were born of an increasing anxiety and bewilderment; but when he attempted them, the men merely looked at him in irritation and motioned him to remain silent. A tense waiting hush was upon them. In the deep shadows of the room their eyes shone as they listened for sounds from the street. One man made three gestures at the barkeeper, and the latter, moving like a ghost, handed him a glass and a bottle. The man poured a full glass of whisky, and set down the bottle noiselessly.

He gulped the whisky in a swallow, and turned again toward the door in immovable silence. The drummer saw that the barkeeper, without a sound, had taken a Winchester from beneath the bar. Later he saw this individual beckoning to him, so he tiptoed across the room. Whereupon the man of bottles made a kindly but peremptory gesture. The drummer obeyed it, and finding himself seated on a box with his head below the level of the bar, balm was laid upon his soul at sight of various zinc and copper fittings that bore a resemblance to armor-plate. The barkeeper took a seat comfortably upon an adjacent box.

He's about the last one of the old gang that used to hang out along the river here. He's a terror when he's drunk. When he's sober he's all right -- kind of simple -- wouldn't hurt a fly -- nicest fellow in town. But when he's drunk -- whoo! There were periods of stillness. Presently they heard from a distance the sound of a shot, followed by three wild yowls.

It instantly removed a bond from the men in the darkened saloon. There was a shuffling of feet. They looked at each other. A MAN in a maroon-colored flannel shirt, which had been purchased for purposes of decoration and made, principally, by some Jewish women on the east side of New York, rounded a corner and walked into the middle of the main street of Yellow Sky. In either hand the man held a long, heavy, blue-black revolver. Often he yelled, and these cries rang through a semblance of a deserted village, shrilly flying over the roofs in a volume that seemed to have no relation to the ordinary vocal strength of a man.

It was as if the surrounding stillness formed the arch of a tomb over him. These cries of ferocious challenge rang against walls of silence. And his boots had red tops with gilded imprints, of the kind beloved in winter by little sledding boys on the hillsides of New England. The man's face flamed in a rage begot of whisky. His eyes, rolling and yet keen for ambush, hunted the still doorways and windows.

He walked with the creeping movement of the midnight cat. As it occurred to him, he roared menacing information. The long revolvers in his hands were as easy as straws; they were moved with an electric swiftness. The little fingers of each hand played sometimes in a musician's way.

Plain from the low collar of the shirt, the cords of his neck straightened and sank, straightened and sank, as passion moved him. The only sounds were his terrible invitations. The calm adobes preserved their demeanor at the passing of this small thing in the middle of the street. There was no offer of fight; no offer of fight. The man called to the sky. There were no attractions.

He bellowed and fumed and swayed his revolvers here and everywhere. The dog of the barkeeper of the "Weary Gentleman" saloon had not appreciated the advance of events. He yet lay dozing in front of his master's door. At sight of the dog, the man paused and raised his revolver humorously. At sight of the man, the dog sprang up and walked diagonally away, with a sullen head, and growling. The man yelled, and the dog broke into a gallop. As it was about to enter an alley, there was a loud noise, a whistling, and something spat the ground directly before it.

The dog screamed, and, wheeling in terror, galloped headlong in a new direction. Again there was a noise, a whistling, and sand was kicked viciously before it. Fear-stricken, the dog turned and flurried like an animal in a pen. The man stood laughing, his weapons at his hips. Ultimately the man was attracted by the closed door of the "Weary Gentleman" saloon. He went to it, and hammering with a revolver, demanded drink. The door remaining imperturbable, he picked a bit of paper from the walk and nailed it to the framework with a knife. He then turned his back contemptuously upon this popular resort, and walking to the opposite side of the street, and spinning there on his heel quickly and lithely, fired at the bit of paper.

He missed it by a half inch.

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He swore at himself, and went away. Later, he comfortably fusilladed the windows of his most intimate friend. The man was playing with this town. It was a toy for him. But still there was no offer of fight. The name of Jack Potter, his ancient antagonist, entered his mind, and he concluded that it would be a glad thing if he should go to Potter's house and by bombardment induce him to come out and fight. He moved in the direction of his desire, chanting Apache scalp-music.

When he arrived at it, Potter's house presented the same still front as had the other adobes. Taking up a strategic position, the man howled a challenge. But this house regarded him as might a great stone god. It gave no sign. After a decent wait, the man howled further challenges, mingling with them wonderful epithets. Presently there came the spectacle of a man churning himself into deepest rage over the immobility of a house. He fumed at it as the winter wind attacks a prairie cabin in the North. To the distance there should have gone the sound of a tumult like the fighting of Mexicans.

As necessity bade him, he paused for breath or to reload his revolvers. Sometimes they laughed together shamefacedly and low. They put forth the efforts of a pair walking bowed against a strong wind. Potter was about to raise a finger to point the first appearance of the new home when, as they circled the corner, they came face to face with a man in a maroon-colored shirt who was feverishly pushing cartridges into a large revolver. Upon the instant the man dropped his revolver to the ground, and, like lightning, whipped another from its holster. The second weapon was aimed at the bridegroom's chest.

Potter's mouth seemed to be merely a grave for his tongue. He exhibited an instinct to at once loosen his arm from the woman's grip, and he dropped the bag to the sand. As for the bride, her face had gone as yellow as old cloth. She was a slave to hideous rites gazing at the apparitional snake. He of the revolver smiled with a new and quiet ferocity. As Potter made a slight movement, the man thrust his revolver venomously forward. Don't you move a finger toward a gun just yet. Don't you move an eyelash. The time has come for me to settle with you, and I'm goin' to do it my own way and loaf along with no interferin'.

So if you don't want a gun bent on you, just mind what I tell you. Potter looked at his enemy. You'll have to do all the shootin' yourself. His enemy's face went livid. He stepped forward and lashed his weapon to and fro before Potter's chest. Don't tell me no lie like that. There ain't a man in Texas ever seen you without no gun. Don't take me for no kid. His heels had not moved an inch backward. I tell you I ain't got a gun, and I ain't. If you're goin' to shoot me up, you better begin now.

You'll never get a chance like this again. So much enforced reasoning had told on Wilson's rage. I'm married," said Potter. Seemingly for the first time he saw the drooping, drowning woman at the other man's side. He was like a creature allowed a glimpse of another world. He moved a pace backward, and his arm with the revolver dropped to his side.

You know I didn't make the trouble. He was looking at the ground. He picked up his starboard revolver, and placing both weapons in their holsters, he went away. His feet made funnel-shaped tracks in the heavy sand. NONE of them knew the color of the sky. Their eyes glanced level, and were fastened upon the waves that swept toward them. These waves were of the hue of slate, save for the tops, which were of foaming white, and all of the men knew the colors of the sea.

The horizon narrowed and widened, and dipped and rose, and at all times its edge was jagged with waves that seemed thrust up in points like rocks. Many a man ought to have a bath-tub larger than the boat which here rode upon the sea. These waves were most wrongfully and barbarously abrupt and tall, and each froth-top was a problem in small boat navigation. The cook squatted in the bottom and looked with both eyes at the six inches of gunwale which separated him from the ocean. His sleeves were rolled over his fat forearms, and the two flaps of his unbuttoned vest dangled as he bent to bail out the boat.

That was a narrow clip. The oiler, steering with one of the two oars in the boat, sometimes raised himself suddenly to keep clear of water that swirled in over the stern. It was a thin little oar and it seemed often ready to snap. The injured captain, lying in the bow, was at this time buried in that profound dejection and indifference which comes, temporarily at least, to even the bravest and most enduring when, willy nilly, the firm fails, the army loses, the ship goes down.

The mind of the master of a vessel is rooted deep in the timbers of her, though he command for a day or a decade, and this captain had on him the stern impression of a scene in the grays of dawn of seven turned faces, and later a stump of a top-mast with a white ball on it that slashed to and fro at the waves, went low and lower, and down. Thereafter there was something strange in his voice. Although steady, it was deep with mourning, and of a quality beyond oration or tears.

A seat in this boat was not unlike a seat upon a bucking broncho, and, by the same token, a broncho is not much smaller. The craft pranced and reared, and plunged like an animal. As each wave came, and she rose for it, she seemed like a horse making at a fence outrageously high. The manner of her scramble over these walls of water is a mystic thing, and, moreover, at the top of them were ordinarily these problems in white water, the foam racing down from the summit of each wave, requiring a new leap, and a leap from the air.

Then, after scornfully bumping a crest, she would slide, and race, and splash down a long incline and arrive bobbing and nodding in front of the next menace. A singular disadvantage of the sea lies in the fact that after successfully surmounting one wave you discover that there is another behind it just as important and just as nervously anxious to do something effective in the way of swamping boats.

In a ten-foot dingey one can get an idea of the resources of the sea in the line of waves that is not probable to the average experience, which is never at sea in a dingey. As each slaty wall of water approached, it shut all else from the view of the men in the boat, and it was not difficult to imagine that this particular wave was the final outburst of the ocean, the last effort of the grim water. There was a terrible grace in the move of the waves, and they came in silence, save for the snarling of the crests. In the wan light, the faces of the men must have been gray. Their eyes must have glinted in strange ways as they gazed steadily astern.

Viewed from a balcony, the whole thing would doubtlessly have been weirdly picturesque. But the men in the boat had no time to see it, and if they had had leisure there were other things to occupy their minds. The sun swung steadily up the sky, and they knew it was broad day because the color of the sea changed from slate to emerald-green, streaked with amber lights, and the foam was like tumbling snow. The process of the breaking day was unknown to them. They were aware only of this effect upon the color of the waves that rolled toward them. In disjointed sentences the cook and the correspondent argued as to the difference between a life-saving station and a house of refuge.

The cook had said: They don't carry crews.

ian ogilvy | Archive Television Musings

Perhaps it's a life-saving station. As the boat bounced from the top of each wave, the wind tore through the hair of the hatless men, and as the craft plopped her stern down again the spray slashed past them. The crest of each of these waves was a hill, from the top of which the men surveyed, for a moment, a broad tumultuous expanse; shining and wind-riven. It was probably splendid. It was probably glorious, this play of the free sea, wild with lights of emerald and white and amber.

Wouldn't have a show. Then the captain, in the bow, chuckled in a way that expressed humor, contempt, tragedy, all in one. Whereupon the three were silent, save for a trifle of hemming and hawing. To express any particular optimism at this time they felt to be childish and stupid, but they all doubtless possessed this sense of the situation in their mind.

A young man thinks doggedly at such times. On the other hand, the ethics of their condition was decidedly against any open suggestion of hopelessness. So they were silent. But there was that in his tone which made them think, so the oiler quoth: If this wind holds! Canton flannel gulls flew near and far.

Sometimes they sat down on the sea, near patches of brown sea-weed that rolled over the waves with a movement like carpets on line in a gale. The birds sat comfortably in groups, and they were envied by some in the dingey, for the wrath of the sea was no more to them than it was to a covey of prairie chickens a thousand miles inland.

Often they came very close and stared at the men with black bead-like eyes. At these times they were uncanny and sinister in their unblinking scrutiny, and the men hooted angrily at them, telling them to be gone. One came, and evidently decided to alight on the top of the captain's head.

The bird flew parallel to the boat and did not circle, but made short sidelong jumps in the air in chicken-fashion. His black eyes were wistfully fixed upon the captain's head. The captain naturally wished to knock it away with the end of the heavy painter, but he did not dare do it, because anything resembling an emphatic gesture would have capsized this freighted boat, and so with his open hand, the captain gently and carefully waved the gull away.

After it had been discouraged from the pursuit the captain breathed easier on account of his hair, and others breathed easier because the bird struck their minds at this time as being somehow grewsome and ominous. They sat together in the same seat, and each rowed an oar. Then the oiler took both oars; then the correspondent took both oars; then the oiler; then the correspondent. They rowed and they rowed. The very ticklish part of the business was when the time came for the reclining one in the stern to take his turn at the oars.

By the very last star of truth, it is easier to steal eggs from under a hen than it was to change seats in the dingey. First the man in the stern slid his hand along the thwart and moved with care, as if he were of Sevres. Then the man in the rowing seat slid his hand along the other thwart. It was all done with the most extraordinary care. As the two sidled past each other, the whole party kept watchful eyes on the coming wave, and the captain cried: The brown mats of sea-weed that appeared from time to time were like islands, bits of earth.

They were travelling, apparently, neither one way nor the other. They were, to all intents stationary. They informed the men in the boat that it was making progress slowly toward the land. The captain, rearing cautiously in the bow, after the dingey soared on a great swell, said that he had seen the lighthouse at Mosquito Inlet. Presently the cook remarked that he had seen it. The correspondent was at the oars, then, and for some reason he too wished to look at the lighthouse, but his back was toward the far shore and the waves were important, and for some time he could not seize an opportunity to turn his head.

But at last there came a wave more gentle than the others, and when at the crest of it he swiftly scoured the western horizon. At the top of another wave, the correspondent did as he was bid, and this time his eyes chanced on a small still thing on the edge of the swaying horizon.

It was precisely like the point of a pin. It took an anxious eye to find a lighthouse so tiny. The little boat, lifted by each towering sea, and splashed viciously by the crests, made progress that in the absence of sea-weed was not apparent to those in her. She seemed just a wee thing wallowing, miraculously, top-up, at the mercy of five oceans.

Occasionally, a great spread of water, like white flames, swarmed into her. IT would be difficult to describe the subtle brotherhood of men that was here established on the seas. No one said that it was so. No one mentioned it. But it dwelt in the boat, and each man felt it warm him. They were a captain, an oiler, a cook, and a correspondent, and they were friends, friends in a more curiously iron-bound degree than may be common.

The hurt captain, lying against the water-jar in the bow, spoke always in a low voice and calmly, but he could never command a more ready and swiftly obedient crew than the motley three of the dingey.

It was more than a mere recognition of what was best for the common safety. There was surely in it a quality that was personal and heartfelt. And after this devotion to the commander of the boat there was this comradeship that the correspondent, for instance, who had been taught to be cynical of men, knew even at the time was the best experience of his life. But no one said that it was so. The oiler steered, and the little boat made good way with her new rig.

Sometimes the oiler had to scull sharply to keep a sea from breaking into the boat, but otherwise sailing was a success. Meanwhile the light-house had been growing slowly larger. It had now almost assumed color, and appeared like a little gray shadow on the sky. The man at the oars could not be prevented from turning his head rather often to try for a glimpse of this little gray shadow. At last, from the top of each wave the men in the tossing boat could see land. Even as the light-house was an upright shadow on the sky, this land seemed but a long black shadow on the sea.

The flapping of her sails, the plashing o f her oars, and the whistle o f her steam-engines, are heard all over the sea. The land o f Confucius, so long closed against her admission, has unbarred to her the gates o f a mighty empire. Japart begins to regard her with approving smile. The Rio de la Plata woes her onward to its primeval sources, and the mighty Amazon is in the act of inviting her to enter upon its broad expanse.

The merchant has long since won for himself both riches and station. Instead of the doorless shop in which he was wont, in former times, to display his merchandise, he has built spacious Digitized for FRASER http: Instead of rendering himself hoarse by proclaiming the contents of his store to every passer-by, he addresses the world through the columns o f the newspaper press.

Such are the Ranges which time has wrought in the condition of the merchant in countries where stars and garters and other gew-gaws denote the wearer to be of so called noble birth, and where the tinsel of the royal diadem still serves to sanctify the person o f the monarch. The landsman, with his ax on his shoulder, his rifle in his hand, and faithful dog by his side, rushes into the wilderness, and you trace his path by the villages, towns, and States which have sprung up behind him.

Obstacles, however formidable, do not impede him. In our school-boy days we have pored over the stories of Phoenician enterprise, and visited in fancy the colonies they planted. But centuries elapsed before those bold navigators had passed the Pillars o f Hercules, and the British channel set limits to the flight of the Roman eagle until the latter days of that renowned republic. But here is a people, who, from a handful of adventurers, have, in a little more than two centuries, overrun a continent and reduced it to culture and civilization.

Savage life and barbarism have been crushed out by their heavy footfalls. The seven labors of the heroic age, the accomplishment o f which placed the names of heroes among the constellations of the heavens, have been more than performed. As a type of this control in V O L. And yet, great as have been the results of the past, what are they when compared to that mighty future, which, already impatient o f restraint, is so near at hand as to be classed with the present?

W h o can undertake at this day to estimate the probable amount of our exports and imports at the end of that period of twenty-five years? Already trade, breaking through new channels, begins to empty into our lap the treasures of India; and when the great tide which bears that Commerce upon it shall have actually set in, as it assuredly will, you may measure the waters of the ocean, and count the stars in the firmament, but arithmetic will fail in the effort to calculate the extent o f wealth which will flow into our cities.

Ancient Tyre, but a mere peninsula, enjoyed a rivulet of that trade, and she grew into the most mighty of cities. Venice and Genoa in the course o f time possessed it, and their Doges proclaimed them the brides of the sea. He will continue to do so in what is to follow. Even now there may be blocked up in Polar seas vessels provided by a merchant o f New York, and dispatched on a mission o f mercy in search of a long-lost navigator o f another people, while donations of a princely character have by others been strewn broadcast over the land in aid of every conceivable charity.

Nor have his charities been confined to the American continent. When foreign countries— blighted in their harvests, or their people rendered houseless and homeless by pestilence or fire— have cried for bread, the American merchant, like the good Samaritan, uniting with other classes, has contributed with open hand to their succor and relief. Such is the merchant o f America— such his enterprise, and such his charities. Above all other men, he should most highly appreciate the value and importance of the union of the States.

When his ship floats on distant seas too far away for the physical force of his country on the instant to reach him, his eye rests on the symbol of its power and glory which floats at his mast-head, and he speeds on his way rejoicing in his security from danger. Whether melting amid the tropics or freezing under the pole, that symbol encourages, sustains, and protects. How idle to him and more than absurd are all distinctions between sections of his own country! His dealing is with the world, and he should recognize but one section o f that world— and that is his country, and his whole country.

If he could be so lost not only to his own interests, but to his solemn duty, as to degenerate into a mere sectionalist at home, he would justly forfeit all claim to either wisdom or patriotism. W hat would he be in comparison to what he is, if he should no longer repose under that proud banner which now floats over him, but sail under some other repose he could not which, wherever seen, would only tell of a ruined republic and a disrupted confederacy?

This is what the merchant practices towards his own partners, and what wisdom doubly ratifies as between States and governments. I repeat, justice will render the confederacy eternal— injustice may destroy it in a day. If he is unmindful of the past, let not the merchant be blind to the magnificent future which lies before him— a future full o f wealth to the man of enterprise, of power and glory to the confederacy— a future, which, making the United States the entrepot of that trade which through all ages has been regarded as more valuable than mines of gold or mountains of precious gems, shall see all the nations of the earth crowding our ports with their shipping, and will make the American merchant oracular in all he does on the great exchange of the world.

After a peace of nearly forty years, four of the great powers of Europe have drawn the sword, and no man living can say when or how it is to be restored to its scabbard. On the one hand, we have the empire of Russia in complete armor, already dealing its heavy blows upon the Turk, and armed to the teeth against all assailants— an empire which, but a little more than a century ago, was so inconsiderable in its population and resources as to have been nearly ruined by the now comparatively small kingdom of Sweden, under Charles XII.

He has succeeded in inspiring his subjects with the religious zeal which marked the era of the crusades, and they think only of expelling the descendant of Mahomet II. On the other hand, there stands in formidable array the Turkish empire, which, in days of yore, threatened Europe and the civilized world with its power— thundered at the gates of almost every fortified place, and planted the crescent and unfolded the Koran even on the ruins of the Knights Templars and the brave Knights of St.

In alliance with the Turk are two nations whose united means, if used for defense, would he sufficient to hold the world at bay. Such are the mighty combatants who are hastening to new battle-fields full of ardor for the contest. Austria and Prussia, Denmark and Sweden, assume for the present an attitude of armed neutrality ; but sooner or later they will be drawn into the wrar; while the fires so lately raging in Hungary and the Italian States only await a favorable opportunity to blaze out with renewed brightness.

Under this condition o f things, the American merchant becomes the great carrier of the w orld; and before the probable close o f the war the United States will possess the largest commercial marine that the world has yet seen. In view of the great importance of commercial life, new duties devolve upon parents who design their sons to enter upon it.

Is not something more necessary than a mere capacity to cast up figures, to read an invoice, and to retail goods? This is not what the world has a right to expect from one who is so busy in its affairs. His education should, on the contrary, be laid in the deep foundations of science, which intercourse with the world would crown with practical results. He has won for himself the universally-acknowledged title of Thane and gentleman. In , the loss o f the British steamer Amazon by fire gave a fearful warning as to the necessity for more complete organization on board of sea-going steamers, and I doubt not the experience of that lamentable event has induced more caution ; but notwithstanding this warning, and the not less lamentable case o f the Arctic, and others scarcely less startling, there remains much to be done in order to promote the safety of those who traverse the Atlantic.

It was suggested at the time o f the destruction of the Amazon, that if the ship could have been stopped in her mad career while on fire, that the boats could have been safely lowered, and that many would have been saved; but as the fire was sudden and overwhelming, the engineers were driven on deck, and the ship pursued her devious course, partially guided by the rudder, until the steapi was exhausted, long before which many had perished by fire and water, leaving only a small portion of the passengers and crew at the mercy of the raging sea, ill supplied for the terrible emergency.

Every steamer should have the means o f shutting off steam from the deck, and this I believe to be perfectly practicable. She should also have the means of blowing off the water from the boilers, and consequently of closing her blow-off cocks, from the deck, so as to avail herself o f the buoyancy of her boilers in case of staving a hole in her.

It is quite probable, also, that if the fore-hatch had been secured strongly, instead of breaking out cargo to get at the breach, whereby full vent was given to the water, she would have sunk more slowly. The urgency of the public voice for water-tight bulkheads has, I trust, settled the question as to their general adoption, and I presume that we shall never see another ocean steamer built without them.

They are equally important in our large sound and lake steamers. It would be just as reasonable to argue that a wooden ship is not reliable because she is more likely to leak than an iron ship! Iron is certainly a vastly more perfect material for a vessel than wood, but while the cost of iron continues to be so much greater in the outset than wood with us, we shall be slow to build iron ships, though, in the long run, the iron ship will be found cheapest.

There are many minor points of fitting boats for service, which I believe to be almost universally neglected. Each man appointed to his boat should know exactly what oar he belongs to, and the most trusty must be stationed to the lowering apparatus. Many cases have occurred, where, in lowering boats in a hurry, the bow tackle has got unbooked too soon, the boat has swung round and been swamped by the fouling o f the after tackle. Lowering a boat at sea, the ship having some head or stern way generally, is not always an easy or a safe operation. Now, add a pound or two of lead to one side o f the hoop, just enough to sink it a little below the surface.

It nevertheless ought to be generally adopted in all ships. Some will smile at the idea of fitting every ship to sink gracefully and with comparative safety to her passengers and crew, but we have had too many cases of disaster within the last five years not to warn us that these extra means are quite as necessary as ordinary pumps or any other regular fixtures.

Most of the metallic boats now built are so constructed that a small puncture in the most vulnerable part — the end—-very much impairs her safety as a life-boat, and reduces her below the level of an ordinary wooden boat. There is one great objection to metallic boats, not copper, and that is, the fact that the compass is much deranged by the local attraction. No one can tell the amount of suffering that may have been experienced, or may at this moment be experienced, from this cause. There is a remedy for this evil, by simply correcting the effect of the local attraction, just as Captain Morris does in iron ships.

Very few of our sailing ships have their boats fitted for emergencies. They should have mast and sail, and some little preparation for sudden disasters. A word, in passing, to boat builders. To go back to the more important matters, safety to the ship, I cannot but consider, after all, that the graceful head and cutwater is useful as a fender. Take the Persia as an example. She is built of iron; she ran into a field of ice, or a large piece o f field ice, on her first passage. She stood the shock at the bow, and survived to come in with her paddle-wheel rims twisted and broken, as if made of lead.

I do not hesitate to say that no wooden steamer, without water-tight bulkheads, could have stood that shock; and with bulkheads, her chance of escape would have been very small. If builders and owners o f steamers will insist on building of wood, let us insist on the practicability of constructing the space occupied by boilers and engines, so that if the ship should fill to the water-line before and abaft this space, the water shall be excluded from boilers and engines. I cannot see it in that light. It is quite practicable, and it ought to be done in sea-going steamers, so as to promote safety in ease of a large leak.

It is true, we cannot expect to insure safety, but we ought to do all we can to deserve it. Sailors are proverbially improvident; they ship in China or some other warm climate, sometimes regardless of the fact that they are to meet the rigors of winter, and more frequently perhaps without means to lay in warm clothes. Few more trying situations can be imagined than those of ships coming into Boston Bay from China, India, and other warm countries during our inclement season; they come from warm latitudes into our waters, and become pinched and frozen for want of a little o f the money which has been lavishly expended on ornamental w ork; the ship meets with a gale, leaks; the men are worn out, partly from the want of warm clothes, and Digitized for FRASER http: In some cases a good slop chest would have saved her.

One word more on the subject of a frequent examination of the horizon from aloft, and I have done. This rule is adopted by some shipmasters, and ought to be by all, particularly on the stormy Atlantic. Let every shipowner, then, give positive orders to take this precaution. Persons in trade may be viewed as partners among themselves, or as partners in relation to third persons.

A nominal partner is an ostensible partner who has no real interest in the firm. A dormant partner is one who is not known to the world as a partner. The contract between the parties themselves must be voluntary. No new member can be admitted to a firm without the consent of all the partners. It is not necessary that all the partners should contribute money to the common stock.

One may put in money, another his personal services, his labor or skill in the business, and if they share the profits and loss proportionably, and have a joint interest in the same, they will be partners. By a communion of profits is meant a joint and mutual interest in them. Two persons may each have an interest in the same business, and yet not be partners. A person may stipulate not to be a partner, and by the same instrument he may enter such a contract as by law constitutes a partnership. He will then become liable to third persons as a partner, notwithstanding his attempts to avoid such liability.

If a person suffers his name to be used in a business, or otherwise holds himself out as a partner, he is so to be considered, whatever may be the agreement between himself and the other partners. In the formation of such partnerships, however, care must be taken that all the requirements o f the statute are substantially complied with, for otherwise the members will all be liable as general partners. The law fixes no time at which a partnership must be dissolved, leaving that to be regulated by the parties themselves.

A partnership at will endures so long as the parties live and are capable o f continuing it, unless they choose sooner to dissolve it. A partnership for a term endures for the term, provided the parties live and no legal obstacle is interposed to prevent. In case of insolvency, the partnership is dissolved by operation of law. When the members of a firm are subjects of two different governments, the partnership is dissolved by the occurrence of war between the two governments. A partnership for a term may be dissolved before the expiration of the term by mutual consent of the parties, by a decree of a court of equity, or by the felony or death of one or more o f the partners.

A partnership once entered into is presumed to continue, as to third persons, until notice o f the dissolution is given. Upon the death of a partner, however, it is not necessary to give express notice of the dissolution. The real interest of a partner in the partnership property is his share of the surplus, after the partnership accounts are settled and all just debts paid. There is in law a cessation of the partnership trade on the death of a partner, and the survivor deals with the property finally, from necessity, and somewhat in the character o f a trustee.

When partners purchase real estate for the purposes of the partnership, it is usually conveyed to them as tenants in common, and they own it in their partnership capacity. On the death o f one partner, his interest in the real estate descends to his heirs, but so much o f it as is necessary must Digitized for FRASER http: Where one contributes money and the other labor,, and there are no partnership articles, it is often difficult to decide what are the respective shares o f each.

The labor and money are sometimes so interwoven as to give him who contributes nothing but labor a share in the principal. Each partner must necessarily place unlimited confidence in the others. This confidence is so necessary, that each partner is bound to have the same diligence, carefulness, and anxiety even, for the results of the various ventures, as he would if the profits and losses were entirely his own.

A partner, as well as a trustee, ought to pursue the tenor of his way, honestly and fairly managing the effects he holds in trust, without laboring either directly or indirectly for his own personal advantage. If he takes the funds o f the firm, and, as an individual, applies them to any profitable speculation, he must not only charge himself with the money in the books of the firm, and pay the firm interest on it, but he is in duty bound also to account for the profits of the maney so applied.

As it is the duty of each partner to devote himself to the interests of the concern, it follows that he must do so without any compensation, unless it be especially agreed that he shall be paid. And no partner has a right to engage in any business or speculation which would deprive the partnership of a portion of his skill, industry, or capital. In all ordinary matters the powers of the partners are co-extensive.

Partners are universally bound by what is done by each other in the ordinary course of business. This is as much for the advantage o f the partners themselves as for the protection of third persons. Generally, one partner may pledge the credit of the firm to any amount, and the rule is applicable both to dormant and nominal partners. Any arrangement the partner's may make between themselves cannot, of course, limit their responsibility to third persons, unless the latter assent to the arrangement.

The most common instances o f partnership liability are those where loans, purchases, sales, assignments, or pledges, are effected by one on the partnership account. A sale of goods to one partner in the regular course o f business is a sale to the firm; and the seller will not be affected by any fraudulent intent on the part o f the purchaser, unless he the seller has been guilty of collusion.

If a partner draw, indorse, or accept a bill of exchange, or make a promissory note, in the name of the firm, it will be binding on the firm in the hands of a bona fide holder. It seems now to be pretty well settled that one partner is not authorized to bind the firm by the guaranty of a debt of a third person, without special authority for that purpose, or an authority to be implied from the common course of business, or the previous course of dealing between the parties, unless the guaranty be afterwards adopted and acted upon by the firm.

One partner will be liable in respect o f the particular undertakings of his co-partner, made with reference to business transacted by the firm. For instance, in a firm whose business is strictly confined to the buying and selling of dry goods, one partner would have no implied authority to bind the firm by purchase o f bank or railroad stock, without their knowledge or assent. A partner has an implied authority to effect insurance for the firm, but he cannot bind the firm by a submission to arbitration.

One partner will be bound by the fraud of his co-partner in transactions relating to the partnership made with third persons, if the latter act in good faith. This doctrine can in no case more properly be insisted on than where fraud has been effected by means of negotiable securities; and a promissory note, negotiated through the fraud of one of the partners, is, nevertheless, binding on the firm in the hands of one who has purchased it for a valuable consideration, without notice of the fraud.

But it must be remembered that in all cases where the firm is bound by the fraud of one partner, the acts of the fraudulent Digitized for FRASER http: If the fraud be committed by one in his own individual right, and the other partners have no knowledge of the transaction, the firm will not be liable. The system o f prohibition, adhered to till , formed a monopoly for agriculture, and operated as a check upon the extension of foreign Commerce. They did not always find it sufficiently profitable to enter her harbors with ballast for the purpose o f loading Austrian grain, to be obtained only for cash.

Thus the produce of her soil had to remain in the country, which accounts for the cheapness of provisions and wages, and for the low price of the few manufactures in which Austria was able to acquire proficiency; but it also accounts for the fact that they found no market abroad. Of the two evils the former is, after all, the least to he dreaded. W e find, for instance, that the Austrian mercantile fleet is divided into several classes.

The first class, being vessels of the largest tonnage, enjoys the privilege of navigating all seas and visiting every country of the globe. The views, however, o f the writer, will command the attention o f the merchant, the statesman, and the political economist. The expedient presented itself of conferring a privilege on the greater capacity for tonnage, by relieving it from the competition of smaller craft, with a view of inducing capitalists to invest their means in the building o f the former.

Such is the origin of that senseless classification o f the Austrian marine, which as yet has not been abolished. That under such influences progress was out of the question is very obvious. Hut the Adriatic is by no means free. Fano, Corfu, and Taxo, besides the Ionian Islands— which latter guard also, the bays of Patras and Lepanto, thus dictating the law of Commerce to Greece— completely blockade the narrows of the Adriatic.

It is in the power of England to annihilate with a single blow the Commerce of Austria, and this constitutes another and most potent check upon the progress of the latter. It is the mission of the United States, and a peaceful one it is, to supply the world with the most important and indispensable rawr materials which enter into the use of civilized nations. Austria cannot produce these, and America rules their market value. A rumor has been circulated in Europe to the effect that the United States were about acquiring one of the islands of the Grecian Archipelago as a coal depot and foothold in the Mediterranean.

Whether this be so or not, we shall not stop to examine. Certain it is, however, that our present, and still more our future commercial interests, require a strong support in that important sea, but it is equally certain that this support need not partake in any way of a military character. The process will be an equitable, fair, and peaceful one, and not the less powerful for that reason in its effects and consequences.

The marine of Austria numbered, in , 6, vessels, representing a total capacity of , tons; the number o f sailors was at that time estimated at 27, In the number of vessels amounted to 9,, inclusive o f thirty steamers. Their tonnage was ,; the mariners had increased to 34, The navy is hut insignificant. The Commerce of Austria, as we remarked before, is chiefly interior. The foreign Commerce was— In 1 8 3 The trade in was, with the German Zollverein.. Milan and Venice, besides other towns of Lombardy, furnish silk manufactures.

Moravia, Silesia, and Bohemia have acquired a high reputation for the manufacture of glass and crystal wares, linen and woolen goods. Steirmark and Karnten are the seat of the iron and steel industry, as well as that o f other metals. The principal exports of Austria consist in wool and silk goods to the amount of 25,, guilders annually; in linen, linen yarn, printed cotton goods, and glass and crystal manufactures. The total value of the production of the manufacturing industry amounts, however, to no more than twelve hundred millions of guilders yearly.

The estimated value of iron and steel manufactures is 54, guilders. Austria is also skilled in the construction of musical instruments. The manufacture of linen and hemp goods has considerably decreased, in spite of the advantages of a superabundant production o f raw material. The woolen manufactures represent a total value of ,,, o f which 45,, are in the article of cloth.

The cotton industry is on the increase. From to the consumption of raw material doubled; in it was four times larger, and in five times. In Austria had two hundred cotton factories, employing 29, m en ; which figures do not include tnose engaged in the various dyeing and printing establishments. The value of cotton manufactures is estimated at 80,,, and that of imported raw material at 20,, guilders.

Silk and silk goods represent the sum of 60,, Austria will never escape from her insolvent condition until she succeeds in freeing her industry and Commerce from the detrimental influences of those remnants of the feudal system which suggested and supported the monopoly of agriculture. The same path, on which, fifty-eight years ago, destruction threatened to overreach the British power in India, serves now, since , to strengthen and to quicken it.

The French, in want of the political and commercial support in those distant parts, took to the co-partnership with the British, and the latter are green enough to lead their rivals the way to their commercial fastnesses. Actuated by the same impulse, the Austrian Lloyd Society is devising an extension of their postal lines to the Indian Ocean by way o f the Red Sea, and Genoese merchants S. The trade in Sumatra pepper, Mocha coffee, and Indo-Malazan produces in the Mediterranean, is now wholly in our possession.

The only way to prevent the inconvenience of a competition from this quarter, would be to take the lead in the dreaded innovation, in the way I shall indicate to the party who might be inclined to act on my views in this matter. Such anomalies cannot last in our progressive, steaming century. Egypt is important not only as a grain and cotton growing country, but also because the Nile, its fertilizer, is the most accessible highroad to the interior of Africa. Egypt is accessible to our trade, both by the Mediterranean and the Red Sea.

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The navigation o f the Egyptians on the latter is in its childhood yet, and in the former seven-eighths of it are in the hands of foreigners. There is no reason why our merchants and shippers should not enter into successful competition with the host o f English and foreign traders who are now gathering wealth from the Levant trade.

It is only necessary to make a beginning, to open commercial relations with Alexandria, in order to be convinced that there is in that part o f the world a most inviting field for American enterprise.

"To waste one second of one's life is a betrayal of one's self! I wonder what's on television?"

W e receive, at present, the produce o f Egypt, both in a natural and artificial state, by way of Trieste, Leghorn, Marseilles and Liverpool; and Egypt, on the other hand, receives the American produces by way of Malta and Smyrna ; so tobacco, flour, and salt provisions by the former, and rum by the latter place. The Salem vessels have visited Mocha since ; they extended this trade lately some degrees farther north up to llodieda and Massawah, and no doubt they would go the whole distance if they were aware of the fact that Sumatra pepper and coffee, Straits tin and Java rum sell as well VOL.

But then this Mocha trade is a speciality with which the Salem folks are highly satisfied as it is, and they do not care to make it more lucrative by extending it to Egypt and Australia, so long as there is no reliable American establishment in Egypt to make such an enterprise feasible. England furnished Egypt, up to this day, exclusively with machinery, arms, and steam vessels; and several English houses in Alexandria built colossal fortunes on such contracts.

Alexandria may be considered again the capital of Egypt, as it was at the time of the father of the present governor-general. On the final opening to navigation of the ship canal, proposed by Messrs. So is Lesseps in politics and navigation. Already three-quarters o f the trade of Egypt, nay, of all Turkey, is in the hands of the Greeks, and it would be rather foolish to use artificial means to make them grow and prosper the faster. Alexandria, in , had but 6, inhabitants.

Mohamet Aaly, the founder of the present dynasty, got hold o f the reins of government in Egypt by assassinating his predecessor, Mohamet Pacha, and secured them afterwards by butchering the Mamelukes in Cairo. So he took himself to Alexandria, where the— then not unfrequent— bearers of bowstring and velvet purse could be more closey watched. In , Alexandria had already 60, inhabitants. The central position of Alexandria in the Old W orld gives to its trade an universal character, to which both Trieste and Marseilles vainly aspire; and this is the cause o f the continued increase of the modern town, in spite of the inertness and sluggishness of its inhabitants, or rather in spite o f their fatalism, and the want of energy and enterprise arising therefrom.

This fatalism, the dismal growth of the Koran, is the spell which hangs over fated Turkey, and which keeps all its faculties dormant. The true believer scorns improvement; he makes it his glory to walk in the footsteps o f his ancestors, and quite incomprehensible to him is the commercial bustle of the unbelievers.

Money interest is sinful to him, and a hole in the garden the safe o f his fortune— the acquisition or diminution o f which is written and unchangeable. Gliddon, an English merchant, the first U. The introduction of these articles alone into that fertile and prolific country, would be a source o f incalculable wealth to the enterprising speculator.

Merchants genei ally are much inclined to follow rather the lead of others, than to launch out for themselves in untried enterprises, however strong maybe the inducements and rational the expectation of reward. Still, I trust, here more than elsewhere, enterprising traders may be found who will venture on a ground where the prospect of gain is inviting enough, and where there is a positive assurance of the safety of person and property. It is 66 miles east-northeast from Augusta, west from Eastport, northeast from Portland, northeast from Boston, and northeast from Washington.

The city is on both sides of the Kenduskeag River, which here enters the Penobscot. The former river is about 5 SO feet wide, and is crossed by several bridges, connecting the two parts of the city. A fall in the Kenduskeag River, about a mile from its mouth, affords extensive water-power. The harbor of the port, below the mouth of the Kenduskeag, is some yards wide, and at high tide which rises 17 feet is of sufficient depth for vessels o f the largest size.

The distinguishing industrial feature of Bangor is its lumber trade. It is one of the largest lumber depots in the world. The vast amount o f the various kinds of lumber which these mills annually produce is all brought to Bangor for exportation, this port being at the head of navigation on the Penobscot. Nearly 2, vessels are annually employed in the trade during the season of navigation, which is open eight or nine months in the year. The quantity of lumber surveyed during the year was ,, feet. That committee made a report through their chairman, I s a ia h S tetson , Esq.

From an official copy of the report, furnished to our hands by G. J ew ett , Esq. The following table shows the amount of shipments from the p ort: Feet o f spruce Tons o f juniper timber. Tons o f pine timber Cedar p o s ts Cords of hemlock bark Fish barrels Sides of sole leather..

Tons of roofing slate.. To the list may be added sugar-box shooks, hardwood ship timber and planks, sash, door, and blind stuff, oars, fish drums, dry casks, hoops, steam-engines, boilers, and machinery, packed beef, hides, sheep pelts, wool, dressed sheep skins, furs, shovel handles, looking-glass and picture frames, bedsteads, crease the aggregate of the exportations.

The exports o f all kinds from Bangor for the last year may be set down at three-and-a-half millions at least. To these may be added the arrivals and clearances of quite a fleet o f vessels under fifty tons, employed in the navigation o f the river and bay. Also the arrival and clearance o f two or three steamers, each making two or three trips per week.

Great credit is due to the Mercantile Association o f Bangor for their first attempt to collect some statistics of the trade and commerce o f that city. W e have, from year to year, published in the Merchants' Magazine the statistics o f the lumber trade, and it affords us pleasure to avail ourselves o f the information thus collected, and embody it in a more permanent form for present and future reference. Louis, Philadelphia, Boston, and some other cities, have, for a few years past, taken pains to collect and publish in a lucid form a vast amount of information connected with the growth of their several localities, and every considerable place that hereafter neglects to do so must not blame us for not discharging our duty as a journalist.

The population of Bangor has kept pace with its commerce, and is the best evidence of its industrial progress. The population, according to the several decennial censuses, has been as follow s: Ship-building is carried on in Bangor to some extent. There are eleven banks in the city. It is connected by railroad with Old Town, 12 miles distant. It is also on the line of the Eastern Railroad. The city is pleasantly located, and commands a fine view of the river and surrounding country.

The buildings are generally neat and well-constructed, while some exhibit a style of superior elegance. The Bangor Theological Seminary was originally established at Hampden, six miles south o f the city. The selections of new volumes have been made by the directors with much care and method. The libraries now contain about 4, volumes. The moral, social, and intellectual reputation of the Bangorians stands as high as that of any other city in the Union. K eep in g them in view, adopting them as the rule o f life, and the strife for wealth is as high, as noble, and as true a contest as any in which man can engage.

A n d the ch ief aim o f a book like this, its m ost gratifying result, is the inculcation o f these principles. Th ey gained during life not only the means but the end. The same occupations m ay be enlisted in behalf o f the m ost diverse m otives. Com m ercial pursuits are but now h aving their true dignity recognized. W e wear garm ents that may have been sheared from the sheep o f Spain, or stripped from the cattle that have browsed on the steppes o f Russia.

The silk-worm o f Italy, the dye trees o f the Indies, metals from the mines, contribute to our wants. Each separate material and elem ent o f food and dress, o f ornam ent and use, is obtained from different sources, and often from rem ote regions. A ll this is through the agency o f com m erce. W e have perused this collection o f m em oirs with much pleasure, and, we hope, profit. There are twenty-one mem oirs, som e o f w hich have been prepared by gentlem en o f very high literary reputation.

N o t the least interesting are those written by the e d it o r ; but such names as Everett, Thom as G. C ary, Charles K in g, S. Ait-tin A llibon e, and others, will lend increased attraction. M ost o f these m em oirs contain collateral glances at history. From the biography o f Thom as H andasyd Perkins, by the H on. H e related it with great effect. Soon after the death o f Robespierre, one of his former associates proposed a sanguinary law, which was objected to by a member, who had been a butcher, as unnecessarily cruel.

The deputy who proposed it said, with a sneer, that he had not looked for such fine sentiments from one whose trade had been blood. The butcher, a burly, powerful man, starting to his feet, as if he would destroy his opponent, exclaimed: I have never imbrued my hands but in the blood of beasts. Smell o f your own! Ed ward Everett, which gives an animated description of the condition of our commerce, immediately after the war of Independence: N o t content with this, our merchants turned their thoughts to China, to the Indian Archipelago, to the northwestern coast o f our own continent, and the islands o f the Pacific, several o f which were discovered by our navigators.

The courage and self-reliance with which these enterprises were undertaken, almost surpass belief. Merchants o f Boston and Salem, of moderate fortunes, engaged in branches o f business, which it was thought in Europe could only be safely carried on by great chartered companies, under the protection of government monopolies.

Vessels o f two or three hundred tons burden were sent out to circumnavigate the globe, under young shipmasters, who had never crossed the Atlantic. And from the same article, a pic ure of the times, in the character of a contemporary of his subject: This estimable gentleman was regarded, in this day, as standing at the head of the merchants o f Boston. H e lived at the corner o f Summer and A rch streets. A scarlet cloak and a white head were, in the last century, to be seen at the end o f every pew in some o f the Boston churches.

In the latter part o f his life, Mr. Russell built the stately mansion in Charlestown, which, till within a few years, was standing, near the old bridge, used as an hotel. Though living on the bank o f Charles River, on great occasions, before the bridge was built, his family drove to town in a coach drawn by four black horses, through Cambridge, Brighton, and Roxbury. H e was a gentleman of great worth and respectability, and enjoyed the entire confidence of the community. No chapter will be more eagerly read than that which treats of Stephen Girard, whose character was sufficiently paradoxical to give him the interest which attaches to an eccentric.

Girard, in order to give him the offer o f a ransom. An introductory essay, by George K. This is its principal use. Agents often take receipts for payments made by them for their employers, with a view to using them in settling their own accounts with those who employ them. Whenever the agent collects rents, he will give each tenant a receipt. This the tenant, if he is a careful business man, will preserve, in order that if he is ever called upon to pay the same rent again, he may be able to show with ease that he has already paid it.

Upon the other hand, when the agent has employed a carpenter to repair one of the houses, he will be careful to take a receipt for his payment to the carpenter— not only to prevent a renewal of the claim, but as a means of satisfying his principal, on the settlement of accounts, that he has really made an outlay to that amount, for which he is entitled to be allowed. Sometimes in cases o f this nature, involving important amounts, it is best to take two receipts, duplicates, one of which the agent may keep permanently, while he delivers the other up to his principal.

It ought, however, to be clearly understood, that this use of a receipt as a voucher is, for the most part, confined to the amicable settlement o f accounts. But he is not bound to do this, if he does not choose to. In a lawsuit each party is required to produce the best evidence which the nature of the case admits. The receipt given by the carpenter would be the best evidence of payment in a suit brought by the carpenter to recover for his w ork; but when the suit is between the agent and the owner of the houses, the receipt amounts to nothing more than the written statement of a third person, and there is better evidence, namely, to examine the third person under oath.

Generally, the principal is satisfied with the voucher. If he rejects it, however, the testimony of the person who received the payment will be preferred in law to his receipt. It would be entirely satisfactory evidence o f payment of the rent for the year mentioned in it— it would be tolerable evidence of the payment of all previous rents. And the law considers it unlikely that a payment would be made by a tenant and received by a landlord for the year , while the rent for remained in arrear.

In a certain case, Davies vs. For a man would not give receipts for rents unless they had been paid to h im ; and they would not be paid to him as owner unless he was believed to be the owner of the lands rented. There have been many similar cases in which receipts have been of great service in proving facts quite independent of the payments to which they related. And this principle should be borne in mind in deciding when to destroy receipts.

It is not always wise to destroy them, simply because one feels sure that that particular debt will not be claimed again. Every receipt contains an admission that a payment, or delivery, has been made. In addition to this, it states— with greater or less particularity— various facts relating to the payment; e. Therefore it is important to consider the nature, force, and effect of the simple admission of payment, which is, after all, the real substance of the instrument.

The law does not treat the simple acknowledgment o f payment as very conclusive evidence. It ought not to be very conclusive. It may seem at first thought, that a man ought never to be allowed to deny what he has once admitted in writing. This would perhaps be a very good rule, if all business men were invariably accurate, correct, and methodical in their dealings— little as well as large.

But they are not s o ; and it is better that they should not. Suppose that a lady has purchased goods at a store, and directed them to be sent home with the bill. And the collector should give the lady a receipt in case the money were paid, otherwise not. But usually this cannot bo done. The bill must be sent by the boy who carries home the goods. Accordingly, the storekeeper makes out a bill, receipts it at the foot, and tells the boy not to leave it unless he gets the money.

He rings at the door, a servant opens it and takes the bundles. The servant carries the things up stairs while the messenger waits in the hall. In a few' moments she returns. The boy is more accustomed to do as he is bid than to think closely about the legal effects o f what he does, so he hands the bill to the servant, who carries it up stairs to her mistress.

This message is communicated to the boy, -who goes away without either bill or money, notwithstanding his instructions. This is an example of one class of cases in which receipts are passed without the payments being actually made. This is not unfrequently done. And there are an abundance of cases in which receipts are given before the payments are actually made. The lady may be forgetful; and, finding a receipted bill in her pocket a week afterwards, may fully believe that she has paid for the goods, and refuse to pay again.

She may die suddenly, or go away— in which case, those who should have charge of her affairs would, o f course, suppose— from the receipt— that she had paid the money. Such cases happen so continually, that the law allows the storekeeper or the workman, or any one who has given a receipt when he did not receive anything, to bring a suit for the money.

In the case of the storekeeper, it would be easy to do this by the testimony of the errand boy and the servant. In the case of the workmen employed by the agent, it might be more difficult. The true effect of the simple admission of payment is to transfer the burden of proof. For now the burden of proof is shifted upon the defendant, and he must show some reason why he is not bound to pay the debt.

In this respect, receipts form an exception to the general rule respecting writings, which is, that they cannot be explained away or contradicted by parole evidence. As has been already shown, one way in which persons disprove their receipts is by showing that no payment at all was made.

In September following, the bank elected another cashier, named Sollee. Sollee gave his receipt for this amount. But the way in which the money was counted was this: The committee did not open these packages, but took the amounts from the indorsements. The funds of the bank were annually counted in this way, without ever opening the packages.

In the year , the committee suggested that it would be a good plan to open the packages; but Mr. Goddard, the president of the hank, said it would not be of any use, there were his signature and seal upon each bundle ; so the committee simply counted by packages as before. In , Sollee having been all this time cashier, President Goddard died, and a Mr. Tobias was appointed president pro tempore. He suggested that the money should be actually counted. The committee went down into the money vault to count the bills, and now observed what had not been noticed before, that five o f the packages were done up more clumsily than the others.

The contents of three proved to correspond with their indorsements. The contents of all except one were correct. The bank, thereupon, brought a suit against chashier Sollee, to recover this deficiency, claiming that he, as cashier, was responsible for the safe custody of the funds. The trial of the case was very long, a great deal of evidence being introduced on both sides; on the part o f the bank to show facts tending to raise a suspicion that Sollee had taken the money, and on his part to show that he could not have done so, but that it must have been taken by Wilkie, or at least while Wilkie was cashier.

The evidence was such that the jury came to the conclusion that the money was probably taken before Sollee took charge of the packages, and they rendered a verdict in his favor. The bank appealed from the decision in favor o f Sollee, and contended in support of the appeal that Sollee was bound by his receipt. They stated the law to be that receipts which have been acted upon by third parties are conclusive upon the party making them, in all controversies between him and the party whose action has been influenced by them.

This, however, was not the case.

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It did not appear that Wilkie had been released. Moreover, the receipt was given, not for money received from Wilkie, but for mouey received from the committee of the bank. It wras therefore examinable; and if erroneous, Sollee was not bound by it. There are other ways in which receipts may be explained.

Or suppose the payment is made in bank notes, and they are found to he forged ; or in a check, and it proves that the drawer of it had no money in the bank ; or in a note made by some third person, who becomes insolvent before its maturity, and never pays it. In all these cases the receipt might probably state that the ten dollars had been paid, but the creditor would have had no real payment.

Then if, in judgment o f law, the facts do not constitute a payment, the man is not paid; and he is still just as much entitled to be paid as if he had never given a receipt. If, in judgment of law, they do constitute a payment, he is bound by it, not because he gave a receipt, but because he had been paid. A receipt is, however, not destitute of a certain effect in these cases. It will not be opened or set aside for light and trivial circumstances. Some sound, substantial evidence must be adduced to show that a person who has acknowledged in writing that he has been paid, was not paid in fact.

This is particularly true in the case of payments in a currency which proves to be worth less than it was supposed to be, as is well illustrated in a case Roberts vs. Garnie paid a part of this money, but not all o f it, while De Noyelles lived. In , De Noyelles being then dead, Garnie had some sort o f a settlement as to the balance with Kiers, the executor of De Noyelles. O f course, executor Roberts could not gain his case, unless he could, in some way, explain this receipt.

Hut the court refused to hear this evidence, and judgment was rendered for the defendant. The plaintiff appealed ; but the judgment was affirmed. In these cases, particularly in the former, the receipt will not conclude him. This is shown in the following case, Thomas vs. A seaman named McDaniel brought an action against his captain before a justice of the peace, to recover damages for an assault and battery committed by the captain during the previous voyage.

The captain, as a defense, offered in evidence a receipt in these words: Received from Captain J. Witness, J oseph M orrison. Joseph Morrison, who was called as a witness, testified that he explained the receipt to McDaniel, by stating that the one dollar was intended as a full compensation for all other claims except wages, and that the plaintiff at first refused to sign the paper, and waited three or four days.

The seaman read over the paper, and signed it, and received the m oney; but nothing was said about the assault and battery. The justice rendered judgment for McDaniel for fifty dollars, and the captain appealed; but the judgment was affirmed. It cannot he doubted that if the wages had been unconditionally paid, the plaintiff would peremptorily have refused to sign the receipt for one dollar for everything else. In Nisi Prius Court, before Mr. Jennings and others vs. The defendant pleaded not guilty, and also that the goods did not belong to the plaintiff. John Jennings and two other persons, were the assignees of John Johnson, a bankrupt; and the defendant, Mr.

John Becket, is an auctioneer at Wakefield. Johnson, the bankrupt, is a cabinetmaker, and at one period he was in the service of the defendant, but in he commenced business for himself. The agreement bore date the 14th of November, Becket agreed to let, and Mr. The stock in trade was to be taken at a valuation, and payment was to be secured by a warrant of attorney.