begged me to take him along. So I gave him two dollars, with which he bought provisions for a whole week, and within an hour from the time we met our boats were under weigh. My canoe was fifteen feet long, thirty inches wide, twelve inches from deck to bottom-board; had folding centerboard and drop rudder, two masts, and leg-o'-mutton sails. I slept aboard, and carried abundant stores and clothing for a whole season's cruising.

Uncle Ned had a fishing-boat of his own, and took a friend along for the sake of company.

"If I drown," I sang out to him, "I'll wait for you to come fish me out!"

"Better not drown," he sang back; "de sharks am too hungry dese yere days!"

Caribee

The first part of the voyage went well enough. sailed over the big Atlantic rollers as gracefully as an antelope bounds in and out of the high prairie grass, and Uncle Ned was soon left far behind, for though he did well enough in beating, he could not come near my canoe when the wind was aft.

But the last day was squally, as I soon discovered; and the squalls dead aft. It was lively work jumping from one

side to the other as the little boom flew from side to side in the heavy seas. The bursts of wind came screeching down through the gullies of the mountain, and gave scant notice of their approach. I held on to my mainsheet until I thought the little sail would crack into shreds; and the tight little boat yawed about in the broken water as though trying to shake me out of her. Canoes have souls and think a great deal, but they cannot always make themselves understood. Caribee on this occasion meant to say:

"Do shorten sail, or I shall have to upset!" But I could not do as she wished. I was experimenting with a new kind of boom attachment very strongly recommended to me by a canoe friend whom I will not here mention. It worked beautifully in a smooth sea and gentle breeze. Off St. Thomas, in a gale of wind, it was worse than useless-I cursed the day when I was beguiled into this novelty.

Suddenly bang came a puff which I dodged, but bang came a second which I missed, and before I could see how it happened Caribee was bottom side up, I was swimming with my double paddle in one hand, and the Atlantic Ocean seemed alive with every variety of article known to canoeists.. Never before did I realize how many small things one canoe could conceal-hats, shoes, stockings, bread, bottles, shirts, spool of cotton, many pieces of clothing, bits of paper and several books and maps, and many more things that I cannot remember.

All my life spread itself before me like the figures in one of Edison's kinetoscopes; each year galloped past in the fraction of a second; and through it all I saw an imaginary shark with jaws like a cellar door ready to eat me up. Uncle Ned's parting words seemed to have been wise ones, and I could see no escape from either the sharks or the equally savage surf which smashed itself upon the rocks close to me. The sails of Uncle Ned's boat were far down on the horizon; he could not possibly know of my plight, and the sea

was flouncing up and down so furiously that I could not manage to get into my canoe., For I had not merely to contend with the swell rolling in from the Atlantic: Caribee had drifted so close to the rocks that there was a reflection of broken waves much akin to the water at Hell Gate when wind and tide meet.

So I sprang upon the bottom of Caribee and made up my mind to make what I could of the one chance left menamely, to keep away the sharks until Uncle Ned should reach me, and that seemed to be a matter of many, many hours.

I trailed my long double paddle out between my legs, and kept wriggling it in the hope of frightening the monsters away. Every now and then I fancied I saw a spiteful black eye leering up through the angry waters—or something that looked like the horrid teeth of this heartless beast. But each time that I thrashed the waters furiously, these hideous sights disappeared, and I commenced to feel as though, after all, sharks were great cowards.

I had caught a big shark once in the Indian Ocean, when it required twelve able-bodied seamen to haul him aboard, and from that day on I had preserved a profound respect for this devilish fish.

But as fast as I recovered from my shark-feelings I lost heart at the way the wind and waves were forcing me closer to the black rocks, whose sides went hundreds of feet straight up out of the sea, and offered no chance of escape to the mariner who might be hurled ashore.

It was growing dark, and I commenced to wonder what would happen when I should lose the power to thrash about on my upturned Caribee, when suddenly out of the gloom rose up the sails of Uncle Ned, and a voice full of fear"'Fore de Lawd-wha is you?" I shouted, and by my voice he bore down straight upon me, and caught my painter as he swept onward. He dared not jibe or come about, but kept straight on, dragging me and Caribee so violently that I feared another calamity.

Uncle Ned pulled me in over the side; Caribee was quickly righted; then I stowed her sails, baled her out, and when we arrived at the extreme western point of St. Thomas, which was close to us, I jumped once more into my precious canoe and paddled away for the harbor lights, none the worse for my bath amongst sharks and breakers.

Next day I was off on board the Brazil Mail, and left Uncle Ned with a reputation for gallantry at sea unequaled. in the annals of West Indian chivalry.

In the Utes' Country

By Ernest Ingersoll

Thrilling moments are as various as human nerves and emotions. I heard a philosopher discourse for two hours once to demonstrate that all life was nothing but divers quivers. The phrase commonly applies to physical peril, but then the sensation is more likely to attack the spectator than the principal of the scene. Sometimes you may be

both observed and observer, as once when I sat in a railroad train on a high bridge in the midst of a sudden hurricane. The bridge trembled, the cars tottered under the push of the gale, and few thought any of us would ever get ashore. I was one day riding on the pilot of a locomotive going fifty miles an hour when we rounded a curve, to find a car on the track a few rods in front of us; the future

"Indian country," a party of us in Government work started to explore their southern fastnesses. In Middle Park we were halted by the Utes, who were assembled in considerable numbers. They were determined that we should not proceed, and "had a good mind" to annihilate us on the spot. We were equally resolved to overcome their objections and go ahead. The greatest circumspection was needed lest some spark should ignite the powder of war scattered thickly about us. I, for one, ran at top speed away from a malignant old squaw who chased me with a knife while the red mob applauded. On the second afternoon the crucial pow-wow was in progress in old Peah's teepee. The muffled dum-dum-dum of wardrums resounded here and there from other lodges, where eager young braves were making public opinion. One of the geologists and myself, to while away the time, began to

measure the flow of Grand River, by sounding its depth and estimating its velocity. Marvin had gone up-stream a short distance and started a piece of wood which I was to time as it passed a certain point. I had squatted down, the better to observe this small float, when something caused me to glance up. Squarely opposite me, fifty yards away, knelt a powerful Indian, in paint and feathers, glancing along the barrel of a rifle pointed straight into "Had the negomy eyes. tiations failed?" was my first thought, followed by I know not what others. But I kept them to myself, and, rising slowly to my feet, drew my revolver from my belt, and steadily brought it down to an aim as good as his. A moment later the redskin lowered his rifle and stalked away. We had to throw in a new chip; and it was some time before the ants ceased to travel up and down our spines, as the Poles say.

My most thrilling moment was a good while ago, in the year 1860, when I was crossing the great plains between the Missouri River and the Rocky Mountains, before the days of the railway. The wagon train was then the favorite mode of travel, and I was one of a party that had adopted that style of locomotion. Near Fort Kearney several of us embraced the opportunity to buy Indian ponies, being stimulated to do so by the report that buffalo were abundant a hundred miles or so further on, The ponies were said to have been trained in buffalohunting, and this circumstance gave them an additional value in our eyes. My finances did not justify my owning an entire horse, and I had to content myself with a halfinterest in a pony, a friend of mine owning the other half.

Thomas W. Knox

As we neared the buffalo country the excitement grew, and when at last we actually saw a herd in the broad valley of the Platte River all our party were in a condition of feverish heat. It was late in the afternoon when we sighted the buffalo four or five miles away, and we went into camp shortly afterwards. Some of us wanted to go in pursuit of the animals at that hour, and would have done so had not the train-master issued orders to the contrary. We consoled ourselves by laying plans and making preparations for the morrow, so as to get an early start. My friend who shared the ownership of the pony with me proposed that

I This sketch was written for The Outlook by Mr. Knox a short time before his death, which took place on January 6 last.

It was midwinter in the park-like pine forests of northeastern Arizona, and the nights were bitterly cold. Blankets were scarce and thin, but the prowling wolves that disturbed our shivering slumbers with their howlings were provided with thick fur robes that would keep us very warm if we only had them. We were a small party making a preliminary survey for the Atlantic and Pacific Railway, and our mission was so urgent that we found little time for hunting. Earnestly did my "bunky" Sam Wells and I

discuss plans for securing one or more wolf robes; and finally, on discovering a small quantity of strychnine among our medical stores, we decided to adopt the one suggested by Serédro, our Mexican guide, and try poisoned meat. Our opportunity came when, by a bit of phenomenal luck, an elk was unexpectedly brought to bag, and that evening a few of the larger bits of offal, liberally sprinkled with poison, were strewn in a creek-bottom half a mile from camp.

The howling wolves had on thick coats of fur

To our

In the early morning Wells and I, impatient to learn the result of our experiment, started off ahead of the slower-moving Serédro, who was pottering with numbed fingers over his gun. intense disappointment there were no dead wolves in the creek-bottom, though every bit of our poisoned meat had disappeared, and we decided to make a long circuit in. opposite directions in hopes of finding either our game or our bait. As I completed my portion of this circuit and again approached the creek, much lower down, I discovered a thin column of smoke directly ahead. A minute later I was peering from a willow thicket at a score of Indians gathered near a small fire over which a couple of squaws were cooking some meat, and I knew at once who they were.

The powerful tribe of Navajos had recently been subdued, driven from their country (which was the one we were then traversing), crowded on a wretchedly small and inadequate reservation in eastern New Mexico, and there, according to the usual brutal policy of our Government, left to starve as speedily as might be. Rendered desperate by their condition, several small bands had broken awayand returned to their former haunts. We had been warned at Wingate to avoid these bands, as any collision with them in their present reckless mood would certainly precipitate another Indian war.

Remembering this, I was about to withdraw from so dangerous a vicinity as quietly as possible, when, to my dismay, I recognized in a little pile of meat near the fire several pieces on which I had rubbed strychnine only the evening before. At that moment one of the hungry squaws seized a bit of the half-cooked meat and raised it to her mouth. With a loud cry I rushed foward, snatched the deadly morsel from her, and flung it far to one side, where it was instantly seized and gulped down by a famished dog.

Kirk Munroe

At my appearance the Indian men sprang to their feet and advanced toward me with angry faces, drawn knives, and leveled lances. They had no guns, for all firearms had been taken from them on the reservation, but they were sufficiently well armed for the purpose in hand. That moment was certainly one of the most thrilling of my life, and would doubtless have proved my last on earth had I attempted either to fight or run. Fortunately, I was spared the alternative; for, ere a decision was forced, there came a ringing shout, and in another instant Sam Wells, closely followed by Serédro, appeared on the scene. A few words explained the situation to them, and a few more from Serédro in the Navajo tongue explained it to the angry Indians. At the same time the Mexican's remarks were forcibly illustrated by the death-struggles of the unfortunate dog which had swallowed the poisoned meat; and an hour later a treaty of peace was concluded over a hearty breakfast furnished to the starving savages at our camp. Here they were found to possess a number of wolf-skins which they would gladly exchange for provisions, and one of these, which I still retain, serves as a reminder to this day of my first and last attempt at poisoning wolves.