remember, now. Her skipper told me there was good anthracite
coal in her hold, and Chicago canned meats, Minnesota flour, beef,
pork, and all sorts of good grub. He carried some of the rails in the
'tween-deck for steadying ballast, and I suppose it prevented them
looking farther. And now they'll lose their salvage, and perhaps have
to pay it on their own schooner if anything comes along and picks them
up. That's the craft that'll get the salvage."

"Not likely," said the pilot; "not in this fog, and the wind and sea
rising. I'll give 'em six hours to fetch up on the Jersey coast. A mail
contract with the government is sometimes a nuisance, isn't it,
captain? How many years would it take you to save money to equal your
share of the salvage if you had yanked that tramp and the schooner into
New York?"

"It would take more than one lifetime," answered the captain, a little
sadly. "A skipper on a mail-boat is the biggest fool that goes to sea."

The liner did not reach quarantine until after sundown, hence remained
there through the night. As she was lifting her anchor in the morning,
preparatory to steaming up to her dock, the crew of the _Rosebud_,
refreshed by food and sleep, but still weak and nerveless, came on deck
to witness a harrowing sight. The _Afghan Prince_ was coming toward the
anchorage before a brisk southeast wind. Astern of her, held by the
heavy iron chain, was their schooner. Moored to her, one on each side,
were two garbage-scows; and at the head of the parade, pretending to
tow them all,--puffing, rolling, and smoking in the effort to keep a
strain on the tow-line,--and tooting joyously with her whistle, was a
little, dingy tugboat, with a large gilt name on her pilot-house--_J.
C. Hawks_.

BETWEEN THE MILLSTONES

He stood before the recruiting officer, trembling with nervousness,
anxious of face, and clothed in rags; but he was clean, for, knowing
the moral effect of cleanliness, he had lately sought the beach and
taken a swim.

"Want to enlist?" asked the officer, taking his measure with trained
eye.

"Yes, sir; I read you wanted men in the navy."

"Want seamen, firemen, and landsmen. What's your occupation? You look
like a tramp."

"Yes," he answered bitterly, "I'm a tramp. That's all they'd let me be.
I used to be a locomotive engineer--before the big strike. Then they
blacklisted me, and I've never had a job above laborin' work since.
It's easy to take to the road and stay at