n, and only one end came on board. It was the shore
end, and through it we spoke Iligan, finding the cable satisfactory in
that direction. So we buoyed the shore end and continued our fishing
with the heavy tackle. For hours we unsuccessfully lowered the massive
grapnel iron, where our charts indicated the cable should be, but
without success until late in the afternoon, when the strain on the
dynamometer indicated another "bight."

Then it was pulled up very slowly, for we could not afford to have
it break a second time, when suddenly it slipped the grapnel and was
again lost at the sea-bottom. As it was getting dark we put lights
on our two buoys, one placed where the cable had slipped the grapnel,
the other, as I said before, attached to the captured end. Now it is
by no means easy to jump from a small boat to a buoy in such rough
water as that in Iligan harbour, and we watchers on the ship felt some
little uneasiness until the lights from both buoys proclaimed that
it had been accomplished by the young native who always did that work.

In the morning our scientific fishermen were rewarded for their
patience. They had a bite, and everyone on board watched with interest
the heavy machinery as it slowly and steadily pulled the sea end
of the cable out of the water. It was hooked at half after eight,
and not until an hour later was it landed, the dynamometer showing
a strain at times of from one to two tons.

Immediately after getting the cable on board, Cagayan was called over
and over again without response, which would have indicated that the
trouble was farther out at sea, had not tests shown the resistances
were what they should have been, from which it was easily inferred that
the operator at Cagayan was not attending strictly to business. "Gone
to Sunday school, probably!" ironically observed the Powers-that-Be,
chewing the end of an unlighted cigar, as he always did when worried,
and, Sunday though it was, we felt the sarcasm to be a just one,
Sunday schools not being a chief industry of Cagayan.

Reasoning on the premise that all was right at that end of the line,
the splice was made, and we paid out the cable until reaching the
buoyed shore end, which in turn was spliced to the deep-sea cable,
and the bight dropped overboard. Then a Signal Corps man returning
from shore reported all communicating lines in good order, at which
there was great rejoicing on board the _Burnside_, and, our Cagayan
friend having