have been poured into their present
design, Yangtze river-boats sink, a goodly crop of them, every season.

But the world of commerce is an arrogant master. There is wealth in
the land bordering the upper reaches of the river. This wealth must be
brought down to the sea, and scattered to the lands beyond the sea. In
return, machinery and tools must be carried back to mine and farm the
wealth.

Little is heard, less is told, and still less is written of the men who
dare the rapids and the rocks and the sands of the great river.
Sometimes the spirit of adventure sends them up the Yangtze.
Frequently, as is the case with men who depart unexplainedly upon
dangerous errands, a woman is the inspiration, or merely the cause.

Miss Amy Vost, of New York City, but more recently of Amoy, China,
province Fu-Kien, was the generator in the case of Bobbie MacLaurin.

When Miss Vost tripped blithely aboard the _Sunyado Maru_, anchored off
the breaks of Amoy, and captured, at first blush, the hearts of the
entire forward crew, Bobbie MacLaurin was the most eager prisoner of
the lot.

Perhaps she took notice of him out of the corner of her glowing young
eyes long before he became seriously and mortally afflicted. Certainly
the first mate of the _Sunyado Maru_ was no believer in the theory of
non-resistance.

Had Miss Vost been a susceptible young woman, it is safe to assume that
Bobbie MacLaurin would not have accepted command of the _Hankow_ from
tide-water to that remote Chinese city, Ching-Fu.

He wooed her in the pilot-house--where passengers were never allowed;
he courted her in the dining-room; and he paid marked attention to her
at all hours of the day and night, in sundry nooks and corners of the
generous promenade deck.

Miss Vost sparred with him. As well as being lovely and captivating,
she was clever. She seemed to agree with the rule of the philosopher
who held that conversation was given to mankind simply for purposes of
evasion. By the end of the first week Bobbie MacLaurin was earning
sour glances from his staid British captain, and glances not at all
encouraging from Miss Vost.

He informed her that all of the beauty and all of the wonder of the
stars, the sea, the moonlight, could not equal the splendor of her
wide, gray eyes. She replied that the moon, the stars, and the sea had
gone to his head.

He insisted that her smile could only be compared to the sunrise on a
dewy rose-vine. He threw his