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Show "0LD-SAIu3 By CAPTAIN IRA PERKINS (Copyright.) PPIKl liliPf WW An Introduction pAPTAIN IRA shifted his sllllrt black pipe from the so'west corner cor-ner of his mouth to the so'east. nt looked down into the eager fuoes n( the boys who were grouped annmi him. Then he raised a moistened linger lin-ger and held it motionless nlinve fc head for a moment. "Breeze coming up from the iw. east," he said in his laconic fiishlon of speaking. "She'll be whistling a merry gule before night and Lord lielp the fishing smack that isn't in harbr when she starts to blow. "This weather reminds me of three different tales in a wny of saying, anil nil of them as wild as a wlnd-liislieil wave with a ninety-mile typhoon on its back. "I'll give you an inkling of all of them now. Then you can make It up between yourselves as to which one I shall tell you next week. "The first is a sort of ocean jungle tnle. We are putting out of the Cnnsn river on the torrid west African coast. It was an old tin tub that we were shipped In. She was as full of rattles and creaky noises as an ancient hurdy-gurdy. hurdy-gurdy. And she leaked water like a kitchen colander. On board we had a shipment of animals for some menagerie menag-erie in the States, ' and among tlieiu a snortin', red-eyed African elephant. "Second is a tale of greasy Malay pirates. We had steamed into a narrow nar-row river at the southern end of the peninsula for some fresh water, of which we were badly In need. No sooner were we anchored than out from behind a wooded promontory paddled pad-dled a flotilla of war canoes. Like some sort of great waterbugs they swept down upon us. Then with red turbans wound about their heads and shining dirks in their teeth over the rail they came and "Last Is a story of a rocky, snake-infested snake-infested island oft' the coast of South America. There was some buried treasure and a lot of strange goings-on before w-e got up anchor and "But you fellows talk this over and decide for yourselves. The three yarns are all ready for the telling. Which one shall it be next week?" Captain Ira got to his feet. He knocked out the fire from his pipe into the palm of his hand, then thrust the pipe into a side pocket, of his great coat. Far down the beach a big Belgian Bel-gian police dog was romping about on the sand. Captain Ira whistled shrilly through his teeth and the dog came tearing down the beach toward him at a mad run. Little spurts of dry sand flew up each stride he took. In a moment mo-ment he was at the captain's side. The captain stooped and fumbled at the dog's collar. When he stood straight again a leash was In his hand. "Maybe the dog and I will ferret out the smuggler's cache tonight where all the contraband Is supposed to be bidden," bid-den," said the captain, "and if we do, that ought to make a tolerably Interesting Inter-esting tale for those as cares to listen to such things." Away the two of them went with tie dog leading. |
