The Moving Picture Girls at Sea | Page 9

trouble started.
"Some of the crew kicked on account of the grub--that's the stuff we eat
on a ship," he explained.
"Oh, we know something of such talk," said Alice with a laugh. "We
haven't been out West among the cowboys for nothing!"
"Well, some of th' hands laid it to the grub, an' others t' th' hard work of
sailing th' craft," went on Jack. "She was a mighty poor schooner in
ballast, an' owing t' storms an' rough weather we had t' be takin' in or
lettin' out reefs all th' while. It wasn't so bad up t' th' time we got off th'
Hole in th' Wall, but from then on it was fierce!
"I'd heard rumors that th' crew was goin' t' mutiny an' demand that we
put in at some port, an' get better grub, an' more hands, for we was
short of sailors. But I didn't pay much attention to th' underhand talk
until it was too late. Then, all at once, when we had got away down
about off Anegada, th' mutiny broke in full force. The men riz up, an'
overpowered th' officers--th' captain was made a prisoner in his cabin,
an' I was given my choice of joinin' th' mutineers or walkin' th' plank."
"What's that?" asked Ruth, a bit startled.
"That's when they blindfold a man, and make him walk a plank that is
put out over the bulwarks, or side of the ship," said Alice.

"Why, if he were blindfolded I should think he'd fall off, not knowing
when he came to the end," Ruth remarked, with a little shudder.
"He doesn't know," Alice said. "That's an easy way of sending a man to
his doom."
"That's it, Miss!" chimed in Jack. "You got th' idea!"
"But Alice, how did you know that dreadful thing?" her sister
wonderingly demanded.
"Read it in a book. Go on please, Mr.--er--Jack."
"Of course I didn't want t' walk no plank," resumed the sailor, "so I
temporized. I thought maybe I could beat th' mutineers after all. So I
pretended t' join 'em. Things got pretty bad. Many of 'em was for puttin'
th' captain away--tossin' him overboard, an' there was a fight about it.
Matters got t' such a pass that pistols were fired, an' th' captain would
have been shot, an' killed, only a fellow named Mike Tullane, a rough
character, an' one of the leaders of th' mutiny, stepped up sudden like
an' saved th' captain's life by knockin' aside th' ruffian's gun.
"Well, of course there was a fight then, but Mike seemed t' come out all
right, bein' a leader, an' havin' th' men pretty well with him. Anyhow,
th' mutineers were in charge of th' ship, an' off Anegada, one of th' little
British Islands of the West Indies, we were put about t' run for port. Jest
what was t' be done no one seemed to know. After the men got th' ship
they didn't know what to do with her.
"Then came th' mystery. One night th' captain an' Mike Tullane
disappeared. They was seen in th' cabin, talkin' together, an' some of th'
hot-headed ones thought Mike was goin' back on his pals. They was for
makin' him walk th' plank.
"But cooler heads made 'em wait. They said they wanted t' give Mike a
chance to explain. But he never got it."
"Do you mean they--" began Alice, somewhat horrified.

"I mean that night he an' th' captain disappeared," Jack said. "They
couldn't be found anywhere. No boat was taken, so they couldn't have
gotten off in one of them craft, an' we wasn't near enough land t' make
swimmin' safe. But they totally disappeared, an' that was th' mystery.
Whether they had a fight, an' jumped overboard together in th' darkness,
no one ever knowed, for them mutineers didn't keep extra good watch.
"But anyhow they was gone--mysteriously missin' as they say in the
paper. That sort of took the heart out of some of th' mutineers and they
got careless. First we knew a British vessel overhauled us, and, not
likin' th' looks of things, began to ask questions. Of course there wasn't
any captain, such as there should be on a ship, an' that made it look
suspicious. Th' worst of it was that nobody could say where the captain
was. None of us knew.
"Then th' story of th' mutiny came out, of course, an' it was all up. The
Britisher took charge of us. I was arrested as the ringleader of the
mutiny, an' put in chains! An' I had no more to do with it than a baby,
Miss. No more than a baby!" and Jack Jepson looked from Ruth to
Alice, his blue eyes expressing the indignation he