the tail off of every specimen they catch. The spine is a weapon of defense, employed by the fish when angered or frightened. Coles, Captain Jack, Roland, and Captain Charley have been struck by sting-rays. In the case of Captain Jack, the sting was driven through the rear end of his foot from side to side, pinning the shoe to the flesh and bone. In the case of Roland it was driven through the thickest part of the calf of the leg. Captain Charley had a sting driven clean through his heel. Coles was struck in the thigh, the spine being driven in to the bone. All four men agreed that they never suffered such pain. Apparently this sting or spine is an irritant of the utmost violence, although examination has so far failed to reveal any poison in connection with it. Captain Jack had known one man who died as the result of a blow from the sting-ray. Still more remarkable is what happens in connection with sharks. These fish are singularly callous to pain and indifferent to injuries. They habitually prey on stingrays, seizing them by the head or side. Yet when sharks and sting-rays, as sometime occurs, are gathered together in a fisherman's net, numbers of the sharks are killed by the sting-rays, which lash right and left; and the sharks show every symptom of great agony.

All of the trained and experienced observers with me agreed in saying that near our coast-line there was but little danger from sharks for a man swimming. Accidents do occur, but they are wholly exceptional-unlike what is true in the Indian Ocean and around Australia. The white shark is undoubtedly a man-eater, and Coles, who is probably more competent to pass judgment on the question than any other man in the United States, believes that the four bathers killed and partly eaten off the New Jersey coast in the summer of 1916 were all victims of one rather small straggler of this formidable species. When this straggler was captured it was found that there were human bones and flesh in it, and with its capture all attacks on swimmers ceased. Coles believes that under exceptional circumstances the leopard or tiger shark may also attack men. None of my companions, however, had personal knowledge of any man being killed by sharks, although

Coles had for years made a practice of investigating all stories of fatalities of this kind alleged to have occurred at some near-by point. All of my companions, however, knew of instances where men had been bitten by sharks which they had handled carelessly when caught in nets. Captain Jack had once been bitten by 'a Moray eel, which is undoubtedly a savage creature. On another occasion, when out at night in his fishing-smack, having made an immense haul of fish, a large number of big sharks attacked the fish with such ravenous ferocity that he grew seriously concerned lest they should actually force their way into the boat, and was finally obliged to cut the net adrift before he had taken half of the fish out of it.

All of my companions agreed that, for some reason, sharks were afraid of porpoises. The killer whale preyed on porpoises, seeming to prefer warm-blooded prey; but one of my companions mentioned an instance where a killer attacked and slew a big shark, and they agreed that sharks gave the killer a wide berth. The adroitness with which sharks prey on formidable creatures like sting-rays, seizing them so as almost invariably to avoid the sting, is paralleled by the mathematical nicety with which porpoises seize "crucifixion cats," so as just to avoid the spines which make these gregarious sea catfish so dangerous to handle. The spines stick out from the pectoral fins, and render it well-nigh fatal for anything that attempts to swallow them whole. But porpoises attack their schools at full speed, and with such precision that every catfish is cut through just behind the pectorals. All of my companions, including Coles, had at various times come across the wake of a party of porpoises which had assailed a school of crucifixion cats, and they described the sea as being, on each occasion, covered with the fore parts of the cats, each fish having lost all of its body back of the pectoral fins. The unerring, the automaton-like accuracy with which the feat was performed resembled the unerring automatism with which a hunting-wasp paralyzes its victims by stinging them in precisely the right nerve ganglion.

One day we visited an island game refuge which had been established as such when I was President, on the initiative

of the Audubon Society. It was locally known as Hemp Island, but I think on the maps it appears as Cayatuna Island. It is fringed by a dense growth of mangroves, while various trees, including wild figs and native pawpaws and wild, native cottonbushes, grow on the hillock which forms the centre. The birds were chiefly cormorants, pelicans, and Louisiana herons. All were nesting in the trees, and we found several heron eggs, so they had evidently begun to lay. The pelicans were the most numerous and the most conspicuous. To me they are always interesting and amusing birds, and I never get over the feeling of the unexpected about them; their size, shape, and relationship seem at variance both with their habit of diving headlong into the water like kingfishes and with their habit of perching in trees and nest-building therein. As we stood on the island many of the pelicans, soaring overhead, were carrying branches in their bills, and as they grew accustomed to our presence they lit with awkward flapping and balancing in the tree-tops and added sticks to the nests they were building. I believe that on the east coast of Florida they build on the ground instead of in the trees. They uttered queer hoarse croaks of protest as they left their nesting-sites. When on the fishinggrounds they swung around in circles overhead and came down into the water with a splash, disappearing bodily. When they reappeared their heads were pointing up-wind, although they had dived downwind. They and the cormorants often sat on the spiles driven here and there in the broad, shallow bay.

Among the mangroves on this island were some small diamond-back terrapin, of which we got three for our supper. A more interesting capture was made on the hillock in the centre of the island. We found a hole obviously made by some living creature which Captain Jack at once pronounced to be one of the big Florida land-turtles. The burrow was shallow and we experienced little difficulty in digging out the turtle-the first of its kind I had ever seen. This specimen weighed over eleven pounds and was a regular land

tortoise; although the plastron did not shut up tight, as in the case of the boxturtle. The species is purely a vegetable feeder and its meat is esteemed a great delicacy-we found it very good. In Florida it is called the gopher-a name reserved in the West for the burrowing pouched rat which in Florida is most inappropriately called the salamander. Captain Jack stated that he had once found one of these big land-turtles in the belly of a large diamond-back rattlesnake, which was a surprise to me; as I had supposed that the rattlesnake ate only birds and mammals.

On another island we found colonies of cormorants and of beautiful white ibises, together with Louisiana and little blue herons. The ibises had built nests but had not begun to lay. In some of the cormorant nests there were well-grown young and the old birds made guttural noises of indignation at our approach. Under one tree, on the ground, we found a scraped hollow in the dead leaves, in which were an egg and a newly hatched chick which seemingly belonged to a small black vulture which was perched overhead. The egg was greenish, speckled with brown, and the fluffy feathers of the noisome fledgling harmonized exactly in color with the brown leaves.

We had beautiful weather. From the western side of Captiva Island the sunsets were wonderful, across the Mexican Gulf. There was a growing moon and the nights were very lovely. The soft, warm water lapped against the side of the boat, while the soft, warm night air was radiant in the moonlight.

It was a thoroughly enjoyable trip. My success was, of course, entirely owing to the masterly efficiency of my host and of his four fine sailormen and killers of the big game of the seas. It was a delight to witness the cool, unhurried sureness of decision and power with which they met every labor, every emergency, and every hazard. It was an even keener delight to feel that they were my fellow Americans, and to know that the Americanism which they represented and typified was still a living force in the nation.

T was an admiral of a great navy returning a call, and hundreds of bluejackets were peeking out from the superstructure.

"Here he comes-spot me Lord Admiral, fellows!"

and when I was having my first dreams of the day when I should be commanding the latest dreadnought, it was Killorin, settled down and steady, who was to be my chief gunner. I told him as much one night on watch.

"A warrant-officer and wear a sword

"-and he swellin' out like an eightinch sponson comin' over the side, as if it was himself and not his job the guns are for!"

Young apprentice boys' voices those.

There came an older voice: "You kids talk as if it was in admirals and at sea alone. And ashore any day are bank presidents, head floor-walkers, chairmen of reception committees-yes, and bishops of the church-any of them on their great days stepping high to the salutations, as if 'twas something they had done, and not the uniform or the robe or the job they held."

Carlin had a look at the owner of the voice. He hunted up Trench-Lieutenant Trench-and to him he said: "Glory to the man who can wear his uniform without tempering hot convictions, or coining free speech to the bureaucratic mint! But greater glory to the man who can divest high office of its shining robes and see only the man beneath. What's the history of the gunner's mate with the gray-flecked, thick black hair and what the apprentice boys call go-to-hell eyes?" "Killorin? When I first knew himon the China station-he was stroke of the ship's racing crew, the best football player I ever saw, and among the men he had the name of being a twelve-big-gun ship in a fight. A medal-of-honor man,

too.

"Later he went in for booze-fighting and hell-raising generally, and, like everything he tackled, made a first-class job of it. I liked him-all the officers did

'And will you tell me, sir, what's being a warrant-officer and wearing a sword and being called Mister to being all alive while my youth is still with me?'

"I couldn't tell him; and many another question he asked me in the quiet of the night-watches I couldn't answer. He could talk the eye out of a Chinese idol."

"Did you ever ask him how-despite the being all alive and having his youth he comes still to be only a gunner's mate?"

"And have him, in ten perfectly respectful words, put me back in my place? I did not ask him-not that I wouldn't like to know."

"I think I half know," said Carlin.

That was in a tropic port. That same night Carlin found it too hot to sleep below. He rolled off his bunk, had another shower-bath, dressed lightly, and went on deck, where his friend Trench was on watch.

He patrolled the deck with Trench. The men were sleeping everywhere around the top deck. The tall form of Killorin rolled out from under the overhang of a turret and sat up. Trench's walk brought him abreast of Killorin.

"Pretty hot?" asked Trench. "It is hot-yes, sir."

"These young lads"-Trench waved a hand toward the stretched-out shapes all around-"they don't seem to mind it." "They're young, sir."

"Young? I didn't think there was a tougher man, young or old, in the navy than you."

"A man's body," said Killorin, "can take comfort atop of a hot galley stove

or a cold one. A man's mind-'tis not so simply eased."

"Trench," said Carlin, when they had left Killorin, "when I was a boy there was a great hero in our school. Half the girls I knew carried his picture on their bureaus. And most of the other half were suspected of hiding one away. One of those athletic heroes, a husky Apollothis Killorin makes me think of him. But suddenly he disappeared from the middle of his glory."

"Any crime?"

"And your to Killorin.

best girl?" repeated Carlin

"Yes," responded Killorin, "as if that didn't go, like an anchor to a ship, without saying.

"Isn't it always a girl?" he said presently. "Whatever drives the most of us to whatever it is we do, good or bad beyond the ordinary, but a woman stowed away somewhere to see what we do at the time or read of it later?"

The Killorins of the world are not standing and delivering to men they never

nor the next; but on another hot night

Carlin left Trench and walked around deck, in and out among the sleeping forms. Here was one in a hammock, here one on a cot, but mostly they slept on the bare deck in their blankets. Every odd corner and open space held them. They were tucked in against hatchways, under turrets, inboard of boats, outboard of boats, next the smoke-pipes, in the lee of gypsies, of winches, cook's galley. Everyhow and everywhere they slept-on their backs, their stomachs, on their sides, curled up and stretched out. Some whistled, some groaned, some snored, but mostly they slept like babes.

It was hot, as sometimes it seems to be hotter in the night than ever it can be in the day, even in the tropics.

A young bluejacket under a cluster of deck-lights tossed, rolled, tossed, sat up. A restless lad near him also sat up. Between them they produced the makings and rolled cigarettes. They lit up, inhaled, began to talk.

"How about Bar Harbor, or Rockport, or some other little place off the New England coast a night like this, with a cool, fresh breeze sweeping in from the Atlantic?" asked the first one.

"What's the matter with the little old North River?" said the other, "or the East River with the Brooklyn trolleys clangin' and the train to Coney and a few dollars in your pocket after a visit to the paymaster? ... And your best girl, o' course," he added, after a moment.

They snuffed out their cigarettes and rolled back into their blankets. Killorin was still sitting up wide awake.

men sleeping anyhow and everywhere about the deck, Killorin sat outboard of the sailing-launch and, looking out over the dark waters, said:

"Progresso astern and Tampico ahead always a port astern and another ahead, isn't it? And so you knew old Dan Riley that kept the candy store up home? . . . And Mary Riley?" he asked; and, after a while, began to talk of things that had been.

Lovely Mary Riley! No thought ever I had that girls were made for boys to notice till I saw you!

Five blocks out of my way from school her father's store was, but four times I walked past that store window the day after the first time I saw her, and more than four times many a day later-to see her again. It was three months before I got courage to go nearer to her. And then it had to be a night with snow on the ground and sleigh-bells to the horses, and in the faces of men and women a kinder look and in the heart of a boy maybe a higher hope than ordinary.

Christmas eve it was and the store all decorated-candy canes, big and little, hanging among the bright things in the window-when I entered her store that night. There were other people before me, but she nodded and smiled by way of letting me know that she saw I was waiting. She nodded in the same smiling way to a poor child and a rich man of the neighborhood.

"How much for a cane?" I asked, when it came my turn, and I that nervous that I exploded it from me.

"Canes?" She turned to the window. They were all prices, but I didn't hear what she said. I was listening to her voice and trembling as I listened.

There was a great big brute of a cane, tied with blue ribbons and hanging from a gas-fixture. "How much for that one?" I asked.

"That?" She had violet eyes. She opened them wide at me. "That is two dollars."

"Let me have it," I said. Her thin red lips opened up and the little teeth inside them shined out at me. "But you don't want to be buying that," she said, "we keep that more for show than to sell."

To this day a thing can come to my mind and be as if it happened before my eyes. "She thinks I'm one who can't afford to spend two dollars for that cane, and she's going to stop me," I says to myself. "She thinks I am a foolish kind who would ruin himself to make a show." If there had been less truth in what she thought, maybe I would have been less upset. "I'll take it," I said, "I want it for a Christmas tree for my little nephew." There was no nephew, little or big, and no Christmas tree, and that two dollars was every cent I had to spend for Christmas. But her eyes were still wide upon me, and I paid and walked out with the cane-without once turning at the door or peeking through the window in passing, for fear she would be looking after me, and I wouldn't have her think that a twodollar candy cane wasn't what I could buy every day of my life if it pleased me. I hoped she would remember me, but took care not to pass the store for a week again, for fear she would see me and think I was courting her notice because I had bought the big cane.

I was going to high school then. One Saturday afternoon there came highschool boys from all that part of the country to compete for prizes in the great hall we had. I wasn't entered. I like to run and jump and put the shot well enough, but to go in training-to have a man tell me what time to go to bed and what time to get up, and what to eat and what not to eat, and after a couple of months of that to have to display yourself before crowds of people! It was like being a

gladiator in the Colosseum I used to read about, and performing for the pleasure of the mob-patricians and the proletariat alike.

I would spend hours in the alcove of the school library reading of belted knights in the days of tourneys and crusadesbut that was different. I could see myself-addressing the kings of the land and the queens of the court of beauty, the while the heralds all about were proclaiming my feats of valor. A knight on a great charger in armor and helmet, with my lance stuck out before me-never anything less glorious could I be than that.

But all loyal sons of our school took a ticket for the games. I went to them; and there I saw Mary Riley waving her banner and cheering a gangling-legged young fellow that lived in the same street as myself. No special looks did he have, and no more brains than another, but he was winning a hurdle race and she was cheering him. And there came another, the winner of the high jump, and she cheered him, too.

came

To see a girl you are night and day thinking of-to see and hear her cheering some one else! I went in for winning prizes. And when the season around I played football. And my picture used to be in the papers, those same papers saying what a wonder I would be when I went to college. And all the time I wondering was she seeing the pictures and reading the words of me.

My people had no money to send me to any college, but from this college and that came men to explain to me how the money part could be arranged. And so to college I went. I paid enough attention to my studies to get by-no great attention did it take-but I paid special attention to athletics, and before long my picture was sharing space in the papers with presidents and emperors and the last man to jump off the Brooklyn Bridge. And is there any surer way to spoil a nineteenyear-old boy's perspective of life than to keep telling him that well-developed muscles-whether they be in his back or his legs or inside his head-will make a great man of him?

I came home from college for the summer. I'd seen Mary a few times since that Christmas eve, but made no attempt