Adventure, August 1917 — page 186: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

184 Well, I must end now. You have my address, haven’t your A line at any time is always most welcome, but I know how busy you are, so don’t worry unduly. Good-by. All good luck and good wishes. Yours ever—W. TOWNEND, British Expeditionary Force. (gen M. COSBY has already in- troduced himself to us but here is a bit of his biography that accounts for his knowledge of scenes and affairs used in his story in this issue: I enlisted in Greensboro, N. C., by special per- mission when eighteen years old—that was in 1902 —intending to take the examinations for a com- mission after serving the required two years. My first year in the Army was spent at Washington; the other two years in the Philippines, six months on the Island of Luzon and eighteen in Mindanao. I never took the examinations as I had first intended, but on discharge came to New York City where I engaged in newspaper work. Am still at it. (THREE of you have sent our Camp- Fire latest reports on the old Morning Star. A year or so ago we published her picture along with those of other old whalers. At the February Camp-Fire Lam- bert Hillyer told us how she had been bought for motion-picture work, been sold again and had then mysteriously disap- peared. L. H. Haight wrote that about June, 1916, she came into Bridgeport, Conn., and tied up alongside the N. Y., N. H. & H. tracks just west of the station, a few weeks later was docked and painted, and remained tied up at her former position at least until late Fall. Mr. Haight gave us a detailed description to avoid any doubt, and mentioned, incidentally, that her “‘ship- ping register says she was built in 1853 in Dartmouth (near New Bedford).”’ A few days later P. H. Mitchell wrote that on February 1, 1917, she was at Bridge- port, moored alongside the N. E. Nav. Co. docks, and was the property of the Lake Torpedo Boat Co. Captain Wm. Brashing, of Bridgeport, writes us as follows. Our thanks to all of them. This Camp-Fire of ours is a pretty effective agency for run- ning down mysteries. - She was purchased by Captain Dannehowe for the purpose of a wrecking vessel and afterward he brought her to the Lake Co. in Bridgeport where she was in charge of Captain McGoldich and where I partly dismantled her. Then she was removed from the Company Docks to the R. R. dock, where she was dismantled to her mains and deck-house removed. She is in charge of Captain Tapland Adventure and is being fitted with two 250 horse-power gas engines and then she is going to the West Indies in the coal and logwood trade. I don’t think Mr. Hillyer would recognize the ugly looking gas-barge see as the trim little bark Morning Star of bygone ays. UR next month’s number will be the last monthly issue of Adventure— September, 1917. After that comes the MID-SEPTEMBER Adventure, out Au- gust eighteenth. Hereafter it’s the third and the eighteenth of each month, twice a month instead of once. One of the good things our new twice-a- month publication will do is to give us more chance to chat around our Camp-Fire. Then it won’t be necessary to hold letters so long as I’ve had to hold this one written January twenty-first by our old friend Harold S. Lovett, the American on H. M. S. Agamemnon in the Mediterranean. The Mediterranean, the U. S., the Philippines —note again how our Camp-Fire annihi- lates distances. And prick up your ears, for it’s buried treasure this sailor in the war talks about: Things are not so bad around here, and I’m hop- ing this year will see it through. When it’s all over I’ll try and give you a glimmering of war as I found it, which is a heap different to the way historians and story writers give you to understand. You'll “‘sabe” why I can’t tell you now, and anyhow, even when I’m all soaked in ideas and plans and mem- ories, somehow I am not able to put them on paper. ... S FOR an item in ‘“‘Camp-Fire” in December issue. I’ve got a word to say to save any one from hitting a dead trail. Mr. Wolcott LeClear Beard’s ex-master mechanic didn’t lift all the caches in the Philippines. As he says, Prado’s loot really was concealed in two packs, one by the gallows on which Prado expiated one of his crimes, and one before the build- ing which was the Q. M. stores in Dagupan. Ask the natives where the latter went, and they will shrug their shoulders and tell you fairy-tales of buried treasure for miles around, because that is their way, if you know them well enough, but they’ll keep clear of what you want to know. AS TO the one by the gallows, well, it sure was there, but after he’s said that our friend the ex-master mechanic starts to guess. It realized exactly $11,400, Mexican, less than was ex- pected. The guys who fixed it lost their last dime at poker in a Montana outfit six months after, and when they quit that little side-show their heads were low on the ponies’ necks, and their six-guns pointed aft trying to show the crowd that two’s company but if any more arrive one of them ought to have slight knowledge of the undertaker’s busi- ness. CoOmiclsoo 5}