Argosy All-Story Weekly, February 23, 1924 — page 5: what you’re looking at

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

a a ee ee ae ee ee ee SF ee ge oe ee aN a= eT a on as ee . ( — SHIFTING SANDS. registry that normally made the ports were carrying on traffic in the North Sea at princely freight rates. Business generally was paralyzed. Sent to South America on an ill-consid- ered expedition to attempt to sell goods from a group of little provincial industries, Watson had been dropped, cold as a wedge, down in Brazil. His backers had gotten * cold feet.” He went in to Buenos Aires, hoping to get work. His cables to his employers for money upon which to come home were left unanswered. Two months virtually without money or without a chance to earn any, for the war had paralyzed everything, reduced Watson to desperation, and the resolve to begin the task of working his way back to the States, some way, somehow. He did odd jobs on miserable little coasting vessels from port to port, first to Montevideo, then Rio Grande do Sul, Porto Alegre, Paranagua, and then Santos, where he hoped to get on a coffee ship bound for the States. Alas, everything was bound for Europe, and there also was mighty little American registered shipping then. At Rio he had no better luck, but a Brazilian coast tramp, a horrible little wheezy tub, needed a second engineer. Watson had handled tugs, sta- tionary engines, and the like, down about Tampico in the oil fields, so he shipped on. She only went as far as Georgetown, Demerara. There he quit, for the Dom Miguel was turning southward and going back to Rio de Janeiro. Out of the few sols of pay he received, he bought passage on the wretched steamboat plying between Georgetown and Port of Spain, Trinidad. At Trinidad he was becalmed again for a month. The consul aided him with some odd jobs, to eke out his slender resources for the plainest, cheapest food. A steamer for the States had not touched there in forty days; as far as any one knew, there would never be another. Shipping circles were in a panic over German raiders. Save for the French cruiser Amiral Descartes pa- trolling those immediate waters, vessels were rare indeed. Breck Watson saw that something had 163 to be done; he might be stuck there in that steamy, mosquito infested island for months, subject to daily insults from the inhabitants» They vented their spite upon all Americans because the United States had not gotten into the European war. Natives of England are not more trucu- lently British than these colonists, especial- ly those emotional ones of darker hue in the West Indies. Down on the water front this black cap- tain of the trading schooner was trying to muster a crew. Six of his eight men had succumbed to prevailing hysteria. about German raiders and submarines, and - VE ished. Others would not risk the dangers’ It was ship on the Windsor Castle, or stay —and Watson signed on for as far as Colon — at twenty dollars a month, United States © gold, on arrival. Then began the craw ae course around the southerly rim of the’ ping to chaffer and trade. tor Ded at ff Margarita Island; at. mar caibo for some coffee, Gme and ceé then on to the Gulf of Darien, and taking... on the coconuts the Darien and San Blas Indians were anxious to sell from their is sae land groves. A hellish trip—two months and pac days—in the dirty, vermin infested old tub; abused by the black captain and crew, inte posed upon, given the dirtiest jobs, and dis- criminated against at every turn -and in every way. And now denied settlement and release, in an effort to hold him for the trip from Colon to Jamaica! A small sailboat came beating in on a course which would take her across the stern of the Windsor Castle. Watson looked about. The mate was below; the three other members of the crew had stolen a bottle of the captain’s trading rum and were asleep on the deck. The white man climbed over the stern, down as far as he could hang, and dropped feet foremost into the water so as to make as little splash as possible. He swam with swift, sure strokes and met the boat a hundred yards from the Windsor EComichbooks (E(0) | at, ce tN Oe eT MART a Nate OMe i wats. : ‘Fe bo, ; a . 455 od = 3