Down the river they floated till the following day, when they found some settlers drawing in a fish net. These settlers had heard that Major Powell had been lost in the cañon and were keeping a lookout for pieces of boats. Instead, a worn but victorious party confronted them. 5 Food in plenty was soon forthcoming, and the members of the party were feasted as heroes.

1. Give a two-minute talk on the Grand Cañon, touching on location, general character, etc. Consult your geographies and reference books for material. Make your talk interesting.

2. Why did Major Powell undertake this dangerous trip? How many men went with him? How many deserted him? What were some of the troubles they encountered? How did the venture turn out?

3. Name some other famous explorers. Who discovered the north pole? The south pole? The Mississippi River? The Pacific Ocean?

NIGHT FISHING IN THE SOUTH SEAS

BY FREDERICK O'BRIEN

Mr. O'Brien spent some time among the South Sea Islands, and had many interesting adventures there. One of the most exciting was this encounter with a swordfish, which he relates in a delightful manner.

RED

ED CHICKEN became my special friend and guide, and on one occasion it was our being together, perhaps, saved his life, and afforded me one of the most thrilling moments of my own.

He and I had gone in a canoe after nightfall to spear fish s outside the Bay of Virgins. Night fishing has its attractions in these tropics, if only for the freedom from severe heat, the glory of the moonlight or starlight, and the waking dreams that come to one upon the sea, when the canoe rests tranquil, the torch blazes, and the fish swim to meet the 10 harpoon. The night was moonless, but the sea was covered

with phosphorescence, sometimes a glittering expanse of light, and again black as velvet except where our canoe moved gently through a soft and glamorous surface of sparkling jewels. A night for a lover, a lady, and a lute. 5 Our torch of coconut husks and reeds, seven feet high, was fixed at the prow, so that it could be lifted up when needed to attract the fish or better to light the canoe. Red Chicken, in a scarlet pareu fastened tightly about his loins, stood at the prow when we had reached his 10 favorite spot off a point of land, while I, with a paddle, noiselessly kept the canoe as stationary as possible.

Light is a lure for many creatures of land and sea and sky. The moth and the bat whirl about a flame; the sea bird dashes its body against the bright glass of the lonely 15 tower; wild deer come to see what has disturbed the dark of the forest; and fish of different kinds leap at a torch. Red Chicken put a match to ours when we were all in readiness. The brilliant gleam cleft the darkness and sent across the blackness of the water a beam that was a chal20 lenge to the curiosity of the dozing fish. They hastened towards us, and Red Chicken made meat of those that came within the radius of his harpoon, so that within an hour or two our canoe was heaped with half a dozen kinds.

Far off in the path of the flambeau rays I saw the sword25 fish leaping as they pursued small fish or gamboled for sheer joy in the luminous air. They seemed to be in pairs. I watched them lazily, with academic interest in their movements, until suddenly one rose a hundred feet away, and in his idle caper in the air I saw a bulk so immense, and 30 a sword of such amazing size, that the thought of danger struck me dumb.

He was twenty-five feet in length, and had a dorsal fin

that stood up like the sail of a small boat. But even these dimensions cannot convey the feeling of alarm his presence gave me. His next leap brought him within forty feet of us. I recalled a score of accidents I had seen, read, and heard of; fishermen stabbed, boats rent, steel-clad ships 5 pierced through and through.

Red Chicken held the torch to observe him better, and shouted: "A pau! Look out! Paddle fast away!"

I needed no urging. I dug into the glowing water madly, and the sound of my paddle on the side of the canoe 10 might have been heard half a mile away. It served no purpose. Suddenly half a dozen of the swordfish began jumping about us, as if stirred to anger by our torch. I called to Red Chicken to extinguish it.

He had seized it to obey when I heard a splash and the 15 canoe received a terrific shock. A tremendous bulk fell upon it. With a sudden swing I was hurled into the air and fell twenty feet away. In the water I heard a swish, and glimpsed the giant espadon as he leaped again.

I was unhurt, but feared for Red Chicken. He had 20 cried out as the canoe went under, but I found him by the outrigger, trying to right the craft. Together we succeeded, and when I had ousted some of the water, Red Chicken crawled in.

"Papaoufaa! I am wounded slightly," he said, as I 25 assisted him. "The Spear of the Sea has thrust me through."

The torch was lost, but I felt a big hole in the calf of his right leg. Blood was pouring from the wound. I made a tourniquet of a strip of my pareu and, with a small harpoon, 30 twisted it until the flow of blood was stopped. Then, guided by him, I paddled as fast as I could to the beach,

on which there was little trouble in landing as the bay was smooth.

Red Chicken did not utter a complaint from the moment of his first outcry, and when I roused others and he was s carried to his house, he took the pipe handed him and smoked quietly.

"The Aavehie was against him," said an old man. Aavehie is the god of fishermen, who was always propitiated by intending anglers in the polytheistic days and who still To has power.

There was no white doctor on the island, nor had there been one for many years. There was nothing to do but call the tatihi, or native doctor, an aged and shriveled man whose whole body was an intricate pattern of tattooing 15 and wrinkles. He came at once, and with his clawlike hands cleverly drew together the edges of Red Chicken's wound and gummed them 'n place with the juice of the ape, a bulbous plant like the edible taro. Red Chicken must have suffered keenly, for the ape juice is exceedingly caustic, 20 but he made no protest, continuing to puff the pipe. Over the wound the tatihi applied a leaf, and bound the whole very carefully with a bandage of tapa cloth, folded in surgical fashion.

White Shadows in the South Seas.

1. What were the author and Red Chicken doing at the outset ? Read the lines where the adventure begins.

2. Like most real adventures this one was all over in a moment. What happened? Why did it occur?

3. Spell, pronounce, and explain: phosphorescence, lure, stationary, propitiated, polytheistic, tattooing, caustic.

(Taken from O'Brien's White Shadows in the South Seas by permission of the publishers, The Century Co.)

A BALLAD OF EAST AND WEST

BY RUDYARD KIPLING

No man has written more stirring tales, in prose or verse, in recent times than Rudyard Kipling. Born (1865) in Bombay, India, the son of an Englishman in the civil service, he became steeped in the ways of the men of the East. Consequently his first writings were sketches of Anglo-Indian life, written for Indian newspapers with which he was connected. Then followed a series of books on Eastern themes, some in prose and others in verse. Among these was Departmental Ditties from which the following narrative poem is taken. Read it through first to get the story and the atmosphere in mind.

KAM

AMAL is out with twenty men to raise the Border side, And he has lifted the Colonel's mare that is the Colonel's pride:

He has lifted her out of the stable door between the dawn and the day,

And turned the calkins upon her feet, and ridden her far away.

Then up and spoke the Colonel's son that led a troop of the Guides:

"Is there never a man of all my men can say where Kamal hides?"

Then up and spoke Mahommed Khan, the son of the Ressaldar,

"If ye know the track of the morning mist, ye know where

his pickets are.

5

ΙΟ

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