824 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[May 23, 1908. 
Kittrois in Hell Gale. 
The new motor launch Kittrois, owned by 
Mr. Frank Gheen, struck on a rock in Hell Gate 
last Sunday and some one inserted all kinds of 
stories in the papers. The facts are these: Mr. 
Gheen left the Audubon Y. C. at. 155th street, 
Hudson River, in the morning with Mr. Geo. 
P P. Bonnell’s sailboat Old Glory in tow for 
Long Island Sound. After a tedious trip through 
the Harlem River, waiting for the drawbridge 
to open and let the sailboat through, they were 
cutting close to shore of Ward’s Island, and when 
off a group of rocks, known as the Hog s Back, 
Old Glorv’s sails were set, and as she tightened 
the tow line, the launch was swung around, and 
bumped head on into the rocks. 
The tow line was cut and efforts made to back 
off, but the rapidly, falling tide left Kittrois hard 
aground until the tide rose late in the afternoon, 
when she floated off and was taken into the 
Harlem River and tied up. 
Instead of a terrible shipwreck it was merely 
a case of lying aground a few hours with no 
danger, and no one was hurt. 
Belle Harbor’s Ocean Races 
There will be ocean races enough for all this 
summer, I he conditions for the three inter- 
club ocean races of the Belle Harbor, Canarsic 
and Bergen Beach yacht clubs, to be held this 
summer, have been decided upon. The first con¬ 
test will be held on June 27, the second Aug. 
29 and the third Sept. 12. In each race the con¬ 
testants will start from the Rockaway Inlet Buoy 
and round both Scotland and Sandy Hook light 
vessels. The distance is fifteen nautical miles. 
Sloops, yawls and cabin cal boats are eligible 
to enter, but fin keel boats are barred.. The 
crews of each, all amateurs, will be limited to 
one man to each five feet of boat length and a 
skipper. There will be no restrictions as to 
sails. Time allowance will be five and one-half 
seconds a foot per mile, based on the over all 
length of the boats. Stores for twenty-four 
hours must be carried. 
There will be three classes, one for boats from 
25ft. to 30ft over all, another for those more 
than 30ft. and a third for those more than 40ft. 
Knickerbocker Y. C. Race. 
The Knickerbocker Y. C. led off with a race 
on Saturday, May 16, for three of their new one- 
design class of cats called Sea Wrens. They 
were sent twice around a course of four miles 
with a light southerly breeze. Geo. J. Stelz, of 
College Point, won in the Shovonne. The sum¬ 
mary is as follows: 
Finish. Elapsed. 
Shovonne, C. J. Stelz. 5 57 26 1 52 26 
Cock Robin, W. G. Newman . 5 57 45 1 52 45 
Olga, Albert Schoen . 5 59 02 1 54 02 
The Shovonne the winner by 19s. 
Sailors in Port. 
Continued from page 786. 
They had just returned, when Charlie came 
back accompanied by the three men that were 
in the boat with him. They gave us a lift with 
the chest and bags and in single file we climbed 
about a hundred yards further over the rocks 
and came to the end of the beach, on which the 
town was built. We walked quietly toward the 
village until near the condensing works, whose 
high chimney towered up a black shaft against 
the starless sky. One electric light threw a 
circle of light on our path, and here we halted 
again and then, at a signal from Charlie, stole 
one by one across the lighted space and handed 
our bags in through a window or doorway of a 
small hovel, to a pair of arms that were thrust 
out to receive them. 
Then Charlie turned us over to another man 
and said to follow him; but first we wanted 
some explanation of his plans in regard to us. 
He told us we could not get up to the top of the 
mountain before sunrise, and by that time there 
would be mounted police riding the plains in 
search of us. He said he would hide us until 
it was safe for us to come out and proceed. So 
we followed our guide down along the beach to 
about the middle of the town. All the way we 
stumbled over refuse thrown out to rot on the 
beach, for there was no such thing as a sewer 
here. Tin cans, straw bottle-covers and old 
brooms kicked about our feet, while once I was 
nearly given a fall by getting tangled in the re¬ 
mains of an old hoop-skirt. And all the while 
there was the most infernal racket made by the 
dogs; there seemed to be one in every house, 
and every dog was going his best to betray our 
presence by his infernal barking. 
I was surprised that the guard did not investi¬ 
gate and catch us; but I found out later all that 
had been provided for. In fact, the very man who 
was to watch and arrest any man found landing 
was one of those that had come off and helped 
us ashore. We filed up an alleyway and halted 
in front of a high wooden door until the man 
on the inside could roll a large wine pipe back, 
so the door could be opened. The passageway 
was so narrow the pipe completely blockaded 
'it, and we had to climb over it, and then crawl 
on our hands and knees through a small hole 
into total blackness. 
Where we were we did not know, except that 
we were under some building in about the middle 
of the village. I was the first one in, and so 
crawled in on my hands and knees as far as I 
could go to make room for the others. _ When 
I had gone about twenty feet over pieces of 
sheet tin, straw bottle-covers, etc., I came to a 
partition and in feeling about found a large 
basket full of straw in the corner. There was 
only about three feet from the ground to the 
floor above us, so I sat in this basket and 
leaned up in the corner to sleep. I was tired, 
and with the rest slept soundly until morning. 
I felt rather cramped when I awoke; my 
strange bunk was none too comfortable, and my 
four shipmates lay stretched out still sound 
asleep. Hans lay full length on a piece of old 
sheet iron and Joe on a wooden door. Bill and 
Albert had collected straw and made a shift for 
a bed with that. Right in front of me were 
three hens, their heads tucked under their wings, 
asleep on a cross piece that served for a roost. 
At my left I heard talking, and looking through 
a crack in the boards, I saw a whole Chilano 
family in the hut adjointing and watched, un¬ 
seen by them, their mode of living and cooking. 
The hens in front of me annoyed me. It was 
bad enough to have to hide without the humilia¬ 
tion of having to sleep with chickens. So, lift¬ 
ing one foot, I caught an old brown hen square 
in her after quarters and sent her sailing across 
the place, cackling and clucking in righteous 
fright, and with her went the other two, scurry¬ 
ing over the sleeping men in mad haste. The 
one I kicked landed square in little Hans’ 
face, and I guess he thought the “Old Scratch” 
had him by the way he awoke. The noise awoke 
all hands, and we were afraid for a time the 
chickens would betray our presence to the 
police, who, we knew, would soon be looking 
for us. 
The captain certainly would come ashore to 
try and find us, and it gave us no end of amuse¬ 
ment throughout the day to picture to ourselves 
the looks of astonishment that would appear on 
the captain’s and mate’s faces when they looked 
in and found the fo’castle nearly empty. The 
old man would be obliged to hunt for us, for 
every man that he took from New York would 
have to be accounted for when the bark again 
reached the States. And not only that, but men 
were hard to get out here, and he would have to 
give a new crew more money to get them to 
ship. But then we had each left some forty or 
fifty dollars behind that was due us, so the ship 
would really not be the loser. Having been out 
now seven months, it might seem that there 
would be more money coming to us; but when 
you deduct thirty-five that was advanced at New 
York, five that we had on the coast and over a 
month’s pay that had been drawn out of the 
slop chest, it is easy to see where the money 
has gone to. And this little trip of ours ashore 
cost us, as we afterward found out, a month’s 
pay more. 
About breakfast time a man brought us some 
breakfast, rolling the barrel back against the 
opening after handing the food to us. There 
was tea (a luxury to us), bread and some fish. 
When he came back in an hour or so for the 
dishes, we ask<“d him for a pack of cards and 
some “agua,” as they called water. When we 
started to play, we found the cards were 
Spanish and entirely different from any we were 
used to, so we had to give that up. The water 
he brought us in a red clay bottle with a long, 
slender neck, and also brought us a bottle of 
red wine. He told us before he closed the 
opening that the captain with two policemen 
were searching every building along the street. 
“I’ll let you know if they come in here; so if 
you hear me say ‘fly,’ you get out of sight quick. 
You can go through there,” and he pointed to 
a small opening that led in under the floor of 
the front part of the building. All the houses 
here were built on spiles two or three feet off 
the ground, and it was under the back part of 
one of these buildings—a restaurant, as we after¬ 
ward found out—that we were hiding. 
Just before dinner time we heard a scuffling 
of feet on the floor above us, and we recognized 
our captain’s voice, and when our friend ap¬ 
peared at the hole and shouted, “Fly! fly!” we 
needed no second bidding. All hands dove for 
the hole at the same time, but it was only 
large enough to admit one. When I squeezed 
through on top of Joe’s heels I found the 
ground more hilly than in the other place; 
shells and pieces of bottles were scattered about, 
but the queerest part was the density of the 
cobwebs that hung in festoons and sheets from 
every beam and post. It was simply a network 
of them all covered with an accumulation of' 
dust. How many years those cobwebs had been 
forming I would not dare to guess. I did not 
care either, but lowering my head, I butted a 
passage through them head first as I scrambled 
along on my hands and knees as fast as I could 
go for a projecting corner of the building. The 
others went in every direction, like so many 
rabbits, and then all lay flat on our stomachs 
behind the little bumps and ridges in the ground, 
hardly daring to breathe. After a while I be¬ 
gan to think we were safe, so raised my head 
for a look around, and while I was peering 
through a network of cobwebs, Hans stuck his 
head up from behind a hump of earth and I 
nearly laughed outright at the comical sight 
he presented; with festoons of cobwebs hang¬ 
ing from the peak of his cap, his nose, chin, 
the buttons on his coat, in fact, all over him. 
We were all just as bad, and it took us quite 
a while to clean our clothes after the scare was 
over and our friend called us out. 
[to be continued.] 
HIDING LIKE JACK RABBITS IN THE COBWEBS AND DUST. 
