Produced by Suzanne Shell, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team.
1910
I An Introductory Disaster
II A New Face in Camp
III A Change of Lodgings
IV Another New Face
V The Rackbirds
VI Three Weld Beasts
VII Gone!
VIII The Alarm
IX An Amazing Narration
X The Captain Explores
XI A New Hemisphere
XII A Tradition and a Waistcoat
XIII "Mine!"
XIV A Pile of Fuel
XV The Cliff-Maka Scheme
XVI On a Business Basis
XVII "A Fine Thing, No Matter What Happens"
XVIII Mrs. Cliff is Amazed
XIX Left Behind
XX At the Rackbirds' Cove
XXI In the Caves
XXII A Pack-Mule
XXIII His Present Share
XXVI His Fortune under his Feet
Early in the spring of the year 1884 the three-masted schooner Castor,from San Francisco to Valparaiso, was struck by a tornado off the coastof Peru. The storm, which rose with frightful suddenness, was of shortduration, but it left the Castor a helpless wreck. Her masts hadsnapped off and gone overboard, her rudder-post had been shattered byfalling wreckage, and she was rolling in the trough of the sea, with herfloating masts and spars thumping and bumping her sides.
The Castor was an American merchant-vessel, commanded by Captain PhilipHorn, an experienced navigator of about thirty-five years of age. Besidesa valuable cargo, she carried three passengers—two ladies and a boy. Oneof these, Mrs. William Cliff, a lady past middle age, was going toValparaiso to settle some business affairs of her late husband, a NewEngland merchant. The other lady was Miss Edna Markham, a school-teacherwho had just passed her twenty-fifth year, although she looked older.She was on her way to Valparaiso to take an important position in anAmerican seminary. Ralph, a boy of fifteen, was her brother, and she wastaking him with her simply because she did not want to leave him alone inSan Francisco. These two had no near relations, and the education of thebrother depended upon the exertions of the sister. Valparaiso was not theplace she would have selected for a boy's education, but there they couldbe together, and, under the circumstances, that was a point of primeimportance.
But when the storm had passed, and the sky was clear, and the mad waveshad subsided into a rolling swell, there seemed no reason to believe thatany one on board the Castor would ever reach Valparaiso. The vessel hadbeen badly strained by the wrenching of the masts, her sides had beenbattered by the floating wreckage, and she was taking in water rapidly.Fortunately, no one had been injured by the storm, and although thecaptain found it would be a useless waste of time a