States. As he came closer, a crowd of sailors sprang upon the forecastle
head, and the windlass-bars rose and fell as the anchor was torn from
its muddy bottom.

"'Yankee ship come down the ribber!'" the sea-lawyer's voice rolled out
as he led the anchor song.

"'Pull, my bully boys, pull!'" roared back the old familiar chorus, the
men's bodies lifting and bending to the rhythm.

Bub Russell paid the boatman and stepped on deck. The anchor was
forgotten. A mighty cheer went up from the men, and almost before he
could catch his breath he was on the shoulders of the captain,
surrounded by his mates, and endeavoring to answer twenty questions to
the second.

The next day a schooner hove to off a Japanese fishing village, sent
ashore four sailors and a little midshipman, and sailed away. These men
did not talk English, but they had money and quickly made their way to
Yokohama. From that day the Japanese village folk never heard anything
more about them, and they are still a much-talked-of mystery. As the
Russian government never said anything about the incident, the United
States is still ignorant of the whereabouts of the lost poacher, nor has
she ever heard, officially, of the way in which some of her citizens
"shanghaied" five subjects of the tsar. Even nations have secrets
sometimes.