Lister's Great Adventure

Signal flags fluttered in the breeze at the top of the Isleta and a smoke cloud stained the blue horizon. For a few minutes the cloud vanished, and then rolled up again, thicker...

Lister went to the opera with his hosts and was moved by the music and the feeling that he was one of a careless, pleasure-seeking crowd. For the most part, his life had been st...

The sun was rising and the mist rolled back from the lagoon. The tide was low and _Arcturus'_ rusty side rose high above the smooth green water. Damp weed hung from the beams in...

The sun was on the rocks and the lichen shone in rings of soft and varied color. Blue shadows filled the dale, which, from the side of the Buttress, looked profoundly deep. A ro...

When Lister had gone Cartwright returned to the tea-table and looked at Hyslop, who got up and went off. Hyslop did not altogether want to go but he had cultivated discretion, a...

In the morning Cartwright told the porter to take his chair to the beach and sat down in a shady spot. He had not seen Barbara at breakfast and was rather sorry for her, but she...

Lister returned to the railroad camp and stayed until the company sent a man to fill his post. In the meantime, he wrote to some of his father's relations, whom he had not seen,...

The hotel Catalina, half-way between Las Palmas harbor and the town, was not crowded, and a number of the quests had gone to a ball at the neighboring Metropole. Barbara, going...

The afternoon was dark and electric lights burned along the cornice of the room engaged for the shareholders' meeting. The room was big and cold, and as Gavin moved about the ta...

High-water was near and a trail of smoke, creeping up along the coast, streaked the shining sea. Brown watched the smoke until two masts and a funnel rose out of the vapor and b...

Dinner was over, and Cartwright occupied a chair on the lawn in front of the Canadian summer hotel. Automatic sprinklers threw sparkling showers across the rough, parched grass,...

The night was calm, but now and then a faint, hot wind blew from the shadowy coast, and rippling the water, brought a strange, sour smell. Lister did not know the smell; Brown k...

Cartwright had read the morning's letters and the _Journal of Commerce_, and finding nothing important, turned his revolving chair to the fire. He had been forced to wait for a...

In the morning Barbara went to the Catalina mole. The short lava pier was not far off, and one got the breeze, although the hotel garden was hot. Besides, she did not want to me...

Grace's arrival was greeted by a shout, and when she stopped in front of the dining-tent a group of curious people surrounded her. The double roof of the big tent was extended h...

Soon after his return from Winnipeg, Lister stood one evening by a length of track planned to cut out an awkward curve. The new line ran into a muskeg that sucked down brush and...

_Arcturus'_ holds were empty and a long row of oil puncheons occupied the beach, but the men who had dragged the goods from the water were exhausted by heavy toil in the scorchi...

A boisterous wind swept the high plain and round, white-edged clouds rolled across the sky. The grass that ran back from the horizon was parched, and in the distance a white str...

Barbara stopped at the top of James Street and looked down hill to the river. The afternoon was dark and the pavement wet. Thin fog drifted about the tall offices, lights shone...

When the train started Lister did not go to his berth. His curiosity was excited and he wondered whether he had been rash. Now he came to think about it, the girl was attractive...

The drawing-room at Mrs. Cartwright's house on the Cheshire side of the Mersey was large and old-fashioned. Cartwright thought the stiff, thick curtains and Victorian walnut fur...

Silky blue lines streaked the long undulations that ran back to the horizon and the _Flaminian_ rolled with a measured swing. When her bows went down the shining swell broke wit...

Frost sparkled on the office windows and Cartwright, with his feet on the hearthrug studied an Atlantic weather chart. The temperature reported by the liners' captains was low,...

A few days after his visit to the factory, Lister sat one morning under a tarpaulin they had stretched across the hulk. The paint on the canvas smelt as if it burned, but the aw...

After weighing for some weeks all he could learn about the wreck on the African coast, Cartwright went to London and was carried up one morning to the second floor of an imposin...

The Vancouver express was running in the dark through the woods west of Fort William. After the rain of early summer, wash-outs that undermine the track are numerous and the exp...

Lister occupied the end of a slate-flag bench on the lawn at Carrock, Mrs. Cartwright's house in Rannerdale. Rannerdale slopes to a lake in the North Country, and the old house...

In the morning Lister went to Cartwright's office. To some extent, he was embarrassed, because he had begun to see that Barbara's relations might not approve her going on board...

Rain was falling and the light had hardly reached the opening between the tall warehouses. In the dock the water was smooth and shone with dull reflections, but the gates were o...

The morning was hot and Barbara, sitting on the hotel veranda, struggled against a flat reaction. The glitter of the sea hurt her eyes, and the dust that blew in clouds from the...

Some time after Lister went to the factory he woke one night from disturbed sleep. His small room under _Terrier's_ bridge was very hot and the door and port were open. A faint...

The engine-room floor-plates slanted, and light and shadow played about the throbbing machinery. It looked as if the lamps swung in a semicircle, but they did not. All else slan...