OLD RELIABLE IN AFRICA
CHAPTER I
THE OCEAN GAMBLERS
THE S. S. Trojan floated the sailing signal at her New York dock. Thin smoke curled upward from her funnels. Sea men laced her loins with many a ring and eyelet; deck-boys rubbed her windows and polished her brasses. Electricians, mechanics, cooks, and quick-stepping lads in white jackets hurried through hidden pasages within. Sooty-faced men in her grimy depths toiled at boilers and bunkers, heedless of what went on above, like coral insects that build beneath the waves. Officers ran their eyes along spar and rigging; tested every life-boat and davit—grooming their racer for the long, long track. Alertly still she lay, keel and wheel, breathing from the bottom of her lungs, holding her steely muscles in leash, calm without, but trembling through every nerve and fiber, like a Kentucky thoroughbred at the starter's post.
In contrast with the crew's strict discipline,
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