Produced by Al Haines [Frontispiece: "An' the bridal couple 'd be holdin' hands an' gazin' over the spanker-boom at the full moon." [Page 242.]] RUNNING FREE BY JAMES B. CONNOLLY WITH ILLUSTRATIONS CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS NEW YORK ::::::::::::::::::::: 1917 COPYRIGHT, 1913, 1915, 1917, BY CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS Published September, 1917 COPYRIGHT, 1912, 1913, 1917, BY P. F. COLLIER & SON, INCORPORATED COPYRIGHT, 1916, BY THE CURTIS PUBLISHING COMPANY CONTENTS The Strategists The Weeping Annie The Bull-Fight A Bale of Blankets Breath o' Dawn Peter Stops Ashore The Sea-Birds The Medicine Ship One Wireless Night Dan Magee: White Hope ILLUSTRATIONS "An' the bridal couple'd be holdin' hands an' gazin' over the spanker-boom at the full moon" Frontispiece "All stand clear of the main entrance" "It was drive, drive, drive, from midnight to daylight" It took till the daylight was all but gone before I knocked him down for the last time "You doubted my courage, maybe?" I asked "'Quiscanto vascamo mirajjar,' which is Yunzano for 'I am satisfied, I can now die happy'" The Strategists I arrived in Santacruz in the early evening, and as I stepped out of the carriage with the children the majordomo came rushing out from under the hotel portales and said: "Meesus Trench, is it? Your suite awaits, madam. The Lieutenant Trench from the American warship has ordered, madam." There was a girl, not too young, sitting over at a small table, and at the name Trench, pronounced in the round voice of the majordomo, she--well, she was sitting by herself, smoking a cigarette, and I did not know why she should smile and look at me--in just that way, I mean. But I can muster some poise of manner myself when I choose--I looked at her. And she looked me over and smiled again. And I did not like that smile. It was as if--as Ned would say--she had something on me. She and I were to be enemies--already I saw that. She was making smoke rings, and she never hurried the making of a single one of them as she looked at me; nor did I hurry a particle the ushering of the two children and the maid into the hotel. But I did ask, after I had greeted Nan and her mother inside: "Auntie--or you, Nan--who is the oleander blossom smoking the cigarette out under the portales?" It spoke volumes to me that Nan and her mother, without looking, at once knew whom I meant. She was the Carmen Whiffle of whom nearly every other American woman waiting to be taken home on the next transport had been whispering--and not always whispering--for weeks in Santacruz. Nan, of course, had a good word for her. Is there a living creature on earth she wouldn't? "I think she is wonderfully good-looking," said Nan.