Then, taking a train for San
Francisco, he reached that city on Thursday afternoon, and immediately
began to make arrangements for sailing. He found, to his great
disappointment, that the army transport had sailed the previous day,
contrary to the expectations of the editors, and of the War Department
itself, until the arrival of important despatches from Manila, which
made it necessary to start the transport at once with supplies of
ammunition. Archie hardly knew what to do. He had not anticipated
anything like this, and could scarcely think of any plan for a time,
but, finally, he proved himself equal to the emergency. He went to the
naval agent and asked him when the transport would be due at Honolulu,
and then he ascertained that a passenger steamer sailing for that port
on Saturday would reach the destination three days sooner than the
transport, so that by taking the liner he would have three extra days
in Honolulu, and would be able to reach Manila on schedule time, after
all. He at once decided that this was the thing for him to do, and as
soon as he thought of taking the steamer it occurred to him that he
might possibly be able to work his way to Honolulu, instead of paying
the regular passenger fare, which he knew was high. So he went down to
the great docks, and, after interviewing the second steward, he
approached the chief steward himself, and asked if there wasn't
something that he could do aboard the ship to earn his passage.
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