The Mad Skipper

The Mad Skipper: A Cruise After the Maelstrom By Roger Starbuck, this serialized maritime adventure depicts two deserters from a whale-ship anchored in San Carlos, Chiloe Island. Frank Harland, a boat-steerer, and Joe Plaush, a Portuguese dwarf cabin-boy, hide in a cave after deserting due to harsh treatment. When local vigilantes begin searching for runaways, they encounter a young American woman of remarkable resourcefulness who warns them of betrayal and shelters them in a doctor's study. Her father, a patent-medicine inventor preparing to return to the United States aboard the whaling vessel *Monongahela*, offers assistance. The narrative combines nautical action, romantic elements, and character development, emphasizing loyalty between the protagonists while establishing a plot centered on their escape from colonial authorities and return passage home aboard the departing whale-ship.