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 VANDERDECKEN 
 
 I1NIY. OF CALIF. LIBltAitY. LOS ANGELES
 
 Vanderdecken 
 
 By 
 H. DE VERB STACPOOLE 
 
 AUTHOR OF "SATAN," "THE BLUE LAGOON," 
 "THE BEACH OF DREAMS." ETC. 
 
 NEW YORK 
 ROBERT M. McBRIDE & COMPANY 
 
 1922
 
 Copyright, 1922, by 
 ROBERT M. Mt BRIDE & Co. 
 
 Printed t n the 
 
 United States of America 
 
 Published. 1922
 
 VANDERDECKEN 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 THE FLYING DUTCHMAN 
 
 GEORGE DU CANE was writing a letter in 
 the smoking room of the Bohemian Club, 
 San Francisco. 
 
 George was an orphan with guardians. Twenty- 
 four years and five months of age, his property 
 would not be decontrolled for another seven 
 months when, on his twenty-fifth birthday, he 
 would find himself the actual possessor of some- 
 thing over two million, five hundred thousand 
 dollars. Old Harley du Cane, George's father, 
 had made his money speculating. He had no 
 healthy business to leave to his son and no very 
 healthy reputation. He had ruined thousands of 
 men whom he had never seen and never heard of, 
 he had escaped ruin countless times by the skin of 
 his teeth, he had wrecked railways; his life 
 was, if logic counts, a long disgrace, and in a 
 perfect civilization he would have been hanged. 
 All the same he~was a most lovable old man, 
 generous, warm-hearted, hot-tempered, high- 
 coloured, beautifully dressed ; always with a cigar 
 in his mouth and a flower in his buttonhole, his 
 
 2132840
 
 2 VANDERDECKEN 
 
 hat tilted on one side and his hand in his pocket 
 for any unfortunate. 
 
 Only for his great battle with Jay Gould, he 
 might have died worth ten million. He reckoned 
 that he died poor, and, dying, he tied up his 
 property in the hands of two trustees, as I have 
 hinted. "To keep you from the sharks, George." 
 
 George didn't bother. Wannamaker and 
 Thelusson, the two trustees, gave him all the 
 money he wanted and the world all the fun. A 
 juvenile replica of old Harley on the outside, he 
 was not unlike him on the in; he had something 
 better than wealth, than good looks, even than 
 health, a radium quality inherited from his father 
 that kept him far younger than his years. When 
 Harley du Cane died at the age of seventy-six 
 from a surfeit of ice cream following the excite- 
 ment of a base-ball match, Cazenove, the broker, 
 reading out the news to his family said the 
 reporters had got the age wrong, for Harley 
 wasn't more than nine; and he was right. The 
 Great Bear, to give him his name in the Stock 
 Market, in many respects wasn't more than nine. 
 
 George, having finished his letter, touched an 
 electric bell. A waiter approached. 
 
 "Waiter," said George, "bring me an Oh, 
 damn it!" Egg flip had been on his tongue and 
 prohibition had risen in his mind. The waiter 
 waited. He was used to orders like this of late. 
 "Lemonade," said George. 
 
 He got up and moved to where some men were
 
 THE FLYING DUTCHMAN 3 
 
 seated near one of the windows. Cyrus Reid, the 
 poet; Carolus, the musician; Abrahams, the 
 artist. A few months ago these three would have 
 been fighting, no doubt, over the merits of Henri, 
 Matisse or the possibilities of Cubist music. To- 
 day they were just talking about how dry they 
 were and of the great drought that had struck 
 San Francisco. Reid was mostly a coffee drinker, 
 an occasional glass of beer satisfied Carolus, and 
 Abrahams was all but teetotal, yet they were 
 filled with discontent. George sat down with 
 them and listened to them and drank his lemonade 
 and absorbed their gloom. Prohibition may be 
 good or it may be bad, but there is one undoubted 
 fact about it, it doesn't improve the social life of 
 a club. Whilst they were talking, Hank Fisher 
 came in. Hank was twenty-three or so; thin, 
 tanned, hollow-cheeked, he looked like the mixture 
 of a red Indian and an East coast Yankee. 
 
 He had been born in New Hampshire, served in 
 a whaler, driven an engine, waited in a cafe, 
 hoboed, stoked a Stockton river boat, canned in a 
 cannery. He had educated himself, in a wild sort 
 of way that produced flowers of the mind in an 
 extraordinary pattern; he was both a Socialist 
 and an individualist. There was nothing that the 
 hands of men could do that the hands of Hank 
 couldn't. He could make boots or a fishing-net or 
 mend a watch, he had invented and patented a 
 rat trap that brought him in a small income, and 
 he had the specifications in hand of a clock that
 
 4 VANDERDECKEN 
 
 would go for forty-eight years without winding. 
 He had, also, in the last year or two, made quite a 
 sum of money speculating in real estate. But 
 the crowning point of Hank, and the thing that 
 had secured his entry to the Bohemian Club and 
 endeared him to all imaginative people, was the 
 fact that he was a little bit mad. Not crazy mad, 
 but pleasantly mad. A madness so mixed with 
 cold sanity and streaks of genius that you could 
 scarcely call it madness. 
 
 "You can't tell what he'll do next," was the 
 best decription of him, given by Cedarquist, 
 barring Reid's "He's an opal." 
 
 The opal sat down with scarcely a word and 
 listened to Abrahams, who was holding forth. 
 Said Abrahams : 
 
 "Yes, sir, you may talk and talk, but you 
 haven't got to the bed-rock of the subject. The 
 fact is the world never struck universal unrest 
 till it struck universal lime-juice. If you could 
 dig up the Czar and make him talk, I'll bet he'd 
 back me. Talk of crime waves, when has crime 
 ever waved before as it's waving now? Look at 
 the hold-ups, look at New York, look at Chicago, 
 look at this town. Look at the things that are 
 done in the broad light of day. Milligan's raided 
 yesterday by two gunmen and the place cleared 
 of fifty thousand dollars' worth of stuff in fifteen 
 minutes. Look at this chap Vanderdecken. ' ' 
 
 "What's he been doing?" asked Carolus. 
 
 ' ' Doing ! Don 't you read the papers ? ' '
 
 THE FLYING DUTCHMAN 5 
 
 "No," said Carolus. 
 
 " Doing. Why this chap's been on the job for 
 the last six months and there's tw_entyzfiye 
 thousand dollars reward out forjiim. Yacht 
 raiding, that's what he's been doing, down the 
 coast. Holding up pleasure yachts, comes along 
 in a high power motor boat sometimes and some- 
 times he uses a fishing boat and no one knows 
 where he changes ship or how he does it or how 
 many are working with him." 
 
 ' * Oh, ' ' said Carolus. * ' Well he 's doing nothing 
 new. If you were as old as I am, you'd remember 
 Mullins, away back in the middle 'nineties, he used 
 to do the same thing. Got caught and I forget 
 what they gave him. There's nothing new under 
 the sun." 
 
 "Well, they hadn't wireless in the middle 
 'nineties," said Abrahams, "and wireless doesn't 
 hold Vanderdecken, he skips over it or gets under 
 it. Dutch Pete is his real name, they say, but 
 someone labeled him Vanderdecken from the 
 ' Flying Dutchman '. ' ' 
 
 "I know all about the fellow," cut in Hank 
 Fisher, "know him from his toe-nails up. He's 
 precious small potatoes, too. Lord, what a lot of 
 misinformation manages to get about. Dutch 
 Pete wasn't his name to start with, either. 
 Amsterdam Joe was his name. He came from 
 Hamburg and started here loading grain at 
 Brookland Creek, then he got loose on the front 
 in with McKay and that lot managed a whisky
 
 6 VANDERDECKEN 
 
 joint and got in trouble over something or other, 
 and squared it and got into the Fish Patrol and 
 got fired for colluding with the Greeks in setting 
 Chinese sturgeon lines. Then, after the war, he 
 managed to get some sort of an old boat and 
 cleared out of here. He's down south and I 
 could put my finger on him if I wanted to. Shark 
 fishing is what he started on and he's held up a 
 two cent yacht or two, there's no doubt about 
 that, but as for motor boats and Flying Dutchmen, 
 that's all the newspaper talk. They've embroid- 
 ered on him till he looks like a king. Dutch Pete 
 was a different chap altogether, but he's not 
 about now. I saw him shot. It was in a dust-up 
 at San Leandro." 
 
 "Have you seen the papers this morning!" 
 asked Abrahams. 
 
 "Nope." 
 
 "Well, Vanderdecken, or Amsterdam Joe, or 
 whatever you call him, has held up the Satanita 
 as she was coming up from Avalon. She's no two 
 cent yacht, she's all of eight hundred tons. He 
 went through her and skipped with ten thousand 
 dollars' worth of stuff." 
 
 "Give us the yarn," said Hank. 
 
 "Oh, it was as easy as pie. Connart was 
 coming up in the Satanita got his wife with him 
 too and somewhere off St. Luis Obispo they 
 sighted a yawl. She wasn't more than forty or 
 fifty tons and was lying hove to with, her Hag 
 half masted. They stopped the engines, like fools,
 
 THE FLYING DUTCHMAN 7 
 
 and the yawl sent a boat on board. Two fellows 
 came over the side. One fellow put an automatic 
 pistol to Connart's head and the other man with 
 another automatic covered the officer on the 
 bridge. There was nothing on board the Satanita 
 but a deck gun and a nickel plated revolver, so 
 she was helpless. Then two more fellows came on 
 board from the boat and went through her. They 
 smashed up the wireless first. Then they skipped 
 and that old broken-down looking yawl went off 
 to the south under an auxiliary engine. ' ' 
 
 "And why the blazes didn't they chase and ram 
 her?" asked Hank. 
 
 "Couldn't. The rudder was jammed. The 
 fellows in the boat had done some tinkering work 
 to it. It took them two days to get it right, and 
 they can't even give a full description of the men, 
 for they wore caps with slits in them. Pulled the 
 caps over their faces as they came aboard and 
 looked through the slits. ' ' 
 
 "I expect the Navy will take it in hand," said 
 George du Cane. "A couple of destroyers will 
 soon run them down wherever they are hidden." 
 
 Hank Fisher laughed. "You might as well go 
 hunting for an honest man in Market Street with 
 a couple of rat terriers," said Hank. "First, you 
 wouldn't find him, second he wouldn't be a rat. 
 Why, that auxiliary yawl is either at the- bottom 
 by now, or converted into something else and the 
 guys on board her, do you think they're traveling 
 about the Pacific with their slit caps over their
 
 8 VANDERDECKEN 
 
 faces waiting for a destroyer to fetch them home? 
 What did you say the reward was twenty-five 
 thousand? You wait one minute. " 
 
 He rose up and left the room. 
 
 "What's the matter with Hank now?" asked 
 George. 
 
 "Search me," replied Abrahams, "unless he's 
 gone off to 'phone the police all about Vander- 
 decken being Amsterdam Joe and his descrip- 
 tion." 
 
 "He'd never do that," said Carolus. "He's 
 too chivalrous; you fellows don't know Hank. I 
 don't rightly know him myself. He's a contradic- 
 tion, something as new as wireless and as old as 
 Don Quixote, but the Don's there all the time. I 
 saw him giving his arm to an old woman in 
 Market Street the other day; looked like a 
 washerwoman. She'd tumbled down and hurt her 
 leg or something and there was Hank handing 
 her like a duchess on to a car. He believes in the 
 sanctity of womanhood told me so once." 
 
 "And he believes in the rights of man," said 
 Abrahams, "but he'd beat you out of your back 
 teeth in one of his infernal land speculations." 
 
 "And then buy you a new set," said Carolus, 
 "and swindle the dentist out of a commission on 
 the deal. Not that he cares for money." 
 
 "Oh, no, he doesn't care for money," said 
 Abrahams. "I'll admit that, but he's a pirate 
 all the same. It's his romantic temperament,
 
 THE FLYING DUTCHMAN 9 
 
 maybe, mixed up with his New England ancestry. 
 Here he is." 
 
 "Boys," said Hank, as he approached the 
 group, "it's true enough, I've been on the 
 'phone; there's twenty-five thousand dollars 
 reward out for the Dutchman, half put up by the 
 Yacht Clubs. I'm out." 
 
 "What do you mean?" asked Abrahams, 
 
 "To catch him," said Hank.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 THE PROPOSITION 
 
 HE sat down and lit a cigarette. The others 
 showed little surprise or interest, with 
 the exception of George du Cane. 
 
 It seemed to George that this was a new kind of 
 proposition coming in these dull times. 
 
 "Are you in earnest?" said he. 
 
 "I sure am," said Hank. 
 
 Abrahams, who was over forty with an expand- 
 ing waist-line, and Carolus, who was a creature 
 dead when divorced from cities and the atmos- 
 phere of Art, laughed. 
 
 Hank cocked his eye at them. Then he rose to 
 his feet. "I was joking," said Hank, "believe I 
 could make you ginks swallow anything. Well, 
 I'm off, see you to-morrow." 
 
 George du Cane followed him out. 
 
 In the street he linked arms with him. 
 
 "Where are you going?" asked Hank. 
 
 "Wherever you are," said George. 
 
 "Well, I'm going to the office," said Hank. 
 
 "I'll go with you," said George. "I've got an 
 idea." 
 
 10
 
 11 
 
 1 'What's your idea?" asked Hank. 
 
 "I'll tell you when we get to your office," 
 replied George. 
 
 Fisher and Company's offices were situated as 
 near heaven as the ordinary American can hope 
 to reach. An express elevator shot them out on 
 a concrete-floored landing where the faint clacking 
 of typewriters sounded from behind doors marked 
 with the names of business firms. The Bolsover 
 Trust Syndicate; Moss Muriatti and Moscovitch; 
 Fisher and Co. 
 
 The Fisher offices consisted of two rooms, the 
 outer room for a typewriter and an inner room 
 for the company. 
 
 The company's room contained four chairs 
 and a desk-table, a roll-topped desk and a 
 cuspidor. The bare walls were hung with maps 
 of towns and places. There was a map of San 
 Francisco and its environments reaching from 
 Valego to Santa Clara. There were maps of 
 Redwood and San Jose, Belmont and San Mateo, 
 Oakland and San Eaf ael and others. 
 
 George looked at the maps, whilst Hank sat 
 down and looked at the morning's correspondence 
 spread on the table by the office boy. 
 
 These maps and town plans, marked here and 
 there with red ink, spoke of big dealings and a 
 prosperous business; the trail of Fisher and 
 Company was over them all. They interested 
 George vastly. It was the first time he had been 
 in the office.
 
 12 VANDERDECKEN 
 
 "I say, old man/' said George, suddenly 
 breaking silence and detaching himself from the 
 maps. "I didn't know you had a company 
 attached to you. Where 's the company f ' ' 
 
 "Well, I expect it's in Europe by this," said 
 Hank, laying down the last of his letters. "Or 
 sunning itself on Palm Beach, or listening to the 
 band somewhere. It bolted with the cash box 
 three weeks ago, leaving me a thousand dollars to 
 carry on with. ' ' 
 
 "Good Lord," said George, horror-stricken, yet 
 amazed at the coolness of the other and the way 
 he had managed to keep his disaster concealed 
 from all and sundry; for at the Club Hank was 
 considered a man of substance, almost too much 
 substance for a Bohemian. 
 
 "It's true, "said Hank. 
 
 "How many men were in it?" 
 
 "No men, it was a woman." 
 
 "You were in partnership with a woman!" 
 
 "Yep." 
 
 "Well, she might have done worse," said 
 George, ' * she might have married you. ' ' 
 
 Hank, by way of reply, took a photograph from 
 a drawer in the table and handed it to George, 
 who gazed at it for half a minute and handed it 
 back. 
 
 "I see," said he, "but what made you have 
 anything to do with her?" 
 
 The town lot seculator_tilted back in his chair 
 and lit a cigarette.
 
 THE PROPOSITION 13 
 
 "Driscoll was her name," said he, "and she 
 didn't care about her looks, she used to boast she 
 could put a whole potato in her mouth. She was 
 my landlady when I lived in Polk Street and she 
 ran a laundry and had a hand in ward politics and 
 the whole of the Irish contingent at her back. She 
 had a better business head on her than any man in 
 'Frisco, and when I made some money over that 
 trap of mine, she started me in the real estate 
 business. We were good partners and made big 
 money and now she's bolted." 
 
 "Have you set the police after her?" 
 
 "Gosh, no," said Hank. "What do you take 
 me for? She's a woman." 
 
 "But she's boned your money." 
 
 "Half of it was hers, and anyhow, she's a 
 woman. I'm not used to kicking women and I 
 don't propose to learn." 
 
 George remembered what Carolus had said 
 about the Female Sanctity business and did not 
 pursue the subject. 
 
 Hank smoked, his chair tilted back, his heels on 
 the desk. Euin seemed to sit easy on the town lot 
 speculator. His mind seemed a thousand miles 
 away from San Francisco and worry. 
 
 Then George broke into his reverie. "Look 
 here," he said, "I told you in the street I had an 
 idea. Are you going after this man Vander- 
 decken or not?" 
 
 "And what if I am?" asked the cautious Hank. 
 
 "Then I'll join you, if you'll let me."
 
 14 VANDERDECKEN 
 
 "Well," said Hank, "I told those two ginks at 
 the Club I wasn't. They've no understanding, 
 for one thing, and for another I don't want them 
 to be spreading the news. But I am. For one 
 thing I want a holiday and for another I want 
 that twenty-five thousand dollars. Twenty, I 
 mean, for it will take me all of five thousand 
 dollars to catch him." 
 
 "How much have you!" 
 
 "One thousand, about, and then I've got my 
 royalties for the trap coming in." 
 
 "That rat trap thing!" 
 
 "Yep." 
 
 "How much does it bring you a year, if it's not 
 rude to ask? " 
 
 "Well, I reckon to net in royalties about one 
 thousand five hundred a quarter and the returns 
 are rising. The British are taking to it and 
 Seligmann's had an order for five thousand traps 
 only last week for London delivery. I can borrow 
 from them in advance of royalties." 
 
 George sat down on a chair and nursed his 
 knee and contemplated the toe of his boot. 
 George, despite his easy way of life was no fool 
 in money matters. 
 
 "You are going to spend five thousand in 
 trying to catch this pirate," said he, "and if you 
 fail, where will you be!" 
 
 "Ask me another," said Hank. 
 
 George took his cigarette case from his pocket,
 
 THE PROPOSITION 15 
 
 chose a cigarette and lit it; the two sat for a 
 moment in silence. 
 
 "Besides," said George suddenly, "you'll most 
 likely get a bullet through your head." 
 
 "Most like," said Hank. 
 
 "To say nothing of weather. You know what 
 Pacific weather is on the coast here, and you'll 
 have to lay up maybe months waiting for the fellow 
 in a cramped boat with beastly grub." 
 
 "Sure," said Hank. 
 
 "Well, there it is, the whole thing's mad, rotten 
 mad, it hasn't a sound plank in it. What did you 
 mean dragging me here with that proposition for 
 bait?" 
 
 "Me drag you!" cried the outraged Hank. 
 
 "Yes, you, doped me and dragged me here with 
 your talk at the Club, turned my head till I 'm sure 
 not sane, for I'm in this business with you up to 
 the neck. I'm as mad as yourself, I want to be 
 off, I wouldn't be out of it for ten thousand 
 dollars, though I'm hanged if I know what the 
 draw is." 
 
 ' * Man hunting, ' ' said Hank.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 THE PLAN 
 
 THE town lot speculator took his feet down 
 from the desk and George, flinging his 
 cigarette away, got up, took a few paces, 
 and altered his position by straddling his chair, 
 leaning his arms on the back. It was a favourite 
 trick of old Harley du Cane. When big things 
 were on, and if there was a crisis and he was 
 seated and talking to you, ten to one he'd get up, 
 take a few paces, and then sit down again 
 straddling his chair as if he were riding a horse. 
 
 * ' Well, that 's settled, ' ' said George. ' ' I 'm with 
 you. What's your plan? You said you knew 
 where this man is and could put your finger on 
 him." 
 
 "I guess I was talking through my hat," said 
 Hank. " It's a way I have, times." 
 
 "Then how the devil are you going to find 
 him?" 
 
 "It's a way I have, times," said Hank, not 
 seeming to hear the other, "but I'm never far 
 wrong when I'm talking that way. I don't know 
 where the chap is any more than I know where 
 
 16
 
 THE PLAN 17 
 
 Solomon's aunt's buried, but I've a feeling that 
 his haunt's round about the islands down Santa 
 Catalina way. I know all the coast running from 
 Monterey right to Cape St. Lucas. I had a tenth 
 share in a shark boat once, and I've nosed into 
 all the cricks and corners right to the end of 
 Lower California, and I've got a feeling that the 
 Dutchman's using the Channel Islands and that 
 we'll fetch him somewhere about there, if we're 
 clever." 
 
 "You're sure it's Amsterdam Joe we're after!" 
 
 "No, I'm not." 
 
 "But great Scott, you said you were sure." 
 
 "I was talking," said Hank, "the words were 
 hit out of me by something outside my head, but 
 I'm never far wrong when I'm taken like that. 
 I'd bet a thousand to a nickel it's him, but that's 
 not being sure. You see, it's not Dutch Pete, for 
 I saw him shot with my own eyes, but the affair 
 was hushed up, and they gave his name different 
 in the papers. He was hand and fist with Joe and 
 that's what put the wrong idea about. Joe went 
 south more than nine months ago, superintending 
 a fishery or something down there, and he hasn't 
 come back, and he's just the chap to fill this bill 
 and there you are." 
 
 "Well, it doesn't much matter," said George, 
 "as long as a man's there and will put up a fight 
 and we have the fun of catching him. Now then, 
 Hank F., what are your plans'? Spit them out." 
 
 "Well, said Hank, "my plans are simple
 
 18 VANDERDECKEN 
 
 enough. I'm going to drop down to the Islands 
 and do some fishing and water-lily around picking 
 up information where I can. There's all sorts of 
 boats down south of the Islands, doing shark 
 fishing and going after the sulphur-bottom 
 whales; and at Avalon and San Clemente and 
 places there's lots of fellows I can pick up infor- 
 mation from. A police boat or a destroyer would 
 find nothing but shut heads, but a man that knows 
 how to go about it can tap the wires. Why, you 
 wouldn't believe how news goes about along the 
 coast, and the long-shoremen are pirates by 
 instinct. There's not one of them isn't backing 
 old man Vanderdecken. Pirates by instinct, only 
 they haven't the pluck of their opinions. 
 
 "Well, when I've got this bird's fishing 
 waters, I'm going to lay in them and cruise round 
 in them and whistle 'Chase me Charlie' till he 
 pounces, or maybe I'll be able to put my finger on 
 the creek or bay or wherever it is he makes his 
 port of call, and pounce myself no knowing. ' ' 
 
 "I see," said George. 
 
 "I'm blessed if I do," said Hank. "It's mighty 
 problematical, but I've got the feeling in my toes 
 that I'm going to collar him." 
 
 "Well," said George, "we've got so far. Now 
 about the boat." 
 
 "What boat?" 
 
 "Well, you don't propose to swim after the 
 Dutchman, do you!" 
 
 "Well," said Hank, "if one cog goes wrong in
 
 THE PLAN 19 
 
 this business, we may both be swimming after him, 
 begging to be took aboard and him using us for 
 target practice but I 'm not going in a boat. ' ' 
 
 "Then what the devil are you going in?" 
 
 "A yacht. Y. A. C. H. T. Sixty ton schooner, 
 auxiliary engine, white-painted boat, turning a bit 
 cream with wear, cabin upholstered in red plush, 
 bird's-eye maple panels let in with pictures of 
 flowers everything up-to-date, seemingly. She 
 jumped into my head at the Club as I was talking 
 about old Vanderdecken, that's how things come 
 to me. No sooner had I left the 'phone and began 
 talking to you fellows than the whole of this 
 expedition and how to do it hit me on the head like 
 an orange." 
 
 "Well, let's get back to business. You have 
 your eye on a yacht, but, from your specification, 
 fifty thousand dollars is more like what you'll 
 want than five. What's the name of this yacht?" 
 
 "She's not exactly a yacht," said Hank. 
 
 "Then what is she?" 
 
 "She's more in the nature of an optical 
 delusion. ' ' 
 
 George had patience. He had also plenty of 
 time and could afford to let Hank play about. It 
 was the first time he had come really in touch 
 with the town lot speculator's mentality, and it 
 interested him. His own position began to 
 interest him, too. He had pledged himself to this 
 expedition and he would no more draw out than 
 old Harley du Cane would have drawn out of one
 
 20 VANDERDECKEN 
 
 of his frontal attacks on Jay Gould, however 
 dangerous. 
 
 "Well, you are going to chase after this 
 Dutchman in an optical delusion, ' ' said he. "I 'm 
 listening go on, spit out your meaning. ' ' 
 
 Hank rose to his feet and took his hat. 
 
 "Come on," said he, "and I'll show you it."
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 TYBEBUCK 
 
 THEY left the building and struck down 
 Market Street. It was three o'clock in the 
 afternoon and a blazing day. Market 
 Street looked the same as ever with a difference. 
 It seemed to George that the whole world had 
 somehow a different tinge, as though he were 
 looking at it from the windows of a lunatic 
 asylum. 
 
 The people in the street all seemed to be bent on 
 business, serious and sane beyond ordinary; even 
 the loafers and pleasure-seekers were bathed in 
 this atmosphere. 
 
 Said Hank, as they crossed the street towards a 
 block of buildings topped by a huge sky sign 
 advising people to smoke Duke Orlando cigar- 
 ettes : 
 
 "Did you ever read about the one horse shay?" 
 
 "Which!" asked George. 
 
 "The one that went a hundred years and then 
 bust up." 
 
 "No." 
 
 "Well, it was made of such good stuff that it 
 
 21
 
 22 VANDERDECKEN 
 
 couldn't break down, not one part before another, 
 so when the time came it busted up all together. ' ' 
 
 1 'What's that got to do with our business?" 
 
 ' ' Oh, I was just thinking, ' ' said Hank. 
 
 They were in the building now. Hank gave a 
 name to the elevator man, and they were whisked 
 up to the fourth floor. Here, entering an office 
 filled with the clatter of typewriters, Hank asked 
 for Mr. Tyrebuck, and in a minute or two they 
 were shown into a room where a man sat facing 
 them at a desk table, a heavy-jo wled, bulging-eyed, 
 fresh-coloured man, with an unlighted cigar 
 between his lips. He had just finished with a 
 stenographer, but she was still standing waiting 
 with a sheaf of notes in her hand, whilst Tyrebuck, 
 as if engaged with some after-thought, sat, the 
 cigar pushing out on his under lip and his 
 prominent eyes staring straight at the newcomers 
 without seeing them. He seemed to be looking at 
 something a thousand miles away. He was. He 
 was looking at Chicago and the dial of the Wheat 
 Pit. Then he came to. 
 
 "That will do," said he to the stenographer. 
 "Well, Hank, how's the world using you?" 
 
 George was introduced, cigars were handed 
 round and they talked. George did the listening. 
 Tyrebuck owned steamers and mines and was 
 engaged just then on a wheat deal. He was one 
 of the busiest men on the Pacific coast and one of 
 the wealthiest, but he found time to talk to Hank. 
 Tyrebuck talked as if he had absolutely nothing
 
 TYREBUCK 23 
 
 to do. They talked of the weather and President 
 Wilson and Europe. Hank, who had been in 
 England during the war, outlined a plan of his 
 for taking over the British Empire, electrifying 
 it, steam-heating it, fitting it with elevators, 
 speaking tubes and American business methods. 
 Then he rose. "Well, I must be going," said 
 Hank. "But say, what I came about was the 
 Wear Jack. I saw her only day before yesterday 
 down at Sullivan's Wharf." 
 
 "Oh, did you?" said Tyrebuck, "blessed if I 
 hadn't clean forgot her. Is she hanging 
 together?" 
 
 "Well, she was, the day before yesterday. 
 I'm open to hire her." 
 
 "What's your idea put her on wheels?" 
 
 "Nope. I've got an expedition on down south. 
 You've heard of this man Vanderdecken?" 
 
 "Sure." 
 
 1 ' Well, I 'm going down to catch him. ' ' 
 
 "Humph," said Tyrebuck, "you'll go down 
 right enough in the Wear Jack if the putty gives." 
 
 "That's what I was telling Mr. du Cane," said 
 Hank. "She's not so much a yacht as an optical 
 delusion. She looks A 1, but isn't, but we're 
 going to take a whale boat." 
 
 "Why not go in the whale boat?" asked 
 Tyrebuck. "What you want taking the Wear 
 Jack along for fun?" 
 
 "It's part of my plan to have a yacht," replied 
 the other, "and she looks like a yacht Oh, she's
 
 24, VANDERDECKEN 
 
 not so bad it was only my joke. I reckon she'll 
 hold together as long as we want her, the sticks 
 look sound enough." 
 
 "Well, she mayn't be as bad as she's painted," 
 agreed Tyrebuck. "I've been too busy to bother 
 with her. I bought her as old junk, thinking to 
 pull off a deal, and had her fixed up by Michelson 
 and advertised her. Her lines are lovely, there's 
 no denying that. You remember last fall I took 
 you down with Cookson to look at her and he went 
 about prodding her with a knife. He offered four 
 thousand for her." 
 
 "Oh, he did, did he?" said Hank. 
 
 "Well, he was secretary of the Brookland Creek 
 Yacht Club and they wanted her for a floating 
 annex. When I refused, he got impudent and 
 said the members wouldn't have anything to do 
 with the deal as they weren't a suicide club. 
 That joke got about." 
 
 "I heard it," said Hank. 
 
 "It crabbed her. All the smarties got busy 
 guying her and me, and I got a letter from a chap 
 calling himself Charon and offering ten dollars 
 for her as a house boat on the Styx, and so it 
 went on till everybody forgot her, but it has 
 dished any chance of a deal. Mention her to any 
 yachtsman and all those damned old jokes 
 flutter up like moths; it's like a woman's reputa- 
 tion. Once it's damaged, there's no use in shaking 
 it out of the window and putting new buttons on 
 it there's no buyers."
 
 TYREBUCK 25 
 
 Hank agreed. "Well, what's your terms?" 
 said he at last. 
 
 "Ten thousand dollars," said Tyrebuck. 
 
 "Is she insured?" 
 
 "She's insured for ten thousand dollars. I 
 pushed her through with the insurance agents that 
 do my steamboat work." 
 
 "But I don't want to buy her. I want to 
 charter her." 
 
 "Well, I can't charter boats, not even to you, 
 Hank, it's against my principles. Why, if I were 
 to charter the old Wear Jack and the fact got 
 round, I'd be guyed out of 'Frisco. Can't you 
 hear them at the Club asking me how the long- 
 shore business was doing and what price the hire 
 of canoes. No, sir, I've had enough of the joke 
 business over that damned sieve. There she 
 sticks till I sell her and the price is ten thousand, 
 not a cent under." 
 
 George du Cane felt the lifting of a weight 
 from his mind. The deal was evidently off. He 
 had only to put his hand in his pocket, so to say, 
 and fetch out the ten thousand, but the idea of a 
 cruise in the Wear Jack had begun to fill his mind 
 with frank and honest alarm. Besides, he knew 
 that Hank would accept no outside financial help 
 or interference. This was his show, to be 
 engineered and run by himself. Feeling safe, he 
 indulged in a little show off. 
 
 "That's a pity," said he, "I shouldn't have
 
 26 VANDERDECKEN 
 
 minded risking it; besides, we'd have had the 
 whale boat, but I suppose it can't be helped." 
 
 He spoke without knowledge of the intricacy 
 and subtlety of the rat trap inventor's mental 
 works. 
 
 "I've got it," said Hank, "you can loan her 
 to me." 
 
 Tyrebuck, who seemed suddenly to remember 
 that he had been smoking an unlighted cigar all 
 this time, was in the act of striking a match. He 
 lit the cigar, blew a cloud of smoke and placed 
 the dead match carefully on a tray by the Billikin 
 on his desk. Then he said : 
 
 "Well I'm damned, Hank, if you don't take 
 the cake. You do indeed, you do indeed, you 
 take the cake with the cherry topknot. You come 
 here to me in the temple, so to say, of business 
 propositions " 
 
 "That's what I'm bringing you," said Hank. 
 "A business proposition on the hook, warranted 
 sound, free from scab it's a buffalo." 
 
 "Trot out your buffalo," said Tyrebuck. 
 
 "Well, it's this way," said Hank. "You lend 
 me the Wear Jack. If she busts up and never 
 comes back, you get your insurance, don't you? 
 If we bring her back with the Dutchman on board, 
 she's a hero and you have the laugh over the 
 whole waterside. Even if we don't collar the 
 Dutchman and come back, she '11 have proved her- 
 self seaworthy and I'll give her a certificate all
 
 TYREBUCK 27 
 
 round the town that'll sell her for you in two 
 hours." 
 
 "Gosh!" groaned Tyrebuck, "why didn't 1 
 insure her for twenty thousand?" He wallowed 
 in thought for a moment, then he said : 
 
 "Hank." 
 
 "Yep!" 
 
 "D'you want a partnership in a shipping 
 business?" 
 
 "Nope." 
 
 "Well, if you do, I'll take you on. I will, sure. 
 Yes, you can have the loan of her. God help the 
 Dutchman if you're after him. Take her down 
 south, take her to blazes, take her anywhere you 
 like and now get out of my office for I'm busy. 
 One moment, here's my card, there's a watchman 
 on board her, show him this and he'll let you go 
 over her and I'll send you a letter to-night 
 confirming the loan. ' ' 
 
 Outside Hank took George's arm. "Say, Bud, 
 you're the right sort." 
 
 "How so?" asked George. 
 
 "I don't believe there's another man in 'Frisco 
 that would have gone in with me on this, not on 
 that specification anyhow. D'y' know the Wear 
 Jack was built in 'sixty-seven." 
 
 "What do you mean by 'sixty-seven?" 
 
 "Three years before the first German-French 
 war. It's on the shipwright's plate on the after 
 gratings. 'Duncan Matheson, 1867,' that's her
 
 28 VANDERDECKEN 
 
 birth certificate. One of the first yacht-building 
 firms to start in 'Frisco.'* 
 
 George said nothing, but he was thinking a lot. 
 
 "I had it in my mind that he'd have chartered 
 her," went on Hank, "it's lucky he shied at that 
 idea for I hadn't thought of the whale boat. Why, 
 between the whale boat and provisions and crew, 
 it'll take nearly all that five thousand dollars." 
 
 "You wouldn't care to take a bigger boat?" 
 said George. "I'll finance the business or go 
 shares." 
 
 "Oh, she's big enough," said Hank, "and this 
 is my show. I'm doing it on my own hook; other- 
 wise I'd have no interest in it. I'm awfully lucky 
 to have got you, for you're a millionaire, aren't 
 you, Bud, and you won't want a hand in the 
 profits, besides being the only man in 'Frisco 
 that'd take the risks for the fun of the thing." 
 
 "I believe I am," said George, unenthusias- 
 tically.
 
 CHAPTER Y 
 
 JAKE 
 
 THE water front of San Francisco is unique. 
 The long wharves, vibrating to the 
 thunder of trade, show ships from all 
 corners of the world; ships from China and the 
 Islands, from Japan, from Africa, from India; 
 tall Cape Homers, held to the wharves with wire 
 mooring-lines, lie cleaning their bilges or lining 
 their holds for grain cargoes with ships for 
 Durban, ships for Cork, steamers for Seattle and 
 Northern ports. Beyond lies the bay, blue or 
 wind-beaten gray, busy with a shipping life of its 
 own, with Oakland, six miles across the water, 
 for a sister port. Beyond the bay are the hills 
 that saw the desolation before the first Spaniards 
 broke the ground or the keel of the first sandal- 
 wood trader rode the waters of the Golden Gate. 
 Here on the wharves to-day, it takes little 
 imagination to see the ships that have vanished 
 and the traders that are gone the South Sea 
 whaleman, with stump top gallant masts and 
 boats slung out on wooden davits, the Island 
 schooner of the old days when the Leonora was a 
 
 89
 
 30 VANDERDECKEN 
 
 living ship and before copra was handled by 
 companies. 
 
 George and his companion struck the water 
 front, where a big "turret boat" of the Clan line 
 was moored, the Lascars huddled round her 
 foc'sle engaged in preparing fish for a curry. 
 
 "That's the canal," said Hank. "She's come 
 through from 'Urope with a cargo and now she's 
 loading up for Bombay or somewhere. Looks as 
 if she'd been built by some one that'd gone bug- 
 house, don't she? She's built like that to save 
 dues going through the Suez Canal. Wonder 
 what the shipping companies will be up to in the 
 way of swindling the Panama. I tell you, Bud, 
 there's not a hair's difference between humans 
 and rats for tricks and smart ways." 
 
 They passed along, reaching an old decayed bit 
 of wharf that had somehow withstood change and 
 reconstruction. It is now little more than a 
 landing stage, but in the old days, under the name 
 of Rafferty's wharf, it had a broad front. 
 Whalers used to come alongside to discharge and 
 clean up and here Bones' Old Sailors' Lodging 
 House, half tavern, used to take unfortunates in 
 and do for them. There was a trap door from 
 Bones' back parlour to the water below, where 
 boats could come in between the piles and ship off 
 sailor men blind with dope. Then it became 
 respectable and changed its name to Sullivan's. 
 
 Alongside this stage lay the Wear Jack, a sixty 
 ton schooner, fifty feet long. The watchman
 
 JAKE 31 
 
 happened to be on deck, a thin man greatly gone 
 to decay, dressed in a brown sweater and wearing 
 an old fur cap. He was seated on the coaming of 
 the skylight, smoking. 
 
 "Hullo," said Hank. "That you, Jake?" 
 
 The fellow below cocked an eye up and evidently 
 recognised the other, but he didn't move. 
 
 "I'm coming aboard to overhaul her," said 
 Hank. "I've just seen Mr. Tyrebuck, here's his 
 card." 
 
 "Well, I'm not preventin* you," said Jake. 
 
 Hank came down the ladder followed by George. 
 
 The deck of the Wear Jack ran flush fore and 
 aft. N^glfij2t__sat_there with dirt and tobacco 
 .juice. Old ends of ropeTay about and spars and 
 main blocks that had seen a better day, and bits of 
 newspaper and a bucket with potato peelings in it. 
 
 Forward, with her keel to the sky, lay an old 
 broken dinghy that might have come out of the 
 ark, and a flannel jumper aired itself on the port 
 rail. No wonder that prospective buyers sniffed 
 and went off. 
 
 The soft job man on the cabin skylight looked 
 at the newcomers. 
 
 ' ' Where 's your cyard f ' ' said he. 
 
 Hank presented the card. "Now then," said 
 Hank, "if you're not stuck to that skylight with 
 cobbbler's wax, hoist yourself and get busy. I'm 
 going right all over her, cabin first. Come along. ' ' 
 
 He led the way down. 
 
 The saloon of the Wear Jack had plenty of head
 
 32 VANDERDECKEN 
 
 room, six feet four or so; there were bunks on 
 either side and a cabin aft shut off by a bird's- 
 eye maple door. The upholstering was in 
 crimson, crimson plush, and the table was of 
 mahogany. Everything was of the best and little 
 the worse for wear, but over everything was the 
 gloom of the murdered sunlight, filtering in 
 through the filthy skylight and the grimy port- 
 holes. Hank opened the door of the after cabin. 
 
 "Pretty musty, ain't it?" said Jake. "I 
 kyan't get it right, nohow. You could grow mush- 
 rooms on that bunk with the damp, though where 
 it comes from, search me. Ain't sea damp, it's 
 damp that seems to have got in the wood. The 
 wood sweats when the weather's a bit warm. 
 Smells like an old cheese." 
 
 "Well, I ain't buying a scent factory," said 
 Hank. 
 
 "Oh, buyin' her, are you?" said Jake, "buyin' 
 her." He said nothing more, but followed as Hank 
 led the way out of the saloon. They inspected the 
 lavatory and bath, the galley, and then they came 
 to the auxiliary engine, for the Wear Jack boasted 
 an auxiliary engine, a neat little Kelvin paraffin 
 engine in a canvas jacket. 
 
 "Does the engine run?" asked Hank of the soft 
 job man. 
 
 "Run," said Jake. "Well the last time I heard 
 of it runnin', it run off its bed plates. That's the 
 yarn I got from one of the chaps that were in her 
 on her last cruise but maybe it's a lie."
 
 JAKE 33 
 
 "Now look here," said Hank, "you deal 
 straight with me and I'll deal straight with you 
 to the tune of five dollars. I don't want to buy 
 old junk. Is there anything wrong with this 
 ship?" He nudged George as he spoke. 
 
 "Well," said Jake, "I oughtn't to be talking, 
 I s'pose, I'm put here to show her to parties, but 
 I haven't swore to say nothing; anything wrong 
 with her? Why she's all wrong, the sticks are 
 carrots and the plankin's mush, run that there 
 injin and you'll shake her to pieces, get her in a 
 beam sea and she'll strain her heart open. But 
 mind you she's fast, her lines are good, but 
 they're just lines held together by a lick of paint." 
 
 Hank was down on his knees testing the 
 planking to which the bed plates were fixed with 
 his knife. 
 
 Then he rose up and led the way on deck. They 
 examined the foc'sle. It had accommodations for 
 six. 
 
 Coming out of the foc'sle, Hank began a cruise 
 of his own, poking about here and there. Then he 
 dived down below again. 
 
 When he came on deck he handed Jake the five 
 dollars for his information and they left the ship. 
 
 He took George's arm as they went along the 
 wharf. 
 
 "Remember," said he, "what I told you to-day 
 about the Wear Jack being an optical delusion." 
 
 "Yes, and you seem to have been pretty right." 
 
 ' ' Oh, was I ? Well, way back in my head I was
 
 34 VANDERDECKEN 
 
 thinking different, and I only know that now. I 
 can't explain my head piece, except by saying it 
 goes by instinct. When I saw Jake the other day, 
 he must have climbed right down into my mind 
 and sat there ever since, explaining things with- 
 out my knowing, otherwise I'm doubtful if I'd 
 have been so keen on Tyrebuck letting me have the 
 old Jack. Not that I mind risking my life, but 
 there it is, I wouldn't have been as keen and 
 maybe wouldn't have pushed the deal through. 
 It's the biggest deal I've ever made.'* 
 
 "How's that?" 
 
 "Why, Bud, can't you see what's wrong with 
 the schooner?" 
 
 "No." 
 
 "Jake! The schooner's as sound as I am. 
 She's not as young as she used to be, but she's 
 one of the old navy that was built to wear. I've 
 examined her. You remember my telling you that 
 rats couldn't beat humans in tricks? Well, it was 
 just beginning to hit me then that maybe all that 
 raffle and dirt on her deck and all the yarns I'd 
 heard about her were put out by Jake." 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 "Why, to keep his job. He don't want her sold. 
 She's his job. Besides, he's been collecting five 
 dollars a time, and maybe more, from every mug 
 of a buyer he's given 'a straight tip' about her. 
 That's human nature. He wouldn't have got a 
 cent for praising her." 
 
 1 ' Good Lord ! What a scoundrel ! Why didn 't
 
 JAKE 85 
 
 you tell him straight out instead of handing him 
 that money?" 
 
 "Not me," said Hank. "Have him maybe 
 sink her at her moorings to-night, or play some 
 dirty trick. To-morrow, with Tyrebuck's letter 
 in my hand, it will be different. But only for him, 
 I wouldn't have got her for nothing." 
 
 "Only for yourself, you mean," said George. 
 
 "Well, maybe," said Hank.
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 JOE BARRETT 
 
 THE DU CANE house on Pacific Avenue was 
 is, in fact a monstrous affair, at least 
 viewed as the residence of a single man. 
 Old Harley's tastes were big and florid and he had 
 entertained on a large scale ; at his death George 
 would have sold or let the place, but something 
 held him, maybe Harley's ghost, for the old man's 
 personality was so strong that it had imprinted 
 itself everywhere, so that to sell or let the place 
 would, so George felt, have been equivalent almost 
 to selling or letting the old man himself. 
 
 George had closed a lot of the rooms, cutting 
 down the servants to four or five in number, 
 reserving for himself only a sitting-room and a 
 bedroom, a dressing-room and bathroom. 
 
 This morning, the morning after the Jake busi- 
 ness, he was awakened by a knock at the door and 
 the entrance of his valet Farintosh. He had 
 picked up Farintosh in England as a sort of curio. 
 He had been his valet at the Carlton Hotel. 
 Farintosh 's father had been own man to the 
 Marquis of Bristol, his grandfather butler to the 
 
 36
 
 JOE BARRETT 87 
 
 Duke of Hamilton, his brother was head waiter at 
 Boodle's and his sister in service at Sandringham 
 House. He had small side whiskers. 
 
 Farintosh, having closed the door cautiously, 
 announced that a gentleman of the name of Fisher 
 had called to see George and was waiting in the 
 sitting-room. 
 
 ''What's the time!" asked George. 
 
 "Half past seven, sir." 
 
 George lay back with a groan. 
 
 1 1 Show him right in here, ' ' said he. 
 
 George, on parting from Hank the day before, 
 had dined with some friends at the Palatial. 
 Released from the hypnotism of the town lot 
 speculator, he had begun to cool ever so slightly 
 over the Vanderdecken business. The cooling had 
 gone on during sleep. Awakened, an hour before 
 his usual time, to the ordinary facts of life, his 
 feet were frankly cold. Shultz, the man he had 
 dined with at the Palatial, was going off to the 
 Rockies on a shooting expedition and had asked 
 him to join. There would be plenty of fun and 
 plenty of sport yet he had to refuse. 
 
 But there was something more than that, 
 Farintosh. The absolutely sane and correct 
 Farintosh acted as an underscore to the whole of 
 this business. Farintosh, whose lips rarely said 
 more than "Yes, sir," or "No, sir," was voiceful 
 in all sorts of subtle ways, as, for instance, when 
 he had announced a "gentleman of the name of 
 Fisher."
 
 38 VANDERDECKEN 
 
 Entered Hank, suddenly, backed by Farintosh, 
 who closed the door on the pair. 
 
 "Say, Bud, ain't you up yet?" cried Hank. 
 "Why, I've been running round since five. Say 
 shall I pull the blinds?" He pulled them up, 
 letting in a blaze of early sunlight. Then he 
 looked round the room, took in its magnificence 
 and seemed to wilt a bit. He sat down on a chair. 
 
 "Who's the old boy with the whiskers?" he 
 asked. 
 
 George explained, yawning, and Hank, without 
 waiting to hear him out, went on. He seemed 
 suddenly to have recovered his confidence in 
 himself ; the radium-like activity of his mind broke 
 forth, and he talked the other out of bed, into the 
 bathroom and through his bathing and shaving 
 operations. If you had been listening, you would 
 have heard George's contributions to the conver- 
 sation, at first monosyllabic, then in words of 
 more than one syllable, then in long sentences. He 
 was losing his cold feet, blossoming again in the 
 atmosphere of Hank, for Hank was at once an 
 individual and an atmosphere, an atmosphere 
 wherein extraordinary ideas, seeming scarcely 
 strange, could flourish like tropical plants in a 
 green house. 
 
 At breakfast, George was his same old self 
 again and as keen as yesterday about the 
 Dutchman business. 
 
 "I didn't tell you," said the Eat Trap Inventor, 
 "I've been cooking it up but I've done another
 
 JOE BARRETT 39 
 
 deal. Y' remember I said I'd want five thousand 
 dollars to push the thing through? Well, now 
 listen, you saw what I did with Tyrebuck, well 
 I've done better with Barrett.'* 
 
 1 'Which Barrett?" 
 
 "Joe." 
 
 Instantly before George's eyes arose the picture 
 of Barrett's Stores on Market Street in all their 
 vastness, and Joe Barrett himself, dapper and 
 debonair. Eccentric by nature, Barrett used his 
 eccentricity as a means toward publicity. If he 
 had possessed a wooden leg or a glass eye or a 
 skeleton in his cupboard, he would without doubt 
 have used them as a means of advertisement. It 
 was the only thing he really cared for. His 
 business was less to him than the advertising of it ; 
 heaven for J. B. existed only as a background for 
 sky signs and if he could have printed "Barrett" 
 on the moon in indelible ink, he would have done 
 so, even at the risk of being skinned alive by all 
 the poets. 
 
 "Yes?" said George. 
 
 "I met him last night at the Bay Club," said 
 Hank, "and the idea struck me. He'd provision 
 us better and cheaper than anyone else seeing 
 that I know him so well. He's a sport, and I just 
 let him into the thing, told him the whole business 
 and how I'd got the Wear Jack from Tyrebuck 
 for nothing and how you were joining in. Then I 
 opened my batteries about the provisions. I want 
 enough for six men for three months, to say
 
 40 VANDERDECKEN 
 
 nothing of gasoline and oil and some new bunk 
 bedding. He offered to do it for two thousand 
 dollars. I offered a thousand, to take him down, 
 and he forked out a dollar. 'I'll toss you two 
 thousand or nothing,' he says. Luck seemed 
 running so strong I took him, and lost." 
 
 "Oh, you lost." 
 
 "One minute. 'Best out of three,' said he, and 
 tosses again. I won; then he tosses again and I 
 won. You see he'd got it in his head, somehow, 
 that we were tossing best out of three, either that 
 or he wanted me to win. I tell you, he's a sport. 
 The Dutchman proposition had taken such a hold 
 on him I guess he wanted to help, somehow. 
 Anyhow, there it is; boat and provisions won't 
 cost me a cent. How's that for luck!" 
 
 "Good," said George laughing. "And now if 
 you get a crew for nothing, you '11 be fixed. ' ' 
 
 "Well, I've got you for one," said Hank. 
 "You won't cost anything and you can steer." 
 
 George put down his coffee cup. 
 
 "That reminds me," said he, "how about the 
 navigation are you any good?" 
 
 "Well, I don't say I'm good," said Hank, "but 
 I'm good enough to take that old cat boat down 
 the coast and bring her back again. Now if 
 you're finished, let's get, for I'm just longing 
 to begin the sweep of her decks and start clearing 
 her down and overhauling the rigging. ' ' 
 
 "But see here," said George, "aren't you going 
 to get men to work on her! "
 
 JOE BARRETT 41 
 
 ' ' Yep. I 'm a man, aren 't I, and you 're another. 
 Now, you get it in your head, Bud: I'm starting 
 out in this business to catch the Dutchman, not to 
 support a lot of bone lazy union f umblers for half 
 their natural. Why you don't know what these 
 dockyard dandies are, you don't indeed. Y' 
 remember Elihu Stevens when he started out on 
 that cruise of his in the Maryland? I've seen him 
 near crying over the dollar-snatchers at work on 
 her. They robbed him of time and they robbed 
 him of money, and they damn near robbed him of 
 his life with their rotten spars and mush 
 planking. ' ' 
 
 "But I'm as innocent as Solomon's aunt of how 
 rigging should be fixed." 
 
 "I'll learn you," said Hank. 
 
 George was silent. He seemed thinking about 
 things. Hank leaned forward across the table. 
 
 "Bud," said he, "you're not backing out, are 
 you? You're not afraid of a bit of work? Why, 
 look here, Bud, I'd only to put my hand in your 
 pocket, so to speak, and pull out the dollars to pay 
 for fitters and riggers enough to fit out a battle- 
 ship, let alone the Wear Jack. But, leaving alone 
 being robbed of time and dollars, where 'd be the 
 game in that ? I 'm doing this thing with my own 
 hands and head and so are you. Forget money 
 it spoils everything." 
 
 "You're pretty keen after it all the same, 
 Hank," said George laughing. 
 
 "Yep. When I'm chasing it, but I'm not
 
 42 VANDERDECKEN 
 
 chasing it now, I'm chasing the Dutchman. I'm 
 not thinking of the twenty-five thousand, I'm 
 thinking of the Dutchman. It's a game and I 
 don't want money to help me. Why, I'd blush to 
 be helped by money in chasing a man, unless he'd 
 done me some wrong. When I get this fellow by 
 the scruff, I wanta say to myself, * Hank, you took 
 this man by the work of your own hands and your 
 own head, and against odds. He had as good 
 chances as you, and you didn't shoot him sitting.' 
 If you don't take me, Bud, then we don't under- 
 stand each other and I'll leave you to that gink 
 with the whiskers and your millionaire ways and 
 start off on my lonesome." 
 
 "We understand each other," said George, 
 ringing the bell. ' ' I 'm not afraid of a bit of work 
 with my hands. Farintosh." 
 
 "Yes, sir." 
 
 "Send round the car." 
 
 In the hall, as they passed out to the car, Hank 
 picked up a bundle he had brought with him. 
 
 "What's in that?" asked George. 
 
 "Overalls," said Hank. 
 
 They drew up in Malcolm Street close to the 
 wharves. 
 
 "Take her back," said George to the chauffeur, 
 "and tell Farintosh to come along at half -past 
 twelve with enough sandwiches for two and a 
 bottle of Oh, damn two bottles of lemonade. 
 You can drink lemonade, Hank?" 
 
 "Sure."
 
 JOE BARRETT 48 
 
 "Tell him he'll find me in the yacht that's 
 moored at Sullivan's wharf. It's close to this 
 place, he can't mistake." 
 
 The car drove off, and they started for the 
 water side, Hank carrying the bundle.
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 THE FIRING OF JAKE 
 
 THE street was blazing with the morning 
 light, and, turning a corner, a puff of wind 
 from the bay hit George in the face. It 
 carried with it a scent of tar, oakum and bilge, 
 and it was like the breath of the great god 
 Adventure himself, the god of morning and 
 unknown places and strange happenings. 
 
 It felt good to be alive, and the clearing up of a 
 ratty old yacht with Hank Fisher, seemed the 
 joyfullest business on earth. Hank had hit a big 
 nail on the head. Money would have spoiled this 
 show just as it spoils most shows. 
 
 They passed along the wharf till they reached 
 Sullivan's. Hank dumped his bundle and came to 
 the side and George, following him, saw Jake. 
 
 Jake was fishing. 
 
 "Hullo," said Hank. 
 
 11 Hullo, "said Jake. 
 
 "Caught anything?" said Hank. 
 
 "Haw fish ain't bitin'." 
 
 "Well, I'm sorry for that, for I've taken over 
 the fishing rights. Jake, you're fired, the yacht's 
 
 44
 
 THE FIRING OF JAKE 45 
 
 mine, I've taken her over and you've got to get." 
 
 "Y' mean to say you've bought her?" 
 
 "Nope. Mr. Tyrebuck has loaned her to me. 
 It's all the same, you've got to get. Here's his 
 letter, want to read it?" 
 
 He dropped the typewritten letter down and 
 Jake spelled over it. Then he said: "And how 
 about the pay due to me, you goin' to settle?" 
 
 "Nope McCallum's will pay you. Better go 
 to them, they'll be glad to see you for I told them 
 what you said about her." 
 
 "And what did I say about her?" 
 
 "Told me her spars were carrots and her 
 planking mush. ' ' 
 
 "That's a damned lie," said Jake, "and if 
 there's law to be had in 'Frisco, I'll have you for 
 it, b' gob." 
 
 "Told me she'd open out first beam sea now 
 then, you dog-eyed squateroo, get your dunnage 
 and clear, pronto." 
 
 George had never seen Hank heated until this. 
 His eyes blazed and his lean face filled with venom 
 as he looked down on the man who had tried to 
 crab the Wear Jack. 
 
 Jake tried to meet his gaze, failed, collected his 
 dunnage, drew in his fishing line and scrambled 
 ashore. 
 
 "If there's law to be had in 'Frisco, I'll have 
 you for this," cried he. 
 
 Hank dropped the bundle of overalls on to the 
 deck and they followed it.
 
 46 VANDERDECKEN 
 
 "Swab," said Hank. 
 
 Then they put on the overalls. Hank started 
 his cleaning up with an axe. There was an axe 
 lying in the starboard scuppers, and, seizing it, he 
 made for the old dinghy. 
 
 "Go hunt for a mop," he cried to the other. 
 "I saw one down below. Can't dump this old 
 bath tub into the harbour as she is or there'll be 
 trouble. B 'sides I want exercise." 
 
 He began to set the rotten planks flying with 
 the axe, whilst George fetched the mop, also a 
 bucket, which, under the direction of the 
 perspiring Hank, he fastened to a rope so that 
 they could dip up water for deck swilling. The 
 remains of the dinghy overboard, they turned to 
 on the raffle ; rope ends, dead and done blocks, old 
 newspapers, bits of coal. 
 
 "Why, look you here," said Hank, holding up 
 one of the blocks, "look at the size of it. It must 
 have belonged to a three-master as old as the ark. 
 That guy's been hunting the wharves for old 
 raffle to dump aboard her and make a litter ; stick 
 it in the sail room for evidence if he starts any 
 law bother. Now, gimme that bucket." 
 
 The swilling and swabbing of the deck began 
 and continued till the dowels showed up in the 
 planking. Then they rested and smoked cigar- 
 ettes. It was now noon, and George, as he sat on 
 the coaming of the cabin skylight, resting and 
 watching the planking dry in the sun, felt uplifted. 
 Since leaving the army he hadn't done a hand's
 
 THE FIRING OF JAKE 47 
 
 turn of honest work, simply because he could not 
 find any work to do. There are a surprising 
 number of rich people out of work owing to no 
 fault of their own, unemployed men and women 
 with big bank balances starving for employment. 
 The war was a simple Godsend to these. It 
 supplied them with a reason and an initiative. 
 Hank had supplied George with both these things. 
 
 Then, now that the decks were cleared up, the 
 Wear Jack began to speak to him as only a ship 
 can speak to a man. She was no longer a dirty 
 hulk but a live thing awakening from sleep, a 
 thing with the mobility of a bird, a sister of the 
 sea and the wind. He had been on many a yacht 
 and many a steamboat as guest or passenger, but 
 this was the first ship he had ever got close to. 
 The work with the mop and bucket, the knowledge 
 that he would soon be helping to rig her and 
 handle her, the sight of her now that she was 
 cleaning up, the very smell of her, all combined 
 to work the charm. He went below to heave the 
 old block into the sail room and when he came on 
 deck again Hank was up like a cat in the rigging, 
 hunting for rotten ratlines, a knife between his 
 teeth. 
 
 At one o'clock Farintosh appeared with the 
 sandwiches; at five o'clock they knocked off. 
 They had cleared and cleaned the deck, made an 
 overhaul of the rigging, cleared and cleaned the 
 cabin, and cleaned the bathroom and lavatory. 
 
 "I'll start on the rigging to-morrow," said
 
 48 VANDERDECKEN 
 
 Hank. "It's all sound but a few ropes and 
 ratlines Christopher !" 
 
 "What?" 
 
 "I've fired the watchman and who's to look 
 after her?" 
 
 "Oh, she won't hurt." 
 
 "Won't hurt! Why, if you fell asleep on these 
 wharves, they'd have your back teeth before you 
 woke and you wouldn't feel them pulling them. 
 Why, these hooligans, if they didn't strip her, 
 they'd camp in her, and then she'd be no more 
 mortal use till she was boiled. No. I guess I'll 
 have to stick to her." 
 
 "Stick to her!" cried George, "you mean to 
 say, sleep here ? ' ' 
 
 "Yep. What's wrong? The old bunk bedding 
 will do me and the nights are warm. To-morrow 
 I'll get a man to look after her for a few hours in 
 the evening whilst I get my dunnage aboard. 
 Come along ashore with me while I. get some grub 
 and a toothbrush." 
 
 He slipped out of his overalls and they climbed 
 ashore. 
 
 "She won't take any harm for an hour or two 
 by herself," said Hank. 
 
 They found a street of shops boasting a drug 
 store. Here Hank bought his toothbrush, then he 
 bought a German sausage, some bread, six small 
 apples and two bottles of tonic water, also an 
 evening paper from a yelling newsboy. Then he 
 remembered that he would want a candle to read
 
 THE FIRING OF JAKE 49 
 
 the newspaper by and went into a ships chandler's 
 to buy one, leaving George outside. 
 
 George glanced at the paper, then he spread it 
 open hurriedly and stood reading it, heedless of 
 the passersby or the people who jostled him. 
 Hank, coming out of the store with his candle, 
 looked over George's shoulder and this is what he 
 read, in scare headlines across a double column of 
 print : 
 
 HANK FISHER OF 
 THE BOHEMIAN 
 CLUB GOES AFTER 
 THE DUTCHMAN 
 
 Joe Barrett Loses on the Deal But 
 Comes Up Smiling at Josh Tyre- 
 buck and Bud du Cane 
 
 Then came the details. The dollar tossed at the 
 Bay Club, which gave Hank two thousand dollars' 
 worth of goods for nothing, the loan of the Wear 
 Jack by Tyrebuck and George du Cane's 
 participation in the business. 
 
 George felt as though all his clothes had 
 suddenly been stripped off him there in the street. 
 Hank whistled. 
 
 Then he said: ''That's Barrett. Lord, I might 
 have known. He didn't toss fair, he wanted me 
 to win, and now, look! He's got the goods, five 
 thousand dollars' worth of advertising for a
 
 50 VANDERDECKEN 
 
 thousand dollars' worth of bully beef and canned 
 t'matoes. It won't cost him more than that, for 
 he's giving me the stuff at retail prices. And now 
 it will be all over the town and all over the 
 waterside. ' ' 
 
 "Curse him," said George. His lips were dry. 
 There was a jocular tone in that confounded press 
 notice that cast a blight on everyone concerned 
 except Joe Barrett. Joe, though he was the only 
 loser of money in the business up to the present 
 was, in some extraordinary way, put on a pedestal 
 as a sport, whilst the others ran round the plinth 
 like figures of fun. 
 
 "It's him and his publicity man, Josh Scudder, 
 who've done it," said Hank. "I can tell Josh's 
 hand in it it's his style. Well, there it is, it 
 can't be helped. I'd planned to slip out quiet and 
 come back with a brass band playing Dutchland 
 under alles and Vanderdecken in leg irons; now 
 the blanket's stripped off us clean. We'll be 
 laughed at from Hell to Hoboken if we don't 
 make good. We're on the toboggan full speed, no 
 use grabbing at the snow. There's only one way 
 out we've gotta get the Dutchman."
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 PUBLICITY 
 
 GEORGE did not go to the club that night. 
 He went straight home and sent Farintosh 
 out to buy all the evening papers and Far- 
 intosh returned with a bundle of everything from 
 the Evening Sun to the Polk Street Pikers' Mes- 
 senger. Every paper had the news, under all 
 sorts of scare headlines. Some of these headlines 
 referred to Fisher and some to himself; through 
 all the notices ran a gentle and breezy humour, 
 and in them all, with one exception, Joe Barrett 
 had his advertisement and walked- protected from 
 laughter as Shadrac from flame. 
 
 The one exception was the Polk Street Piker, a 
 free spoken organ that generally kept to ward 
 politics. The Piker, whilst allowing that Rat 
 Trap Fisher had swelled head and had better 
 stick to rodents, was frankly libellous about 
 Barrett, said the whole thing was a fake got up by 
 Barrett to help his sale of damaged goods then on, 
 said a business must be pretty rocky to adopt such 
 means, said that it was likely the whole Dutchman 
 business was a business fake. 
 
 51
 
 52 VANDERDECKEN 
 
 George read this horrible libel with a chill at 
 his heart, for he knew that Hennessy, the editor of 
 the Piker, was a led captain and creature of 
 Barrett's. No one of any account read the Piker, 
 but everyone of any account would read the abject 
 apology of the Piker sure to be published in a day 
 or two in every newspaper in California, together 
 with editorial comments and a full statement 
 about the Fisher Expedition supplied by Scudder. 
 The thing would probably reach New York and 
 London. With Vanderdecken as engine and 
 Barrett as driver and stoker, there was no 
 knowing where it might not reach or how long it 
 might not keep running, and he, George du Cane, 
 was tied to the tail of it. He was already in the 
 blaze of the limelight and at that moment men in 
 the clubs, people at dinner parties, people in 
 restaurants and people in cars were talking of 
 him. The fact of his wealth would give him a 
 little place, all his own, in this show. There was 
 only one way of escape justification. "We've 
 gotta get the Dutchman." Hank's words came 
 back to him. If they did not get the Dutchman, 
 it would be much better not to come back to San 
 Francisco. George had a fine feeling for Pacific 
 Coast temperament; leaving that alone, half 
 frozen Icelanders would see the point and the joke 
 of a much advertised amateur expedition such as 
 theirs returning empty handed. 
 
 He went to bed early but he could not sleep for a 
 long time.. It was all very well talking about
 
 PUBLICITY 53 
 
 getting the Dutchman, but how were they to get 
 him? When the getting of him had been only a 
 matter of sport, the thing seemed fairly easy; 
 now that it was a matter of dire necessity, it 
 seemed next to impossible. A nightmare task like 
 hunting for a lost needle in Kearney Street. 
 
 He jumped out of bed, fetched an atlas, and, 
 taking it back to bed with him, looked up the 
 California coast, running his eye along from San 
 Francisco to Cape San Lucas, exploring the sea 
 from the Channel Islands to Guadaloupe and from 
 Guadaloupe to the Tres Marias Islands. Some- 
 where in that vast stretch of sea, somewhere on 
 that line of coast that ran from the Golden Gate 
 to Cancer, they had to find a man who most 
 certainly did not want to be found by searchers. 
 He went to sleep on the thought and awoke to it. 
 
 Farintosh was entering the room; he was 
 carrying a bundle of morning papers. 
 
 ' * Pull up the blind, ' ' said George. 
 
 Propped on the pillows, he opened the first 
 paper to hand expecting to see his name in double 
 leaded type. Not a word. In all the paper not a 
 word of him or Hank or the Dutchman or the 
 expedition. The next paper was the same and the 
 next. The great San Francisco dailies and the 
 little San Francisco dailies had treated the matter 
 with the most absolute contempt. George felt 
 curiously flat, he even looked at the dates of the 
 papers to make sure there was no mistake and
 
 54 VANDERDECKEN 
 
 that Farintosh had not by some accident brought 
 him yesterday's press. 
 
 He had dreaded seeing his name and now he 
 was disappointed because it was not there. 
 Human nature is a funny thing. 
 
 He rose, bathed, dressed and came down to 
 breakfast, but still the depression clung. He felt 
 small and of little account, he felt weak and irri- 
 table. What was wrong with him? He had 
 tasted Publicity, that is all. Publicity, the wine 
 of the Barretts, is also the wine of the poets ; its 
 fascination is universal and of whatever brand it 
 is, from abusive to laudatory, it is always 
 Publicity. Even the pillory, I expect, had its 
 compensations in the old days, and to be recog- 
 nized with a bad egg or a dead cat was, at all 
 events, to be recognised. 
 
 And what a blaze-up that was last night, with 
 every paper screaming round the bon-fire, and 
 now this frost why, that alone was in the nature 
 of an insult. 
 
 Suddenly and in the act of pouring himself out 
 a second cup of coffee, his mind cleared and his 
 energy returned. "We've gotta get the Dutch- 
 man." Hank's words had come back to him. 
 "And by God we will," said he. 
 
 He finished his breakfast, rang for the car and 
 started for the wharves. The deck of the Wear 
 Jack was empty, he dropped down to the cabin 
 and there was Hank surrounded with newspapers.
 
 PUBLICITY 55 
 
 Hank had evidently purchased largely last night 
 as well as this morning. 
 
 "Well," said George lightly, "there's not a 
 word in the morning papers and that's a good 
 thing." 
 
 Hank grunted. 
 
 "That's Barrett," said he. "He's cut the 
 news off plunk. Why, a blaze in the morning 
 papers would have been out by to-night; as it is 
 every man from Pacific Avenue to Polk Street is 
 saying, 'Why, there ain't no news about Hank.' 
 Barrett's being 'phoned to death at the present 
 minute asking what it all means. People will be 
 talking all day, wanting news of the business and 
 inventing lies to fill the gaps, till it'll get about 
 that the Dutchman's been caught by Joe Barrett 
 an's being exhibited at his stores. By to-night 
 all the 'phones will be humming with lies and all 
 the South Coast papers shouting for information. 
 Why, Bud, where were you born not to know that 
 advertising isn't printing stuff in the papers but 
 making men talk. One big rumour, if you set it 
 going, bumbling away like thunder in the foot 
 hills, is worth all the printed stuff from here to 
 Nome. We're fair handicapped. If I was adver- 
 tising liver pills, I'd be joyful, but I'm not." 
 
 "Think it will queer our pitch?" 
 
 "Well, you don't go duck- shooting with a brass 
 band, do you ? But there 's no use in talking, we 're 
 on the slide and we'll have to slither, and brass
 
 56 VANDERDECKEN 
 
 band or no, I'm going to get him. Come on, we've 
 gotta get to work. ' ' 
 
 He had been at work since six o'clock, it 
 seemed, on the ratlines, and he was now over- 
 hauling all the standing rigging. That done, they 
 attacked the running. 
 
 In the middle of these operations it began to 
 dawn on them that they were observed. Some- 
 times there was quite a little group on the wharf 
 watching and criticising. George noticed it first. 
 
 ''How the devil have they got to know the 
 whereabouts of the boat?" asked George. "The 
 papers said nothing about Sullivan's Wharf." 
 
 "It's Jake," said Hank. "He'll have been all 
 over the wharves talking; take a pull on that 
 halyard. Lord, these blocks will never do, I'll 
 have to go hunt in the sail-room to see if I can't 
 turn out some better. What's the time? Getting 
 on for one? Well, I've got some grub down below 
 and I vote we have a bite, and after that, if you 
 don't mind, will you skip ashore to the club and 
 see if there's any letters for me. I'm expecting 
 a business letter from N' York about a patent I've 
 got an interest in. ' ' 
 
 "Right," said George. 
 
 The galley of the Wear Jack was well fitted up. 
 Jake had done his cooking there and had left half 
 a can of kerosene behind him. Hank had got eggs 
 and a great chunk of bacon from somewhere out of 
 the blue, and there was the remains of last night's 
 German sausage. In a few minutes the frying
 
 PUBLICITY 57 
 
 pan was shouting over a Primus stove and Hank, 
 in his shirt sleeves, was directing George. There 
 was a let-down table in the galley and plates and 
 knives and forks in a locker. 
 
 "I've overhauled the crockery and table and 
 bed linen," said Hank. "Did it last night. 
 There's enough on board for a family pass me 
 your plate. We'll have a Chink for cook." 
 
 1 ' How about the crew I ' ' 
 
 "Time enough about them maybe we'll have 
 Chinks." 
 
 To George, pondering as he ate, suddenly came 
 the fact that Vanderdecken the Dutchman 
 Dutch Pete, or whatever his name might be, 
 certainly had behind him a crew of the same 
 colour as himself, coupled with the fact that a 
 crew of Chinks wouldn't be of the same fighting 
 colour as Vanderdecken 's lot. 
 
 He said so. 
 
 "Oh, it won't come to fighting," said Hank.] 
 " If it did I can hit a dollar with an automatic at i 
 twenty-five paces once a second, and I'll learn j 
 you to do the same but it won't. We've got to 
 take that chap with our wits, not with guns, 
 though they'll be useful maybe for bluff. Did y' 
 ever see strategy and tactics combined in the 
 concrete ? ' ' 
 
 "No," said George. 
 
 "Then you've never seen my rat trap," said 
 Hank. 
 
 An hour later George returned from his visit
 
 58 VANDERDECKEN 
 
 to the club with two letters for Hank. One was 
 the expected letter from. New York; the other, 
 which bore only the San Francisco post-mark, 
 was addressed to E. T. Fisher, and ran : 
 
 11 West Lincoln Street, 
 
 San Francisco. 
 Sir, 
 
 As a lover of the sea and all that 
 therein is, I take this opportunity to beg 
 leave to apply for a post in your expidi- 
 tion, can turn my hand to anything that 
 isn't crooked. Was gold-mining at Klon- 
 dike two years but give it up owing to a 
 frost bight but am used to dealing with 
 rough characters. Seeing the piece about 
 you in the evening paper to-night I make 
 haist to apply and you will find me equal 
 prompt in my dealings I have to do with 
 you, and satisfactory. A line to above 
 will oblige. 
 
 Yours, truly, 
 J. B. Yonkers. 
 
 P. S. Terms can be arranged. 
 
 " That's the bill-mackerel," said Hank. "Did 
 you ever see a mackerel? Well, it's always headed 
 by a couple or so of freak mackerel. Chaps witli 
 bills like ducks. This is the first of the shoal of 
 chaps that'll be wanting to come along, with us 
 you'll see."
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 CANDON 
 
 GEORGE did. 
 An abject and crawling apology from 
 the Piker, published and paid for in next 
 morning's papers, restarted the publicity cam- 
 paign, and, though the press never recovered its 
 first careless rapture, the thing had made good 
 and was established in the mind of the public. 
 The letters came in day by day, some addressed 
 to the club, some care of Joe Barrett, all of the 
 same tenor. The expedition that had aroused 
 mild merriment in the upper circles of San Fran- 
 cisco was received in dead seriousness by the 
 middle and lower circles even with enthusiasm. 
 The thing had vast appeal to the movie-red mind ; 
 the exploits of the Dutchman, inconsiderable 
 enough in a world where criminal license had 
 suddenly added cubits to its stature, had been 
 boomed by the press. Hank Fisher had already 
 a name to embroider on and "Bud" du Cane 
 was not unknown. Letters came from all round 
 the Bay; from Oakland, Berkeley, Port Costa, 
 New York, California, Antioch, Benicia, San 
 
 59
 
 60 VANDERDECKEN 
 
 Baf ael and Tiburon ; letters came from Monterey 
 and all down the coast. Letters from "all sorts 
 and sexes" to put it in Hank's words. Women 
 offered to come along as cooks, boys as "deck- 
 hands," a retired banker at San Jo offered to pay 
 to be taken along. Never in any letter except that 
 of the "bill-mackerel" was there a reference to 
 terms, all these people were ready to go for noth- 
 ing but their "grub and bunk" as one gentleman 
 put it, and, if you wish to gauge the utility of a 
 personality like Hank's, this vast and healthy 
 wave of adventure-craving which he had set 
 going amongst the populace of the state is an 
 index. 
 
 "And not one of the lot is any use," said Hank, 
 as he sat in the cabin with George one day about 
 a week before the projected start. "I saw those 
 people I wrote to yesterday, one had consump- 
 tion, another one had swelled head, fancied him- 
 self a duke to judge by his talk, another was six 
 foot seven or thereabouts, couldn't have taken 
 him aboard without his head sticking out of the 
 saloon hatch, another guy was on a tramp from 
 Oskosh to S 'uthern California and wanted to take 
 the expedition en route, he was an oil prospector 
 and troubled with something that made him want 
 to scratch; then there was an Italian who'd been 
 a count and an Irishman who'd served in the 
 Irish rebellion under Roger Casement, a decent 
 chap, but I'd just as soon take aboard a live bomb 
 shell. "We'll just have to make out, you and me,
 
 CAN DON 61 
 
 as after-guard four Chinks will be enough for a 
 crew and I can pick them up by the handful. ' * 
 
 4 'When are the provisions and stuff coming on 
 board?" 
 
 "Tomorrow or next day. I saw J. B. yester- 
 day" 
 
 "Wear Jack, ahoy!" came a voice from the 
 wharf through the open skylight. 
 
 ' ' Hullo ! ' ' cried Hank. ' < Who 's that and what 
 d'you want?" 
 
 A thud came on the deck followed by the voice 
 at the companion hatch. "May I come below?" 
 The stairs creaked and at the saloon door 
 appeared a man. 
 
 The sun glow from the skylight struck him full 
 as he stood there, a huge, red-bearded, blue-eyed 
 sailor man, neatly dressed in dark serge and 
 wearing a red necktie. His eyes were most taking 
 and astonishing liquid sparkling blue the eyes 
 of a child. 
 
 Contrasted with the hatchet-faced Hank and 
 the sophisticated Bud, he seemed youthful, yet 
 he was older than either of them.
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 THE BED BEARDED ONE 
 
 4 T y ULLO ! ' ' said Hank. * ' What the devi] 
 do you want?" 
 
 "Am I speaking to Mr. Fisher?" 
 asked the newcomer, addressing himself to the 
 town lot speculator. 
 
 11 You are." 
 
 "You're the man that's going after the 
 Dutchman?" 
 
 "Yep." 
 
 "D'you want to catch him?" 
 
 "Oh, Lord, no," said Hank. "I'm only going 
 to inquire after his health. Go on, what are you 
 getting at?" 
 
 "Well, if you want to catch him, get on deck 
 this instant minute and see I've not been followed. 
 Go up casual and have a look round. Keep your 
 eyes skinned for a man with a patch over his 
 left eye. I'm not funning. I mean business. 
 Get a-deck. I tell you I've no time to explain." 
 
 Hank stared at the other for a second, then he 
 uncoiled himself, crossed the cabin and vanished 
 up the companion way. 
 
 62
 
 THE RED BEARDED ONE 63 
 
 Neither George nor the bearded one spoke a 
 They were listening. Then they heard 
 voices. 
 
 "Say, you," came a voice from the wharf, "did 
 y' see a guy goin' along here red-whiskered 
 fella?" 
 
 "Man with a red necktie?" came Hank's voice. 
 
 "Yeh he's my pal which way was he 
 goin'?" 
 
 "He was making along towards the union 
 dock." 
 
 Silence. The companion way creaked and Hank 
 reappeared standing in the cabin doorway. 
 
 "Well," said Hank, "that's done. I'd no 
 sooner got on deck than a fellow with a patch on 
 his eye came along with kind inquiries. I've sent 
 him along. Now I must ask you for your visiting 
 card and explanations." 
 
 The stranger laughed. 
 
 " Candon 's my name," said he. "Bob Candon. 
 I'll take a seat for a minute, if you don't mind, to 
 get my wits together. I only blew in yesterday 
 afternoon, came up from S'uthard and anchored 
 off Tiburon and first news I had when I got ashore 
 was about you and the Dutchman. ' ' 
 
 "What was your ship?" cut in Hank. 
 
 "Heart of Ireland, thirty-ton schooner, owned 
 and run by Pat McGinnis, last port " Candon 
 cut himself short. "That would be telling," 
 said he, with a laugh.
 
 64 VANDERDECKEN 
 
 Hank handed him a cigarette and lit another. 
 
 "I'm not wanting to bore into your business," 
 said Hank, "only I'm giving you this straight, 
 I've no time for blind man's buff. You were 
 proposing to come along with us to hook the 
 Dutchman?" 
 
 "That's what I'm here for," said Candon. 
 "I don't want you to lose wind or time over me, 
 I'd have you know I'm dealing straight, but I'm 
 mixed with a crowd that's not straight, get me? 
 Don't you bother where the Heart dropped her 
 mud-hook last, nor how much her business was 
 mixed up with the Dutchman's business. Don't 
 you bother about one single thing but the propo- 
 sition I'm going to put before you, and it's this. 
 Ship me out of this port down south and I'll put 
 in your hand every last ounce of the boodle the 
 Dutchman's been collecting, for I know where 
 it's hid; on top of that I'll make you a present 
 of the man himself for I know where he's to be 
 found. That's my part of the bargain. And 
 now for yours. I ask nothing but five thousand 
 dollars in my fist when the job's done, and to be 
 put ashore somewhere safe, so that those chaps 
 on the Heart won't be able to get at me." 
 
 He had been holding the cigarette unlighted. 
 He struck a match, lit it, took in a great volume 
 of smoke and slowly expelled it. 
 
 "Well," said he, "what's your opinion on 
 that?"
 
 THE RED BEARDED ONE 65 
 
 Hank was sitting almost like Rodin's Thinker. 
 Then he uncoiled a bit. 
 
 "Do those guys on the Heart know where the 
 Dutchman's to be found?" asked he. 
 
 "No, they don't." 
 
 "Do they know where the boodle is!" 
 
 "N' more than Adam." 
 
 "Do they know you know where it is?" 
 
 "They suspect. That's my trouble what's 
 this I'm saying, 'suspect'. Why it's more than 
 that now. Now I've run away from them they'll 
 know for certain." 
 
 "And if they catch you?" 
 
 "They'll drill me, sure." 
 
 "Was that guy with the patch, McGinnis?" 
 
 "Nope Thacker, McGinnis 's right hand man." 
 
 Hank brooded. 
 
 Then said he: "Were you a friend of the 
 Dutchman?" 
 
 "What you mean to ask," said the other, "is, 
 am I letting him down? I'll just tell you, the 
 Dutchman has been my enemy, but I'm not mov- 
 ing in this because I have a grouch against him. 
 I'm playing my own game, but it's a straight 
 game. ' ' 
 
 Hank brooded a second more. 
 
 "We'd have to hide you aboard here till we 
 start," said he. 
 
 "You will," replied the other. 
 
 "Eight," said Hank. "Now will you take a
 
 66 VANDERDECKEN 
 
 rag and clean the engine for two minutes while I 
 have a talk to my friend here in private." 
 
 He led the way out and came back. 
 
 "Well," said he, "what do you think of that 
 guy!" 
 
 "I like him," said George. 
 
 "I like him well enough," said Hank, "Ques- 
 tion is about his story. It seems plain enough. 
 He's come up with a crew of hoodlums who've 
 been in touch with Vanderdecken, they've been 
 hunting for old man Vanderdecken 's boodle. 
 Nothing doing. Then they've left the hunt and 
 put in here. They had big suspicions he was in 
 the know and wanted the boodle for himself. 
 He's only been let ashore with a nurse and he's 
 given her the slip. It's all plain. Then 
 Providence comes in, which is us. Seems 
 extraordinary, don't it? Barrett advertising us 
 like that and all, for here we are, a sure bolt- 
 hole for him, advertised bigger than Heinz 's 
 Pickles." 
 
 "How do you mean a bolt-hole?" 
 
 "Well, look at it. Those crooks are after him 
 like a coyote after a prairie dog. He's got to get 
 out of here, he might get out in a foc'sle if he 
 wasn't knifed before the ship sailed, but that 
 wouldn't lead him anywhere except maybe round 
 Cape Horn, whereas he gets a lift back down the 
 coast to where he knows the Dutchman has hid 
 the boodle and he gets five thousand dollars in 
 his fist and a set ashore. Then Providence comes
 
 THE RED BEARDED ONE 67 
 
 in again, seems to me. I reckoned I'd have to 
 spend five thousand on this expedition and 
 between Tyrebuck and Barrett it won't cost me 
 a cent, bar the hire of four Chinks for crew, so 
 I can easy afford to pay him five thousand and 
 come out winners. Besides, he's an extra hand 
 himself and a good sailor man, if I'm any 
 judge." 
 
 "It does seem all to fit in," said George. 
 
 1 ' Well, shall we take him ? ' ' said Hank. ' ' It 's a 
 risk, but I reckon we've got to take risks." 
 
 "Take him," said George. 
 
 Hank went out and returned with the other. 
 Candon had taken off his coat and his shirt 
 sleeves were rolled up and his hands showed the 
 engine-room business he had been put on. 
 
 "Come right in," said Hank. "We've 
 concluded to take you along, but there's condi- 
 tions." 
 
 "Spit them out," said Candon. 
 
 "Well, first of all I haven't five thousand 
 dollars to be taking down the coast with me, but 
 I'll put a thousand in your fist when the job's 
 done and mail you the other four to any address 
 you like." 
 
 "Oh, I'll trust you for that," said Candon. 
 "What else?" 
 
 "Second, if we find the Dutchman's property, 
 it will have to go back to the owners. ' ' 
 
 "That's just what I'd like best," said Candon. 
 "I tell you straight it would have been a condi-
 
 68 VANDERDECKEN 
 
 tion with me, only I took it for granted seeing 
 you're out, so to speak, in the name of the law. 
 I'm no pirate. I'm not saying I was always of 
 the same way of thinking, but I reckon those 
 ballyhooleys I've just left have given me a 
 shake." 
 
 "Well then," said Hank, "there's only one 
 more condition. You'll help to work the ship for 
 your bunk and board without pay. ' ' 
 
 "Bight," said Candon, "and now, if you'll 
 take that styleographic pen I see sticking out of 
 your vest pocket and give's a bit of paper, we'll 
 draw the contract." 
 
 Hank produced the pen and an old bill on the 
 back of which the "contract" was made out, 
 under the terms of which Candon was to receive 
 five thousand dollars and a set ashore after the 
 Dutchman had been brought safe aboard the 
 Wear Jack, also he was to take the expedition to 
 the spot where, to the best of his belief, was 
 cached the Dutchman's plunder. 
 
 This done, Candon went back to his engine 
 cleaning, having produced and handed over to 
 Hank four ten dollar notes. 
 
 "I'll want a toothbrush and a couple of shirts 
 and a couple of suits of pyjamas," said he. 
 "Maybe, as I can't get ashore, you'll get them 
 for me. All my truck's on board the Heart." 
 
 "Bud," said Hank to his partner that night, 
 "I hope to the Lord we ain't stung. Suppose
 
 THE RED BEARDED ONE 69 
 
 the chap's some practical joker put on us by 
 Barrett, or the boys at the Club." 
 
 "Nonsense," said George. " Where 'd be the 
 sense? Besides the chap's genuine. You have 
 only to look at his face . . ."
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 NIGHT 
 
 THE week before the sailing of the Wear 
 Jack was a busy time for the Fisher Syndi- 
 cate and business was not expedited owing 
 to the fact that Candon had to be kept hidden. 
 The red-bearded one seemed happy enough, 
 spending most of his time in the engine room 
 smoking cigarettes. At nights, safe with Hank in 
 the "saloon," his mind disclosed itself in his 
 conversation. 
 
 No, this was no wasp let in on them by Barrett 
 or the Club boys. The mind of Candon, as 
 revealed to Hank, was as free from crookedness 
 as the eyes through which it looked, and on most 
 topics from the League of Nations to Ella Wheeler 
 Wilcox, it was sound. And it was not unlike the 
 mind of Hank. It was self-educated and their 
 enthusiasms, from the idea of Universal Brother- 
 hood to the idea of the sanctity of womanhood, 
 matched, mostly. 
 
 Candon, from what one could gather, had been 
 a rolling stone, like Hank, but he gave little away 
 about himself and he was quite frank about it. 
 
 70
 
 NIGHT 71 
 
 1 'I'd just as soon forget myself," said he. 
 "I've been in a good many mix-ups and I've 
 missed a fortune twice through my own fault, but 
 I've come through with all my teeth and no 
 stomach worries and we'll leave it at that." 
 
 Barrett's stores came on board and were 
 stowed, and Hank, througji a boarding-house 
 keeper, got his crew, four Chinamen all of the 
 same tong, all Lees, and bossed by a gentleman 
 rejoicing in the name of Lee Wong Juu. Cham- 
 pagne Charley, Hank labeled him. They came 
 tripping on board with their chests the night 
 before starting, vanished like shades down the 
 foc'sle hatch and were seen no more. 
 
 Hank, standing on the deck with George, 
 heaved a sigh of contentment. "Well, that's 
 done," said he. "There's nothing more to take 
 on board and we're all ready for the pull out 
 in the morning. ' ' 
 
 "What time do you propose to start?" asked 
 the other. 
 
 "Sunup. Barrett has got it into his head, 
 somehow, we're going at noon. I didn't tell you, 
 but I got wind he'd arranged for a tug with a 
 brass band to lead us out and josh us. Can you 
 see his face when he finds us gone?" 
 
 They went below where the cabin lamp was lit, 
 with Candon reading a newspaper under it. 
 
 "The Chinks are come," said Hank, taking his 
 seat at the table, and fetching out his pipe. 
 "There's nothing more to come in but the mud-
 
 72 VANDERDECKEN 
 
 hook. Well, how do you feel, now we're start- 
 ing?" 
 
 " Bully," said Candon. "I was beginning to 
 feel like a caged canary. You chaps don't know 
 what it's been the last week. Well, let's get 
 finished. There's some truck still to be stowed in 
 the after cabin and I want to do a bit more tinker- 
 ing at the engine. There's a day's work on that 
 engine them cylinder rings were sure made in 
 Hades." 
 
 "Well, you can leave it," said Hank. "I'm 
 putting out at sunup. I don't count on that 
 engine and you'll have time to tinker with her on 
 the way down. ' ' He stopped suddenly, raised his 
 head, and held up a finger. The night was warm 
 and the skylight full open. In the dead silence 
 that fell on the cabin they could hear through the 
 open skylight the far-away rattle of a cargo winch 
 working under the electrics, the whistle of a ferry 
 boat and away, far away, though great as the 
 voice of Behemoth, the boo of a deep sea steamer's 
 siren. 
 
 "Yes," began Hank again, gliding to the door 
 of the saloon as he spoke, "you can tinker with it 
 on the way down." He vanished, and the others, 
 taking his cue, kept up the talk. Then they heard 
 him pounce. 
 
 "What you doing here?" 
 
 "Hullo! me I ain't doin' nothin' what you 
 gettin' at? You lea' me go."
 
 NIGHT 73 
 
 "What you doing here, you low down scow- 
 hunker? Answer up before I scrag you." 
 
 "Tell you I was doin' nothin'. I dropped 
 aboard to see if I couldn't borry a light, seein' the 
 shine of your skylight." 
 
 "I'll give you a light." 
 
 Then they heard the quite distinctive sounds of 
 a man being kicked off the ship, blasphemous 
 threats from the wharf-side silence. 
 
 A minute later Hank appeared, his lean face lit 
 with the light of battle. 
 
 * ' Popped my head on deck, ' ' cried Hank, ' ' and 
 saw a fellow on the wharf -side I'll swear it was 
 Jake. He lit, and then I saw another one 
 hunched down by the skylight. You heard me 
 kicking him off. ' ' 
 
 "Who's JakeT" asked Candon, who had taken 
 his seat again at the table. 
 
 ' ' Watchman I fired for handing me lies more 'n 
 a fortnight ago." 
 
 "Well," said Candon, "the other man was 
 Mullins, if I have my ears on my head. ' ' 
 
 "Who'sMullins?" 
 
 "Black Mullins, McGinmV left hand. Boys, 
 we've gotta get out. How's the wind?" 
 
 "Nor' west," said Hank. 
 
 "And there's a moon. Boys, we've gotta get 
 right out now, get the whaleboat over and the 
 Chinks ready for a tow clear of the wharf. Let's 
 see, the whole of the Heart crowd will be over at 
 Tiburon, the old Heart will be in dry dock, for
 
 74 VANDERDECKEN 
 
 she'd started a butt and there's weeks' work on 
 her, so they won't be able to use her to chase us 
 for another fortnight, get me? Well, see now, 
 that guy will be back in Tiburon somewhere about 
 two hours or more and he'll rouse the hive. He'll 
 have seen me, lookin' down through the skylight, 
 and he'll know you're starting to-morrow. Not 
 having a ship to chase us, they'll board us. 
 You '11 have a boatload of gunmen alongside some- 
 where about two in the morning. ' ' 
 
 "You mean to say they'll board us?" cried 
 George. 
 
 "Yep." 
 
 "But what about the police?" 
 
 "Police! Nothing. Why they'd beat it in a 
 quick launch before the cops had begun to remem- 
 ber they weren't awake." 
 
 "Well, let's notify the police and have an am- 
 bush ready for them." 
 
 * ' Not me, ' ' said Candon. * ' I don 't want to have 
 any dealings with the law. Why if McGinnis and 
 his crowd were taken, they'd swear Lord knows 
 what about me. Besides I'm not friends with the 
 bulls. I'm no crook, I've never looked inside a 
 jail, but I've seen enough good men done in by 
 the law to make me shy of it. ' ' 
 
 "But see here," said Hank. "I can't take her 
 out at night. I don't know the lights, I'd pile her 
 up sure." 
 
 "I'll take her out," said Candon, "I'd take her
 
 NIGHT 75 
 
 out with my eyes shut. It's near full moon and 
 we'll have the ebb, what more do you want?" 
 
 Hank turned to George. 
 
 " Let 's get out, ' ' said George. * ' We don 't want 
 a mix-up with those people ; if we get piled, why 
 we have the boat." 
 
 Hank turned to Candon. 
 
 ' ' You 're sure you can do it I " 
 
 "Sure." 
 
 ' * Then come on, ' ' said Hank. He led the way on 
 deck. 
 
 The wharf was deserted. To the left of them 
 lay the bay, silver under the moonlight and 
 spangled here and there with the lights of ship- 
 ping at anchor. Whilst Hank trimmed the side 
 lights and Candon attended to the binnacle light, 
 George went forward to rout out the Chinks. He 
 found them finishing their supper. Lee Wong Juu 
 was their cook as well as boss, he had lit the galley 
 stove on his own initiative and made tea. They 
 had brought provisions enough for supper. 
 Their chests were arranged in order, everything 
 was in apple-pie trim and as they sat on their 
 bunk sides with their tin mugs in their hands and 
 their glabrous faces slewed round on the intruder, 
 they looked not unlike a company of old maids at 
 a tea party. 
 
 George gave his order and they rose, put away 
 their mugs and followed him on deck. 
 
 The whaleboat had cost Hank ninety-five 
 dollars, second-hand. It was not a real whale-
 
 76 VANDERDECKEN 
 
 boat, either in size, make or fittings, but good 
 enough for their purpose, carvel built, four-oared, 
 with tins fixed beneath the thwarts to help float 
 her in case of a capsize. 
 
 Candon was standing by the boat as George 
 came on deck. 
 
 In the rapid moments that had come on them 
 since the spy had been kicked off the ship, Candon 
 had gradually gained supremacy, without effort, 
 one might say. The man had arisen and was 
 rising to the emergency like a swimmer on a wave, 
 bearing the others with him. He was giving 
 orders now quietly and without fuss. 
 
 They got the boat afloat with the four Chinks 
 in her, and, the tow rope having been fixed, 
 Candon got into her, having cast off the mooring 
 ropes. Hank took the wheel of the schooner. 
 George, standing silent beside Hank, heard the 
 creak and splash of the oars. Then came the 
 chug and groan of the tow-rope tightening, then 
 slowly, almost imperceptibly the bowsprit of the 
 Wear Jack began to veer away from the wharf. 
 And now to port and starboard lay the glittering 
 harbour water and astern the long line of the 
 wharves began to show with the electrics blazing 
 here and there where they were working cargo 
 overtime. As the wharves receded, they stole 
 into a world of new sounds and lights. San Fran- 
 cisco began to show her jewelry, glittering ribbons 
 of electrics, crusts of gems; on the port bow the 
 lights of Oakland, far across the water, answered
 
 NIGHT 77 
 
 to the lights of San Francisco, and across the 
 scattered silver ferry boats showed like running 
 jewels. The wind from the north west came 
 steady and filled with the breath of the unseen sea. 
 
 "Lord!" said Hank, "how much further is he 
 taking us? Seems like as if he were making for 
 Oakland." 
 
 "He knows what he is doing," said George. 
 
 "Sure." 
 
 They held on. 
 
 A Chinese junk passed, with her lateen sail 
 bellying to the wind, and then came along a yacht, 
 lighted and riotous as a casino, with a jazz band 
 playing "Suwanee." It passed and the great 
 quietude of the night resumed. Still the tow 
 kept on. 
 
 Then came a voice from alongside. Candon had 
 cast off the rope and was coming on board. 
 
 To George, just in that moment, the whole 
 scene and circumstance came as an impression 
 never to be forgotten; the silence following the 
 casting off of the rope, the vast harbour surface, 
 glittering like a ball-room floor, where the helpless 
 Wear Jack lay adrift, the lights of 'Frisco and 
 the lights of Oakland and the secrecy and neces- 
 sity for despatch lest, drifting as they were, they 
 should be side-swiped by some Bay boat in a 
 hurry. But he had little time for thought. Candon 
 was on board, the boat was got in and the slack of 
 the tow-rope, and Candon at the wheel began to 
 give his orders with speed but without hurry.
 
 78 VANDERDECKEN 
 
 The mainsail rose slatting against the stars, 
 then the foresail; a Chink cast the gaskets off 
 the jib, whilst the Wear Jack, trembling like an 
 undecided and frightened thing, seemed to calm 
 down and take heart. The slatting of the canvas 
 ceased. They were under way. 
 
 Candon seemed steering for Oakland, then the 
 Oakland lights swung to starboard and passed 
 nearly astern. They were making for Alcatraz. 
 The lights of San Francisco were now to port and 
 the city showed immense, heaving itself against 
 the moonlight; Nobs Hill, Telegraph Hill, Rus- 
 sian Hill, all ablaze beneath the moon, slashed 
 with lines of light. Away beyond Angel Island 
 showed the lights of Tiburon. 
 
 Right under Alcatraz, Candon put the helm 
 hard over; the canvas thrashed and filled again 
 and the Wear Jack settled down on her new tack, 
 heading for the Presidio. Close in, the helm went 
 over again, the canvas fought the wind and then 
 filled on the tack for Lime Point, the northern 
 gate post of the Golden Gate. 
 
 The breath of the sea now came strong, spray 
 came inboard from the meeting of wind and ebb 
 tide and the Wear Jack began to thrash at the 
 tumble coming in from the bar. 
 
 Under Lime Point she came about on the port 
 tack, taking the middle passage. Then beyond 
 Pont Bonito came the tumble of the bar. The 
 wind was not more than a steady sailing breeze 
 but the long rollers coming in from Japan gave
 
 NIGHT 79 
 
 them all the trouble they wanted, though the 
 Wear Jack, proving her good qualities, shipped 
 scarcely a bucket full. Then the sea smoothed 
 down to a glassy breeze-spangled swell and the 
 schooner, with the loom of the land far on her port 
 quarter, spread her wings beneath the moon for 
 the south.
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 OUT 
 
 CANDON handed the wheel over to Hank. 
 ''Well, we're out," said he. "Keep her as 
 she goes, the coast's a straight line down to 
 Point San Pedro, and I don't want to clear it by 
 more than ten miles." He lit a pipe and walked 
 to the port rail, where he stood with the pipe in 
 his mouth and his hands on the rail looking at 
 the land. 
 
 George stood beside him. The crew had 
 vanished to the foc'sle, now that everything was 
 comfortable, leaving the deck to the three white 
 men ; no watches had been picked nor was there a 
 look-out. George remarked on the fact and Can- 
 don laughed. 
 
 "I'd just as soon leave the Chinks below," said 
 he, "and run her ourselves for the rest of the 
 watch. Half a man could handle her as the wind 
 is, and as for a look-out, why I reckon nothing 
 could sink us to-night. Boys, I'm sure bug- 
 house, I never took a ship out of 'Frisco bay be- 
 fore two hours ago." 
 
 "You what!" said George. 
 
 80
 
 OUT 81 
 
 "What I'm telling you. It came on me to do it 
 and I did it. I've been in and out often enough, 
 but never at the wheel nor navigating. I had the 
 lay of the place in my head but it was a near 
 touch." 
 
 Hank at the wheel gave a laugh that sounded 
 like a cough. 
 
 "I felt it in my bones," said Hank. 
 
 "What?" asked Candon. 
 
 "Why that you were driving out half blind; as 
 near as paint you had us on to Alcatraz and you 
 all but rammed the Presidio. I was standing on 
 my toes wanting to yell ' Put your helm over, ' but 
 I kept my head shut, didn 't want to rattle you. ' ' 
 
 "Bughouse, clean bughouse," said Candon. 
 ' ' Makes me sweat in the palms of my hands now 
 I've done it, but I tell you boys, I couldn't have 
 missed. Going by night like that one can't judge 
 distance and as for the lights, they'd better have 
 been away, but I couldn't have missed, I was so 
 certain sure of myself. It comes on me like that 
 at times, I get lifted above myself, somehow or 
 another." 
 
 "I'm the same way myself," said Hank, "it 
 comes on me as if I got light-headed and I'm 
 never far wrong if I let myself go. Bud here will 
 tell you I rushed this expedition through more by 
 instinct than anything else didn't I, Bud?" 
 
 But assented, unenthusiastically. 
 
 George Harley du Cane, out and away now with 
 the Pacific beneath him and his eyes fixed on the
 
 82 VANDERDECKEN 
 
 far-off loom of the land, was thinking. He had 
 recognized, even before starting, that Hank and 
 Candon were, temperamentally, pretty much 
 birds of the same feather. Not only had their dis- 
 cussions as to socialism and so forth seemed to 
 him pretty equally crazy, but he had recognized, 
 in a dim sort of manner, that they infected one 
 another and that their " bughouse" qualities were 
 not diminished by juxtaposition. However, safe 
 in port, the sanity or insanity of his companions, 
 expressed only in conversation about abstract and 
 uninteresting affairs, did not seem to matter. Out 
 here it was different, somehow, especially after 
 the exhibition Candon had just given them of 
 daring carried to the limits of craziness. And 
 who was Candon, anyhow? A likable man, sure 
 enough, but the confessed associate of more than 
 shady characters, and they had accepted this man 
 on his face value, as a pilot in an adventure that 
 was sure to be dangerous, considering the char- 
 acter of the man they were out to hunt. 
 
 Well, there was not a bit of use bothering. He 
 had gone into the business with his eyes open. 
 There he was, wealthy, at ease with all the world, 
 talking to those men in the club, when in came 
 Hank with his lunacy, saying he was going to 
 catch Vanderdecken. He had followed the Eat 
 Trap Inventor out, taken his arm and insisted on 
 becoming part and parcel of his plans. Why? 
 He could not tell why. And now he was tied up in 
 a venture with Chinks and two cranks ; a venture
 
 OUT 83 
 
 which, if it failed, would make him ridiculous, if 
 it succeeded might make him a corpse. He might 
 now have been respectably shooting in the Eockies 
 only for his own stupidity. 
 
 Then, all of a sudden, came a question to his 
 mind, "Would you sooner be respectably shooting 
 in the Eockies or here?" Followed by the sur- 
 prising and immediate answer, "Here." Bug- 
 house clean bughouse but the fact remained. 
 
 It was now getting on for two in the morning, 
 and he went below, leaving the deck to the others. 
 They intended carrying on till four, and then 
 rousing the crew up for the morning watch. 
 
 They told him they would call him when they 
 wanted him and he turned in, dropping to sleep 
 the instant his head touched the pillow. When he 
 awoke it was daylight, water dazzles were at play 
 on the Venesta panellings, as the early sunlight 
 through the portholes shifted to the lift of the 
 swell, snores from the two other occupied bunks 
 seemed to keep time to the movement of the 
 Wear Jack and from the topmost starboard bunk, 
 Hank's py jama-clad leg hung like the leg of a 
 dead man. 
 
 The whole of the after-guard had turned in, 
 leaving apparently the schooner to run herself. 
 He turned out and without stopping to wake the 
 others came hurriedly up the companion way on 
 deck.
 
 CHAPTEE XHI 
 
 THE BAY OF WHALES 
 
 THE sun was up and away to port lay Cali- 
 fornia, lifting her hills to heaven against 
 the morning splendour, to starboard, a mile 
 or so away, a big freighter, in ballast and showing 
 the kick of her propeller, was pounding along 
 north with the sunlight on her bridge canvas. 
 Even at that distance George could hear the thud 
 of her screw like the beating of a heart. 
 
 A Chinaman was at the helm of the Wear Jack, 
 Champagne Charley no less, and forward another 
 celestial was emptying a slush tub over the port 
 rail. 
 
 George nodded to the helmsman, and then, 
 taking his seat on the skylight edge, contemplated 
 the coast. 
 
 George's yachting experience had been mainly 
 confined to the Bay. He could steer a boat under 
 sail, but of deep sea work and cruising in big 
 yachts he knew practically nothing. Still, even 
 to his uninitiated mind, this thing seemed wrong. 
 Candon and Hank had evidently left the deck at 
 the beginning of the morning watch, that is to say 
 
 84
 
 THE BAY OF WHALES 85 
 
 four o'clock, leaving the Chinks to run the show. 
 They had been running it for three hours or so 
 and doing it satisfactorily, to all appearances. 
 Still it didn't seem right. 
 
 He determined to go for the other two and 
 give them a piece of his mind and then, when, a 
 few minutes later, they came on deck yawning 
 and arrayed in their pyjamas, he didn't. They 
 seemed so perfectly satisfied with themselves and 
 things in general that it was beyond him to start 
 complaining. Instead he went down and tubbed 
 in the bathroom. An hour later, as he was seated 
 at breakfast with the two others, his whole 
 attitude of mind towards ''Chinks" had changed, 
 for the schooner was running on her course with 
 scarcely a tremor of the tell-tale compass, the 
 breakfast was set as if by a parlour-maid, and the 
 ham and eggs were done to perfection. More than 
 that, they were waited upon by a waiter who knew 
 his business, for when he had done handing things 
 round, he vanished without a word and left them 
 to talk. 
 
 "Oh, that's nothing," said Candon, in reply to 
 a remark of George's. "Those Chinks could run 
 this packet by themselves. When a Chinaman 
 signs on as an A. B., he is one. He doesn't pre- 
 tend to be what he isn't, not on a ship running 
 out of 'Frisco anyhow, and he's more, every 
 Chinaman's a cook and a laundress and it's ten 
 to one he's a tailor as well. I tell you, when I 
 think of what one Chink can do and what one
 
 86 VANDERDECKEN 
 
 white man generally can't, I get frightened for 
 the whites." Hank was cutting in, and an argu- 
 ment on the colour question between these two 
 was prevented only by George remembering 
 something of more immediate moment. 
 
 "Look here," said he to Candon, " can't you 
 tell us more about Vanderdecken now we're out. 
 What I mean to say is the plans you have about 
 him. Where are we going, anyway?" 
 
 "South," said Candon. 
 
 "I know that," said George, "but where south? 
 South 's a big place." 
 
 "It is," said the other; "too big for guessing, 
 but now we're out and I'm going to put you 
 wise. First of all, I promised you to put this 
 guy's boodle into your hands, and second I 
 promised you the guy himself. I hung off from 
 telling you the location till you'd done your part 
 of the contract and got me out away from the 
 McGinnis crowd. Well, you've done your part 
 and here's mine. The place I'm taking you is 
 known by the Mexicans as the Bay of Whales." 
 
 "The Mexicans!" said George. 
 
 "Yep. We've got to turn the corner of Lower 
 California, that's to say Cape St. Lucas, then out 
 across the Bay of California for the Mexican 
 coast and the Bay of Whales. It's away above 
 Jalisco. It's worth seeing. I don't know how it 
 is, maybe it's the currents or the winds or just a 
 liking for a quiet burying ground, but every old 
 sulphur bottom that's died between here and Tim-
 
 THE BAY OF WHALES 87 
 
 buctoo seems to have laid his bones there. There's 
 a Mexican superstition about the place, maybe on 
 account of the bones, but no one ever goes there. 
 It's the lonesomest place on God's footstool, the 
 shore-along ships keep clear of it and it's all 
 reefs beyond the sand of the bay so you don't get 
 ships putting in. I tell you, you could photograph 
 the lonesomeness. Well there the boodle is and 
 there you '11 put your hands on the guy you want. ' ' 
 
 Said Hank: "Look here, B. C." Candon had 
 come down to initials after the manner of 'Frisco. 
 * ' How did old man Vanderdecken make out, any- 
 way. What I'm getting at is this: I figured his 
 fishing grounds to be the Channel Islands and 
 north and south of there, but that's a good long 
 way from St. Lucas." 
 
 1 ' That 's so, " said Candon. * < Well, I '11 tell you, 
 right along till near the end he used to keep the 
 stuff he got aboard his own hooker. You're right, 
 his lay was the Channel Islands. But finding he'd 
 made the place too hot for himself all right along 
 down the American seaboard, and expectin' to 
 be searched, he did a dive for the bay I told you 
 of and there he cached the stuff, and I'm the only 
 man beside himself that knows where the 
 cache is. 
 
 "There, I've told you that much. I'm not go- 
 ing to say how I got so thick with him as to know 
 his plans and dispositions. I just ask you to take 
 B. C.'s word that the goods are according to the 
 manifest. ' '
 
 88 VANDERDECKEN 
 
 "Oh, that's all right," said Hank, "I don't want 
 to dig into your business, all I want's the 
 Dutchman, and to put my hand on his shoulder." 
 
 "And so you shall," said B. C., "'less he dies 
 before we get there." 
 
 They came up and, Candon taking the wheel, 
 the two Chinamen who were holding the deck 
 dived below. An hour later, the Chinks being 
 called up, watches were picked, George falling to 
 Hank, Champagne Charley to Candon. 
 
 Candon being the most knowledgeable man and 
 the best sailor, it was agreed that he should work 
 the ship. 
 
 "You can't have two heads," said Hank, "and 
 I reckon yours is better than mine where 
 navigating her is concerned."
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 ST. NICOLAS 
 
 THE Kuro Shiwo current drives northward 
 up the coast of Japan, crosses the Pacific 
 and comes down the Pacific Coast of 
 America, bathing the Channel Islands and giving 
 them their equable temperature. This great 
 current is a world of its own; it has its kelp 
 forests, where the shark hides, like a tiger, and its 
 own peculiar people, led by the great swordfish of 
 Japan. Japan not only sends her swordsmen of 
 the sea to keep this moving street-like world, she 
 lends her colours, in blues vivid and surprising as 
 the skies and waters of her shadowless pictures. 
 
 One morning, shortly after sunrise, George, fast 
 asleep in his bunk, was hauled out by Hank to 
 "see the Islands." He tumbled out and, just as 
 he was, in his pyjamas, followed on deck. 
 
 Between the Kuro Shiwo and the wind the 
 Wear Jack was making a good ten knots. Pont 
 Concepcion on the mainland lay almost astern, 
 and the sun, with his feet still on the mountains 
 beyond Santa Barbara, was chasing to death a fog 
 whose last banners were fluttering amidst the foot 
 hills. 
 
 89
 
 90 VANDERDECKEN 
 
 Away ahead, like vast ships under press of 
 sail, rode the San Lucas Islands, San Miguel, 
 Santa Rosa, Santa Cruz, their fog-filled canons 
 white in the sunlight. 
 
 Later in the morning, with the San Lucas 
 Islands far astern, San Nicolas showed up like a 
 flake of spar on the horizon to the south; to the 
 sou '-east appeared a trace of the mountains of 
 Santa Catalina. 
 
 Candon, who was on deck talking to George, 
 pointed towards Santa Catalina. ''Looks pretty 
 lonely, don't itt" said he. "Well, that place is 
 simply swarming with millionaires. Say, you're 
 something in that way yourself, aren't you? So 
 I ought to keep my head muzzled, but you'll 
 understand. I'm not going against you, but things 
 in general. I reckon if you'd ever roomed in 
 Tallis Street, 'Frisco, you'd know what I mean. 
 I've seen big poverty and when I see millionaires 
 sunning themselves, it gets my goat now you 
 know what I'm gettin' at." 
 
 "Look here, B. C.," said George, "cut it out. 
 Most of the millionaires I know live on pap and 
 pills and work like gun mules " 
 
 "Do you?" asked Candon laughing. 
 
 "No, I don't, but I expect I will some time; 
 anyhow, one fool exception doesn't count. What 
 I'm getting at is this, chaps like you and Hank 
 get it in your heads that the bigger a man's pile 
 is, the more he enjoys himself. It's the other way
 
 ST. NICOLAS 91 
 
 about, seems to me ; also that the rich man lives in 
 a world of his own with laws of his own " 
 
 ''So he does," said the other. "Now you 
 listen to me. When Prohibition started, how did 
 the poor man stand? Dry, that's how he stood, 
 looking at the other people with their cellars full 
 of drink. They knew the law was coming and they 
 laid in." 
 
 "That's true," said George. 
 
 "It is," said Candon, "and some day, maybe, 
 I '11 tell you a yarn about how it hit me once. ' ' 
 
 Hank came on deck and stood with eyes shaded, 
 looking at the ghost of Santa Catalina on the sky 
 line. "There she is," said Hank. "You can 
 almost see the flags waving and hear the bands 
 playing. Bud, didn't you ever go fishing down 
 that way? I reckon it was that place gave 
 Vanderdecken his first pull towards thievery, 
 seeing the water is thick with Bank Presidents 
 and Wheat Cornerers only waiting to be collected 
 for ransom. Say, B. C., if you know anything 
 about old Vanderdecken, tell us why he didn't 
 hold the folks he caught to ransom as well as 
 picking the diamonds and money off them. That's 
 what I'd have done. 1 would sure. Hullo!" 
 
 A leaping tuna, as long as a man and curved 
 like a sword, left the sea on the starboard bow, 
 showed its colours to the sun, and vanished with a 
 splash. 
 
 ' ' Tuna, ' ' said Candon. 
 
 "Well, what's he doing here?" asked Hank,
 
 92 VANDERDECKEN 
 
 "he's out of his waters, this ain't the tuna 
 grounds. ' ' 
 
 "How do you know?" asked George. 
 
 "Lord, oughn't I to know," replied Hank. 
 "Why I was on the fish commission ship on this 
 section of the Pacific Coast, sounding and 
 dredging and taking specimens of the fish and the 
 weeds and Lord knows what all. That was five 
 years ago, but I reckon the tuna grounds haven't 
 altered since then. ' ' 
 
 "They lie south of San Clemente, don't they?" 
 said Candon. 
 
 "They do not, you're thinking of albacore. 
 The tuna grounds are east of Santa Catalina 
 mostly, close to Avalon. Why, I know all that 
 place's well as I know my own office. I've got a 
 hellnation memory for facts and I could reel off to 
 you the lie of the fishing grounds most all along 
 the coast. Bight from Rocky Point on the 
 mainland the fish begin running in shoals. 
 Benito you get mostly at Rocky Point, then 
 albacore; but if you strike out for the Islands 
 you'll begin to get big things." 
 
 "Whales?" asked George. 
 
 "Whales mostly stick to the Santa Barbara 
 channel, there aren't many now, but you get 
 killers and sulphur bottoms and gray whales 
 sharks, too." 
 
 Hank lit a cigarette and leaning on the port 
 rail looked across the water to the east. Then he 
 came forward a bit and looked ahead.
 
 ST. NICOLAS 93 
 
 Away ahead and a bit to westward something 
 showed. It was San Nicolas, San Nicolas no 
 longer sharply denned like a flame of spar, but 
 with its head in a turban of new-formed cloud. 
 This island, eight or nine miles long, forms the 
 western outpost of the Channel Islands. Unpro- 
 tected, like them, by Port Concepcion, it receives 
 the full force of wind and weather. 
 
 The others came close to Hank. 
 
 "That's her," said Hank, "that's San Nicolas. 
 Ever been ashore there, B. C.f" 
 
 "Not such a fool," said Candon. "I've cruised 
 about these waters a good bit, but I've never met 
 a man who wanted to put his foot there. It's all 
 wind and sand for one thing." 
 
 "Well," said Hank, "I've been thinking, 
 from what I know of the place, that Vanderdecken 
 may have used San Nicolas for one of his ports 
 of call. What do you say, B.C.?" 
 
 "Who knows?" said Candon. 
 
 "Did you land on San Nicolas'?" asked George. 
 
 "Oh yes; we were hanging off the kelp beds 
 three or four days." 
 
 "I'd like to land there," said George. 
 
 "Well, it's easily done," said Hank. "We 
 could tie up the kelp for the matter of that, only 
 I'm afraid the Wear Jack's a bit too big. She 
 might drag out. Away down, further south, the 
 kelp vines run to a thousand foot long and you 
 could most moor a battleship to them, but it's
 
 94 VANDERDECKEN 
 
 different here. However, we can anchor if you 
 want to. What do you say, B. C.f " 
 
 "I'm with you," said Candon. "We have 
 plenty of time and a day won't matter." 
 
 "Not a cent," said George. 
 
 Candon went and leaned on the starboard rail. 
 For the last two days, in fact, ever since he had 
 given away the whereabouts of Vanderdecken's 
 cache, he had seemed at times depressed. Some- 
 times he would be in high good spirits and some- 
 times moping and silent. Hank had noticed it 
 first and he spoke of it now as he and George 
 went forward to the bow, where they hung 
 watching the boost of the water and the foam 
 gouts like marble shavings on lazalite. 
 
 "Notice B. C. has the dumps again," said 
 Hank. "I wonder what's working on him? 
 Maybe he feels himself a skunk leading us on to 
 old man Vanderdecken." 
 
 "He said that was all right," said George, 
 "said he was acting perfectly straight and that 
 the man was his enemy. Y' know, I believe in 
 B.C." 
 
 "So do I," said Hank, "but what in the nation's 
 he moulting about, that's what I want to know. 
 I take it it's just sensitiveness; even though the 
 Dutchman is his enemy, he don't like giving him 
 away. I can understand it. ' ' 
 
 "I can't quite make him out," said George, 
 "he's intelligent and has fine ideas about things, 
 yet he always seems to have lived pretty rough "
 
 ST. NICOLAS 95 
 
 "And what's the harm of that," cut in Hank. 
 "Why, it's the guys that have lived pretty rough 
 as you call it that are the only educated citizens 
 as far as I can make out. They've had their 
 noses rubbed into the world. Why look at me 
 I'm not saying I'm much, but all I've learned of 
 any good to me hasn't come out of class-rooms or 
 colleges. Mind you, I'm not against them, I don't 
 say they 're no use, but I do say what makes a man 
 is what he rubs against." 
 
 "He seems to have been rubbing against some 
 pretty queer characters to judge by the Heart of 
 Ireland lot, ' ' said George. 
 
 "That's my point," said Hank. "They've 
 turned him respectable. There's many a man 
 would have gone to the bad only he's been 
 frightened off it by the toughs he's met. They're 
 better than Sunday school books. I know, for 
 I've been there." 
 
 An hour later, San Nicolas was plain before 
 them and an hour before sunset Beggs Rock was 
 on the starboard bow and only a mile away. San 
 Nicolas, itself close to them, now showed its 
 peak, nine hundred feet high with its changeless 
 turban of cloud, rosy gold in the evening glow. 
 From the peak the island spilled away showing 
 cleft and canon and high ground treeless and 
 devoid of life. 
 
 They cast anchor just outside the kelp ring. 
 The sun was just leaving the sea. Nothing showed 
 but the brown lateen sails of a Chinese junk,
 
 96 VANDERDECKEN 
 
 standing in shore about two miles away. She 
 rounded a promontory and vanished from sight. 
 
 "That's a Chow fishing boat," said Hank. 
 "They go scraping along all down this coast, 
 hunting for abalones and turtle and whatever they 
 can lay their hands on. ' ' 
 
 "That's so," said Candon, "I've met in with 
 them right down to the Gulf of California and 
 beyond. It's against the law to take abalones in 
 most places round here, but much they care. ' ' 
 
 "They'd lay hands on any old thing," said 
 Hank. "Wonder what that crowd is doing 
 here!" 
 
 The morrow was to tell him.
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 WHAT THE CHINKS WEBB DOING 
 
 THEY had fixed to row ashore after breakfast 
 but fishing held them till afternoon. 
 Candon, not keen on the business of 
 climbing over rocks, remained behind to finish 
 tinkering at the engine which he had almost got 
 into working order. 
 
 Usually there is a big swell running here, but 
 to-day there was only a gentle heave lifting the 
 long green vine tendrils of the kelp. It was like 
 rowing over a forest. On the beach they left the 
 boat to the two Chinamen who had rowed them 
 off and, Hank leading the way, they started to the 
 right towards the great sand spit that runs into 
 the sea for half a mile or more. 
 
 A Farallone cormorant, circling in the blue 
 above, seemed to watch them ; it passed with a cry, 
 leaving the sky empty and nothing to hear but 
 the wash of the sea on the beaches and far off an 
 occasional gull's voice from the spit. Beaching a 
 great forward leaning rock, they took their seats 
 in the shade of it to rest and light their pipes. 
 The sand lay before them, jutting into the kelp- 
 oily sea and beyond the kelp the blue of the kuro 
 
 97
 
 98 VANDERDECKEN 
 
 shiwo. The Wear Jack was out of sight, the 
 horizon seemed infinitely far and of a world where 
 men were not or from whence men had departed 
 for ever. 
 
 "Say, Bud," said Hank, leaning on his side 
 with a contented sigh, * ' ain 't this great ! ' ' 
 
 " Which?" asked Bud. 
 
 "The lonesomeness. Listen to the gulls, don't 
 they make you feel just melancholy. ' ' 
 
 "Do you like to feel melancholy?" 
 
 "Depends on the brand, same as whisky. Say, 
 it's funny to think that the cars are running down 
 Market Street and Tyrebuck sitting in his office 
 and J. B. he's sitting at his luncheon by this. 
 Wonder what they said when they found us gone? 
 Well we 've had the laugh on them to start with. ' ' 
 
 "I hope they won't have the laugh on us at the 
 finish," said George. 
 
 "Don't," said Hank, "it makes me feel doddery 
 to think of us going back like dogs with our tails 
 down and no Dutchman hell! no, you don't see 
 me back in 'Frisco empty-handed, never. Was 
 you ever laughed at, Bud!" 
 
 "Heaps of times." 
 
 "Laughed at in the papers!" 
 
 "No." 
 
 "Well, that's what I mean. I've been, and 1 
 know." 
 
 "What was the business?" 
 
 "Oh, it was a girl." 
 
 "What did she do?"
 
 WHAT THE CHINKS WERE DOING 99 
 
 "It wasn't what she did so much as what she 
 said. It was this way. I was in Pittsburg one 
 rainy day and I fell in with a girl; she wasn't 
 more 'n eighteen and down on her luck. She asked 
 me the way to somewhere or another and that's 
 how we started off. She 'd had nothing to eat that 
 day and I took her into a coffee shop and stuffed 
 her up with buckwheat cakes and truck and then 
 she told me her story. Said she had to meet her 
 father at the station that evening and he was old 
 and infirm and they had to look for rooms. Well, 
 it seems, somehow or another, I was mug enough 
 to help her look for rooms and stand as a refer- 
 ence and lend her twenty dollars, and when the 
 police stepped into the rooms I got for them that 
 night and took the grey wig and patch over his 
 eye off her father he was Sam Brown, the biggest 
 tough out of N' York, with five thousand dollars' 
 worth of stolen diamonds on him. I managed to 
 clear myself, but the press had got the story and 
 I tell you, Bud, I was guyed out of Pittsburg and 
 it hurt worse than kicking. ' ' 
 
 "They don't go in for sentiment in Pittsburg." 
 
 "Nope, steel goods." 
 
 "Well, come along," said George, "this isn't 
 prospecting the island. ' ' 
 
 They got up and shook the sand from them- 
 selves and started along the spit ; then, returning, 
 they began to climb. The Wear Jack came into 
 view, anchored beyond the kelp, then as they got 
 higher and above the promontory that hid the
 
 100 VANDERDECKEN 
 
 next bay, they saw the Chinese junk of the night 
 before. She was anchored a little way out. On 
 the sands of the bay stood three strange looking 
 little pyramids, tents evidently, and about the 
 tents people were moving. 
 
 "Now what in the nation are those Chinks 
 doing?" said Hank. He unslung his binoculars he 
 had brought with him and leveled them at the 
 far-off tents. 
 
 " Chinks one of them's building a fire; they've 
 got a boat up on the sand. Abalone hunters, most 
 likely, making a camp here for the fishing. Say, 
 Bud, I believe they're hatchet men." 
 
 "What are hatchet men?" 
 
 "Pirates turned inside out and painted to look 
 like fishermen just robbers, abalone poachers 
 and smugglin' if they can get a chance, wickedest 
 lot out of hell, I'm judging by the look of them. 
 Have a squint." 
 
 He handed the powerful glasses to George who 
 leveled them in the direction of the bay. 
 
 The field of sight suddenly swarmed with 
 Chinamen moving against the glitter of white 
 sand. Small, dingy-looking men, wearing big 
 straw hats, a fire had been lit and the white 
 smoke curled upwards against the tents. Near 
 one of the tents a Chinaman was working over a 
 heap of what looked like abalones. 
 
 "Hullo!" cried George. 
 
 "What's up?" asked Hank. 
 
 "There's a white man with them, he's just
 
 WHAT THE CHINKS WERE DOING 101 
 
 come out of one of the tents a long thin looking 
 devil. What on earth's he with them for?" 
 
 Hank took the glass. 
 
 "Sure enough there is," said Hank, "look at his 
 hair all hanging over his face. He looks to be 
 bossing the Chinks. It's plain now what they are. 
 Smugglers, opium or dope of some sort. I've 
 heard the trade 's in the hands of whites, they run 
 it into Santa Barbara plugged into abalone shells. 
 Bud! Say! Bud! There's a girl! She's just come 
 out of the right-hand tent with a little chap after 
 her, looks like a Mexican. She's a white looks 
 like a lady she's crying, she's got her handker- 
 chief to her face Bud, this gets me!" 
 
 George snatched the glass. 
 
 Hank was right. There was a girl amidst the 
 horrid crowd. She was no longer crying, she had 
 taken her seat on the sand in a dejected sort of 
 manner and seemed watching the others as they 
 moved about at their work. Even at that distance, 
 it was obvious that she was of a different class 
 from the rest. 
 
 "Well, I'm damned," said George. 
 
 "Look! that beastly big chap seems jawing at 
 her. ' ' Hank snatched the glass. 
 
 He saw the long man standing in front of the 
 girl whom he seemed to have ordered to her feet ; 
 he seemed angry about something. Then the 
 unfortunate girl turned and went off towards one 
 of the tents. She seemed about to enter it when
 
 102 VANDERDECKEN 
 
 she collapsed, cast herself on the sand and lay, 
 her face hidden on her arm. 
 
 4 'Hell! "cried Hank. 
 
 He shut the glass, thrust it into its case and 
 started off down the rocks, George following. 
 
 "Where are you going to!" cried George. 
 
 "Bust up that hive," cried Hank. "That's 
 white slave, clean white slave. Come along to the 
 ship and fetch Candon and the guns. This is 
 better than Vanderdecken. ' ' 
 
 Tumbling, slipping, clawing at bushes, whoop- 
 ing like a red Indian, he led the way, George 
 labouring behind, till they reached the beach 
 where the boat of the Wear Jack lay, the two 
 Chinks close by it on the sand, smoking and 
 playing fan-tan. The boat was shoved off. 
 
 * ' You mean fighting them f ' ' asked George. His 
 throat was dry and his lips were dry. He had seen 
 the Great War and bursting shells and had risked 
 his life a dozen times, but all that seemed nothing 
 to the imminent attack on that horrid crowd over 
 there on the beach beyond sight. 
 
 "Oh, Lord, no," said Hank, a devilish look on 
 his lantern face, and a new light in his eyes. "I'm 
 going to cuddle them. Lay into it, you jade-faced 
 sons of perdition. 'Nuff ! in with your oars and 
 claw on. ' ' 
 
 They tumbled over the rail of the Wear Jack, 
 Hank shouting for Candon. They found him 
 below coming out of the engine place with a lump 
 of cotton waste in his hand.
 
 WHAT THE CHIN T KS WERE DOING 103 
 
 ''Come into the saloon," cried Hank. "B. C., 
 we're up to the eyes in it. Wacha think, we've 
 struck a gang of Chinese white slavers ^ith a 
 girl in tow." He explained. 
 
 As he talked, George noticed the effect on 
 Candon. He leaned forward as he sat, pulling at 
 the hairs of his beard ; his eyes changed in colour, 
 darkening as the pupils spread. When Hank had 
 finished, Candon leaned back, sought mechanically 
 in his pocket, found his pipe and put it between 
 his teeth, but he did not light it. 
 
 "They're white slavers," said Hank. 
 
 "Sure," said Candon. The anger consuming 
 him was no less visible for the calm that covered 
 it. Then he broke out. "There you have things 
 as they're going on, and your beautiful laws, 
 where are they? I tell you, boys, white women 
 are being snatched off to China every week that 
 goes, and white men are helping. It's all part of 
 a business mixed up with opium smuggling and 
 dope selling. Well, we've gotta get that girl from 
 them. Question is, how ? ' ' 
 
 "Land right away and go for them. I've got 
 the guns," said Hank, going to a locker and pro- 
 ducing the armaments for the voyage, three 
 Lugger automatics. "Here's the persuaders and 
 the Chinks will help. ' ' 
 
 "One minute," said Candon. He was thinking 
 hard, nearly biting through the pipe stem. Then 
 he spoke. "It's getting on for sun-down. Better 
 wait till the dark comes, then we can rush them.
 
 104 VANDERDECKEN 
 
 They'll think it's the police if we do it proper and 
 they won't be able to count our numbers how's 
 the wind?" 
 
 "Dropped dead." 
 
 "Good, there's no fear of them putting out 
 before we fix them, they'll stay here to-night, 
 sure. Once we get the girl on board, we can put 
 off, wind or no wind, for I've got the engine fixed. 
 You see, if we put up a fight right away we'll 
 have all those Chinks they have with them on top 
 of us. You said they were hatchet men, didn't 
 you! Fight like hornets; whereas in the dark- 
 why a Chink in the dark is no good, specially if 
 he doesn't know what's attacking him. Now, my 
 plan is, bust their camp up sudden, yelling and 
 shooting over them ; if they show fight, drill them, 
 but it's a thousand to one they'll quit and scatter, 
 thinking it's the police. Nail the girl, get her 
 aboard here and shove off." 
 
 "I'm with you," said George. 
 
 Hank demurred for a moment; he would have 
 preferred to attack right away ; then, after a little 
 discussion, he fell in with the others.
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 
 EVIDENCE OF CONTRABAND 
 
 THEY came on deck. 
 It wanted little more than two hours to 
 sunset and the eastern sky had taken that 
 look of distance which only comes when the sun is 
 low in the west. 
 
 Hank, who was the first on deck, called to the 
 others and pointed over the sea. Something 
 white was shearing through the water over there, 
 something that showed up at once through the 
 glass as a high power motor launch. 
 
 "Boys," cried Hank, "it's the police, it's the 
 cops sure as certain, and we're done out of it." 
 
 Candon took the glass. 
 
 "Don't look like a police boat to me," said he, 
 "and I only see two fellows on her. Of course, 
 there may be a dozen hid away. Looks more 
 like to me that it's a contrabander done up as a 
 pleasure launch. "VVe can't see anything from 
 here. Let's take the boat and push out so that 
 we can get a sight of the next bay." 
 
 "They'll spot us," said Hank. 
 
 "They'll spot the Wear Jack anyhow," said 
 
 105
 
 106 VANDERDECKEN 
 
 Candon. "The boat doesn't matter, they'll think 
 we're fishing." 
 
 The boat was still alongside. Led by Candon, 
 they got in and pushed off. 
 
 Half a mile out the next bay had opened enough 
 to show them the junk at anchor and the tents on 
 the beach. The launch, the blue water shearing 
 from her forefoot, was approaching the junk. 
 
 Hank, watching through the glass, reported: 
 "They're clawing on. There's only one Chink 
 on the junk, he's handing over parcels and taking 
 things aboard. You're right, B. C., it's no police 
 affair; it's contraband sure enough. Bend over 
 the gunnel, you two, and pretend to be fishing. 
 Now the launch is putting off back to the coast. 
 Well, that settles it." 
 
 "Where are they out from?" said Hank. 
 
 "Oh, Santa Barbara," said Candon, "sure 
 thing." 
 
 They watched the launch making back to the 
 coast, then they took to the oars and put back for 
 the schooner. 
 
 "Well," said George, who was at the yoke 
 lines, "it gets me how these sorts of things are let 
 pass by the law. ' ' 
 
 "Oh, that's nothing," said Hank, with a laugh. 
 "Why, girls are disappearing every week in 
 'Frisco, they get inveigled into Chinatown and 
 that's all. They get taken off to Canton and sold 
 as slaves to mandarins or worse."
 
 EVIDENCE OF CONTRABAND 107 
 
 "But how do the Chinks manage to get them 
 out of America ! ' ' asked George. 
 
 "You've seen it," said Candon. "You said 
 there were two white men with those Chinese 
 that's how. The traffic wouldn't stand a minute 
 without the help of whites. Money, that's what's 
 the mischief, money and the damned capitalistic 
 system that makes money king. Lord, I want to 
 get at those chaps, I'm sufferin' to get at those 
 chaps." He stopped rowing. Hank, equally 
 excited, also rested on his oar till George cut in 
 and they resumed.
 
 CHAPTER XVII 
 
 THE SURPRISE 
 
 THEY came alongside the Wear Jack just as 
 the fires of sunset began to pale beyond the 
 peak of San Nicolas. 
 
 "Come down below, boys," said Candon. 
 
 They followed him to the cabin, where they 
 took their seats, whilst he filled and lit a pipe. 
 Then, with the pipe in his mouth, he sat with his 
 arms resting on the table and his eyes fixed 
 straight before him. 
 
 George and the rat trap inventor spoke not a 
 word. They had come to recognise B. C. as the 
 better man in a lot of ways, and they had, 
 unconsciously or sub-consciously, chosen him for 
 their leader in this business that very plainly 
 meant life or death. They were about to attack 
 a hornets' nest, every hornet man-size and armed 
 with a little hatchet instead of a sting. They had 
 no side arms, nothing but the Luggers. On the 
 leader everything would depend and they felt 
 they could depend on Candon. 
 
 "We've got an hour and a half before we need 
 stir," suddenly spoke B. C., "and I've got the 
 plan of how to work this business all laid out in 
 
 108
 
 THE SURPRISE 109 
 
 my head. Maybe you'll leave it at that for I've 
 taken notice that too much talking muddles 
 things. You're willing to take my word to go 
 when the time comes and follow me ! ' ' 
 
 " Yes, "said Hank. 
 
 Candon slipped the old Waltham he wore from 
 its chain and laid it on the table before him. 
 
 "That being so," said he, "I want half an 
 hour's talk with you two on something that's got 
 nothing to do with this business. Don't put in any 
 questions or say a word till I get through. For 
 the last three days I've been keeping my head 
 shut against my better feelings, and only for the 
 fact that the whole three of us may be laid out 
 before morning, I'd have gone on, maybe, 
 keeping it shut against my will, so to say, for you 
 are two of the whitest men I've ever fell in with. 
 Boys, I've let you down cruel. I promised you 
 the Dutchman and you shall have him and I 
 promised to lead you to where he'd stowed his 
 takings and that promise holds. All the same, 
 I've not been straight with you. I've got to make 
 things straight, right away or bust, that's how I 
 feel. Well, here's the start. We're after a man 
 by the name of Vanderdecken ; that's not his 
 name, the torn-fool newspapers put it on him, but 
 let it hold for a minute while I tell you. This 
 fellow was no Dutchman ; American born he was, 
 of decent parents, but born wild and took his hook 
 to sea when he wasn't more'n fourteen. Now 
 seeing we're hunting him I want to give you his
 
 110 VANDERDECKEN 
 
 character's far as I can get it and show you maybe 
 he's not such a shark as people have made out 
 and was born for something better than the inside 
 of a penitentiary where he's sure going when we 
 have him lugged back to 'Frisco. 
 
 "So, I'm telling you, he hadn't been at sea 
 more'n a year when he saved two men's lives from 
 drowning and he hadn't been more'n three years 
 when he got a berth as fourth officer aboard a 
 Cape Homer. After that he rose steady, 
 educating himself in sea practice and land ways, 
 reading everything he could lay his claws on. 
 Maybe it would have been better if he'd kept his 
 eyes shut and worked along blind like most chaps. 
 But he couldn't stop thinking. I reckon thinking 
 ruins more men than drink. The world seemed all 
 upside down to him with the rich bugs a-top same 
 as the fleas on a dog's back." 
 
 "So they are," said Hank. "Heave ahead." 
 "Well," went on the other, "he rose, not having 
 any use for liquor and being a good practical sea- 
 man, till he got his master's ticket and command 
 of a full rigged packet in the Shireman line, then 
 he lost his ship through no fault of his and got 
 fired. The Shiremans had a down on him over 
 stores he'd condemned as not fit for dogs, let alone 
 able seamen, and they'd got wind he was a 
 socialist, and they crabbed him all over the 
 shipping companies' offices. Y' know they're all 
 hand in glove with their secret reports and so on, 
 and Vanderdecken couldn't go into a company's
 
 THE SURPRISE 111 
 
 office unless it was to be shown out. Having to 
 eat he went back to the foc'sle that was in 
 Liverpool, and worked his way to 'Frisco. From 
 there he got to Nome and struck it rich in the 
 Klondyke and got robbed. Then he began to 
 float up and down through more traverses than 
 I've time to tell you of till the Big War came and 
 he heard of the Lusitania. That drove him clean 
 bughouse and he got across the pond and joined 
 up with the British in the submarine fight and got 
 blown up in drifters till he was nearly deaf. Then 
 back he came to 'Frisco, which was his port of 
 choice, and more'n a year ago, he joins up with 
 McGinnis in working the Heart of Ireland on all 
 sorts of jobs down the coast, shark fishing, sea 
 scraping and contraband. He was a pretty sick 
 man, was Vanderdecken, with the world and the 
 way it had used him, but it wasn't till prohibition 
 came along that he rose. The hull place went 
 dry and they chucked the liquor down the drains 
 in Santa Barbara, all that wasn't hid away in 
 rich men's cellars. Vanderdecken wasn't a 
 drinking man, but one day at Santa Barbara he 
 saw a lot of money bugs in white ducks popping 
 champagne corks on a yacht and that blew him 
 up. He went to Pat McGinnis and said he, 'Look 
 here, Pat, I've got a notion, let's lay for a yacht 
 and collar their drink and chuck it overboard.' 
 Pat didn't seem to see the use of that, nor how it 
 would bring him profit, but he turned it over in 
 his thick head and the idea came to him of holding
 
 112 VANDERDECKEN 
 
 a yacht up and robbing it. He worked up the 
 idea and put it before Vanderdecken who fell in 
 with it like a fool, on the condition that the drink 
 should be hove over. Vanderdecken wasn't after 
 plunder, but he'd gone bughouse on getting even 
 with the champagne guys, and he had to fall in 
 with the other and pretend he was. Then, when 
 everything was fixed up, Pat got cold feet, not 
 from virtue but fright, and nothing would have 
 been done if Vanderdecken hadn't taken hold of 
 the business and gingered the chaps up. He took 
 command of the whole business and then the fun 
 began, and when it began Vanderdecken found 
 himself as keen on taking the valuables as on 
 dousing the drink. But there wasn't much in it. 
 D' you know for all the hullaballoo that's been 
 raised, only three yachts were raided, that's a 
 fact. It was a business that wouldn't bear much 
 repeating and only one haul was really lucky, 
 for the fellow had his wife aboard and all her 
 diamonds and jewels; anyhow, taking it all 
 together, the plunder didn't amount to more'n ten 
 or fifteen thousand dollars leaving the jewels 
 aside, and they might be worth ten thousand. No 
 knowing till they were sold. But there was a lot 
 of fizz and claret sent to hell, but you never heard 
 of that. The yacht owners kept that dark, they 
 didn't want to be laughed at for one thing, and 
 another, the rich folk are mortally afraid of the 
 poor folk suddenly rising and batting them over 
 the head on the drink question, and I've just been
 
 THE SURPRISE 113 
 
 thinking, boys, that when Vanderdecken's led 
 back to 'Frisco, there'll be no penitentiary for 
 him lest the rich man's cellar business should be 
 brought too much to notice, and the guys who are 
 poor and dry may say, 'Let's do what Vander- 
 decken had the guts to do'. However, after the 
 last holdup, the Heart of Ireland made for the 
 Bay of Whales and Vanderdecken and McGinnis 
 cached the takings, and Vanderdecken changed 
 the cache unknown to McGinnis. Getting towards 
 'Frisco, Vanderdecken showed his hand by 
 hinting, like a fool, that the stolen boodle ought to 
 be returned to its owners. That roused 
 McGinnis' hair and the bristles on the hull crowd. 
 They thought they were going to be done. They 
 let Vanderdecken ashore, but a man went with 
 him to watch him and the first thing Vander- 
 decken heard was that you two were going out in 
 a schooner to hunt for him. He knew he'd never 
 get away from 'Frisco and McGinnis without a 
 knife in his back, so, giving the chap that was with 
 him the slip, he hoofed it for Sullivan's wharf, 
 and dropped aboard the Wear Jack. Boys, I'm 
 Vanderdecken I*'
 
 CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 THE ATTACK 
 
 THEY had guessed it for the last few minutes 
 of the yarn. To gauge the effect upon them, 
 one must remember that they were out to 
 hunt the narrator, fearing to be guyed if they did 
 not catch him. What would the guying be like 
 when the real fact was known? The fact that they 
 had been sailing to hunt for Vanderdecken with 
 Vanderdecken on board, and not only on board 
 but acting as sailing master. It was the sort of 
 joke that becomes immortal, like the joke about 
 Handy Andy throwing the wash jug out of the 
 window instead of the water, the sort of story that 
 would preserve the protagonists in ridicule, not 
 for years but for ages. 
 
 And yet there was no spark of anger in the 
 mind of Hank, or in the mind of George. Candon, 
 by his confession and story and evident regret 
 for the business, had drawn their teeth; also in 
 the last few days he had taught them to like and 
 admire him, and in some extraordinary way he 
 had in the last few minutes made them feel that 
 their affairs were subordinate to his and that they 
 were only side characters in a story that was his. 
 
 114
 
 THE ATTACK 115 
 
 All the same in the mind of each lay the fact that 
 they had been done brown and the conviction that 
 B. C. must now never be taken by the police even 
 if they had to shoot him. 
 
 Hank was the first to speak. 
 
 "Well," said he, "it's a Kid Lewis of a punch, 
 there's no denying it, and if it was all from your 
 own shoulder, B. C., I'm not saying I wouldn't 
 have hit back, but there's more in this than a man 
 can see. Maybe I'm talking through my hat, but 
 seems to me it's curious. Me putting out on this 
 show and J. B. advertising me and you coming 
 into 'Frisco on top of the advertisement and 
 taking it up. Well, there's no use in talking, let's 
 clean the slate. I'm not sure if an expedition was 
 putting out to collar Hank Fisher, I wouldn't join 
 it same as you did, specially if I had the McGinnis 
 crowd after me. What do you say, Bud?" 
 
 "Oh," said George, "what's the good of 
 talking. Forget it." 
 
 "That's easy said," put in Candon, "mind you, 
 I don't blame myself for joining in with you same 
 as I did, you were after me, anyhow, and I didn't 
 know you from Adam, but it was a low-down 
 trick making you sign that contract, binding you 
 to put me ashore with five thousand dollars in my 
 pocket after handing you over the Dutchman, 
 which was myself. That's what's been getting 
 me the last few days. It was just the same with 
 the yacht business. I started out only to douse 
 the liquor, but when it came to stripping the
 
 116 VANDERDECKEN 
 
 diamonds and money off those ducks I was as 
 keen as McGinnis, then when the thing was done 
 and the stuff safely hived, I was mortal sorry for 
 myself. I've got a black streak in me and that's 
 the truth, nigger black, and there's no use 
 talking." 
 
 "No matter," said Hank. " Forget it. You've 
 got a damn big white streak in you, B. C. I 
 reckon we're all pretty much striped if it comes to 
 that anyhow what we've got to do now is save 
 that girl and get the boodle. You can skip when 
 we've collared the stuff it'll be something to 
 bring back to 'Frisco anyhow." 
 
 "I'm going back with you to 'Frisco," said 
 Candon, "I'm not afraid to face the music." 
 
 "Well, there's time enough to talk about that," 
 put in the other. "The thing is now to get the 
 girl. Time's up and we've got to start. What's 
 your plan?" 
 
 "Rush them," said Candon. "Three of our 
 Chinks will be enough with us to help in the 
 shouting, go and pick three of them, will you! 
 Then we'll row ashore, leave the boat beached, 
 crawl over those rocks 'tween us and the next bay, 
 get right up to the edge of their camp and 
 stampede them, shouting like ballyhoos and firing 
 over their heads. One of us had better look after 
 the girl and pick her up and waltz off with her, I 
 reckon I'm the strongest, maybe, and I'll do the 
 snatching don't use more than two rounds 
 apiece when you let off over their heads, you'll
 
 THE ATTACK 117 
 
 maybe want the rest if the hatchet men show 
 fight." 
 
 "That's clear," said Hank. "I'll go pick the 
 
 Chinks." 
 
 He left the cabin and the two others turned 
 their attention to the Lugger pistols, emptied 
 the magazines, oiled them, tried the mechanism 
 and refilled them. Then with the pistols and 
 extra ammunition they came on deck. 
 
 The waning moon had not yet risen, but the 
 stars were beginning to blaze, and against them 
 the peak of San Nicolas with its cloud top looked 
 like a giant with a turbaned head. Through the 
 windless night the wash of the waves on the 
 beach came clear, rhythmical, slumbrous like the 
 pulse of the sleeping sea. 
 
 Hank had got his men into the boat, he took 
 the pistol handed to him by Candon and the 
 ammunition, then, with a glance at the deck where 
 Charley was in charge, he led the way overside 
 and the boat pushed off. 
 
 " You 're sure of the Chinks'?" asked George in 
 a whisper as they rowed. 
 
 "Sure," replied Hank. "I've told them 
 they've only got to shout and I'll give five dollars 
 to the chap that shouts the loudest. I tipped them 
 that these guys have got an American girl with 
 them and that the American Government will 
 plaster them with dollars if we get her away 
 Oh, they're right enough. Now, not a word out of
 
 118 VANDERDECKEN 
 
 you all when we get to the beach. Just follow 
 B. C. and hold your breath for the shouting. ' ' 
 
 The boat grounded on the soft sand and they 
 tumbled out, hauled her up a few feet and Hank, 
 taking a small lantern he had brought with him, 
 lit it and placed it on the sands close to the bow. 
 Then they started. Europe in the van, Asia in 
 the rear. 
 
 The rocks were soon reached. The rocks just 
 here are easy to negotiate, great flat-topped 
 masses rising gradually from the bayside to a 
 summit that falls as gradually to the sands of the 
 bay beyond. 
 
 When they reached the summit the blaze of two 
 fires on the beach showed out close together, their 
 light blending in an elliptical zone, beyond which 
 the tents hinted of themselves. 
 
 "The Chinks are round one, the white men by 
 the other," said Candon. "Couldn't be better for 
 we've got them divided. Now then, you two, 
 follow me and do as I do and for the love of 
 Mike don't sneeze. Got your guns handy? 
 That's right." 
 
 He began the descent. Then when they 
 reached the sands he got on hands and knees. 
 
 Scarcely had he done so than the notes of a 
 guitar came through the night from the camp of 
 the white slavers and the first words of a song. 
 They could not make out the words, but they 
 could tell at once that the singer was neither 
 American nor English. That high nasal voice
 
 THE ATTACK 119 
 
 spoke of Spain where the cicadas shrill in the 
 plane trees in the heat-shaken air. 
 
 " Dagoes," said Hank. 
 
 "Come on," said Candon. 
 
 Then, had anyone been watching, across the 
 sands towards the zone of fire-light, six forms 
 might have been seen crawling, liker to land crabs 
 than the forms of men or beasts. 
 
 The Chinks around their fire were broken up 
 into parties playing games and smoking. By the 
 white man's fire sat the guitar player on a camp 
 stool, the light full on his sharp profile, another 
 man leaning on his elbow lay smoking cigarettes, 
 and a woman seated on the sand, an elderly- 
 looking woman of Jewish type, was engaged in 
 some sort of needlework, and her hand as it 
 moved, seemed covered with rings. 
 
 George thought he had never beheld a more 
 sinister looking trio. The girl was nowhere to be 
 seen. 
 
 George, Hank and Candon put their heads 
 together. 
 
 "She's in one of the tents," whispered B. C., 
 "tied up for the night most like." 
 
 "Shall we rush them now?" asked Hank. 
 
 "Yep, get your guns ready. Look! There's 
 the girl ! Now then, boys ! ' ' 
 
 The girl who had just left the most seaward of 
 the tents stood for a moment with the vague light 
 of the fire touching her. She was very small. To 
 George, in that half moment, she seemed only a
 
 120 VANDERDECKEN 
 
 child, and the sight of her contrasted with her 
 captors came to them as though timed to the 
 moment. 
 
 The beach blazed out with noise, the ear- 
 splitting explosions of the Luggers and the yells 
 of the attackers swept the man on the sands to 
 his feet. George saw, as one sees in a dream, the 
 whole of the Chinese casting cards and dice and 
 flying like leaves driven by the broom of the wind. 
 He had a vision of Hank downing the cigarette 
 smoker, then he got a smash on the head from a 
 guitar and was rolling on the sands with a man 
 who was shouting "Hell, hell, hell!" punching 
 him to silence whilst the woman with nails in his 
 neck was trying to strangle him, screaming all 
 the time till Hank dragged her off, crying, 
 "We've got the girl come on come on! We've 
 got the girl !" Then the nightmare shifted and he 
 was running, Candon in front of him with some- 
 thing on his shoulder that struggled and fought 
 and screamed for help, then he was stumbling 
 over rocks, Hank helping him, Hank laughing and 
 whooping like a man in delirium, and shouting to 
 the stars: "We've got the girl! We've got the 
 girl!" 
 
 Then came the glow-worm glimmer of the lamp 
 by the boat, and the boat with them all crowding 
 into it, Chinks and all, and the musky smell of the 
 Chinks, the push off and a great silence broken 
 only by the oars and Candon 's voice crying,
 
 THE ATTACK 121 
 
 "Lord! she's dead!" and Hank's voice, "No, she 
 ain't, only fainted." 
 
 The Wear Jack's side with Charley showing a 
 lantern, the getting on board with their helpless 
 bundle, and the vanishing of Candon with her 
 down the companion way to the saloon, then and 
 only then did things shake back to reality whilst 
 Hank took both George's hands in his. "Bo, 
 we've done it," said Hank. 
 
 ' ' We sure have, ' ' said George. 
 
 Which was a fact if they only had known.
 
 CHAPTER XIX 
 
 A SEA FIGHT 
 
 MEANWHILE the Chinks with absolute 
 imperturbability and under the orders of 
 Charley, were getting the boat on board. 
 As it came on deck Candon appeared. 
 
 "She's come to," said Candon. "I've stuck 
 her in the bunk in the after cabin, but she's so 
 rattled she won't speak just lays there. Hurry 
 up with the anchor, you boys. Listen ! ' ' 
 
 From shoreward through the night came 
 sounds, far-away shouting and then the throb of a 
 gong. 
 
 "Those guys are collecting the hatchet men," 
 cried Hank, "they'll maybe try and cut us off 
 from the next bay there was a boat on the 
 sands. Lord! and I've dropped my Lugger." 
 
 "I've got mine," said George. 
 
 "Mine's in the cabin," said Candon, "get the 
 windlass going and I'll start the engine. Give 
 me a call when the mud hook's up and look 
 slippy." He dived below and as he dived a 
 loose bunt of sail puffed out and a breeze from 
 the nor 'west laid its fingers on the cheek of 
 Hank. 
 
 122
 
 A SEA FIGHT 123 
 
 "Wind's coming," cried Hank. " Leave the 
 windlass, get to the halyards. Hi ! Charley there, 
 look alive, man. Your throat and peak halyards- 
 Bud, lay forward and get the gaskets off the jib." 
 He rushed to the hatch of the engine room. 
 "Candon, below there! Wind's coming, I'm get- 
 ting sail on her, that damned junk will lay for us 
 sure and I'm not trusting the engine any." He 
 rushed back to the wheel and stood whilst the 
 mainsail, fore and jib were got on her. Then 
 came the sound of the winch and the anchor came 
 home whilst the slatting canvas filled and Hank 
 turned the spokes of the wheel setting her on a 
 course south by east. 
 
 Candon's head bobbed up from below. 
 
 "I can't get the durned thing to go," said he. 
 
 1 'Never mind," said Hank, "the wind's fresh- 
 ening. ' ' 
 
 As he spoke it breezed up strong, the main- 
 sheet tautened and the boom lifted as the sails 
 bellied hard against the stars and the Wear Jack 
 leaned over to it, boosting the ebony water to 
 snow. 
 
 Candon took the wheel from Hank. 
 
 "It's bad luck we have to run right past them," 
 said he as the next bay opened, showing the junk 
 lit up as if for a festival and the fires on the beach. 
 
 "They'll have had time to collect their wits 
 and man the junk and they'll know it's not the 
 police. ' '
 
 124 VANDERDECKEN 
 
 "Oh, we've got the heels of them," said Hank. 
 
 "Hope so," said the other. "Look! they're 
 getting sail on her." 
 
 In the dim light the vast lug sail of the junk 
 could be seen rising and even before it fully took 
 the wind, she was moving. 
 
 "They're rowing!" cried George. "Look! 
 they've got the sweeps out!" 
 
 Candon looked. The fag end of a moon rising 
 over the hills of California showed now clearly 
 the junk putting out to sea ahead of them, the 
 flash and movement of the sweeps, the great lub- 
 berly lateen sail being trimmed and the foam 
 dashing from the bow. 
 
 "They've got us," said Hank, "get your guns 
 ready if it comes to boarding. Where's yours, 
 B. C.?" "Down in the cabin? one sec." He 
 dived below. Then he came up again. "Cabin 
 door's bolted." 
 
 "Whach you say!" cried Candon. 
 
 "Cabin door's bolted, can't get in " 
 
 "Maybe it's stuck," said Candon. "Don't 
 bother with it, we've no time for fiddling, lay hold 
 of something to bat these chaps with if they try 
 and board. Hell! biit she's racing, that junk." 
 
 She was. Urged by wind and oars, making 
 ahead to hit the course of the Wear Jack at an 
 acute angle, she seemed bound to do it. 
 
 "What's her game?" asked George. 
 
 "Foul us, get broadside on and board us," 
 replied Candon.
 
 A SEA FIGHT 125 
 
 "How'd it be to put her about and get her on 
 a wind!" asked Hank. 
 
 1 ' No use, going about would give her lengths 
 those junks shoot up into the wind like all pos- 
 sessed and the sweeps help Leave her to me." 
 
 The Wear Jack kept on. 
 
 Racing now almost parallel the junk ahead 
 with sweeps drawn in, the two boats held only 
 half a cable length apart. They could see the 
 junk's deck swarming, the hatchet men, now that 
 they had got their courage were voicing it, and 
 yells like the strident sound of tearing calico 
 came mixed with the wash of the waves and the 
 beating of a gong. Closer they got, still closer, 
 the Wear Jack gaining v under a strengthening 
 flaw of the wind. Then, with a shout and with a 
 lightning movement, Candon, to the horror of the 
 others, put his helm hard over. The Wear Jack 
 checked, shied just like a horse, and with a thun- 
 der of slatting canvas, and rattling blocks, 
 plunged at the junk, ramming her abaft the 
 chunky mast. The fellow at the steering sweep 
 shifted his helm to get clear, the junk forged 
 to starboard and the bowsprit of the Wear Jack, 
 like a clutching hand, snapped stay after stay 
 bringing the great sail down like a Venetian blind 
 over the crowd on deck. 
 
 "We're free," shouted Candon, "bowsprit's 
 half gone. No matter, get forward, Hank, and 
 clear the raffle!" 
 
 Then as the Wear Jack forged ahead, the Kiro
 
 126 VANDERDECKEN 
 
 Shiwo drifting her faster than the junk, the wind 
 took her sails. 
 
 ''They aren't sinking, are they?" cried George. 
 
 ''Sinking nothing," replied B. C., turning his 
 head. "They'll get back ashore with their sweeps. 
 If they were, it'd be a good job. What's the 
 damage, Hank?" 
 
 "Bob stay gone," came Hank's voice. "Bow- 
 sprit seems all right Lord, it's a miracle." 
 
 Then he came aft having set Charley and the 
 Chinks on repairs. 
 
 "B. C.," said Hank, "you're a marvel. What 
 put it into your nut to do itf" 
 
 "It came to me," said the other, "they'd have 
 done it to us in another tick, got fast and downed 
 us. Hit first that's my motto." 
 
 "Well," said Hank, "you've done it." 
 
 Away back in the moonlight across the heave 
 of the sea, they could make out the dismasted 
 wreck floundering like a drunken thing, listing to 
 starboard with the weight of her broken wing, 
 gastados, out of the running done for.
 
 DOWN BELOW 
 
 GEORGE and Hank went forward to super- 
 intend the work of the Chinks on the 
 bowsprit; Candon, at the wheel and well 
 content with the work of the night, felt thirsty. 
 There was no one to fetch him a drink, tea was 
 what he fancied and thinking of tea made him 
 think of the tea things which were in the cabin. 
 Then he remembered what Hank had said about 
 the cabin door being closed. 
 
 It occurred to him now that the girl had bolted 
 the door. No doubt the poor creature was half 
 crazy with fright. It had not occurred before to 
 the ingenuous and benevolent B. C. that the girl 
 must look on her new captors as more terrible 
 than even the white slavers. The yelling and the 
 shooting, the stampeding of the camp, the way 
 she had been seized, caught up and carried off 
 why, what must she think of them! Up to this 
 he had been too busy to think himself. It was 
 only now, as Hank would have said, that the thing 
 suddenly hit him on the head like an orange. 
 
 "Hank!" shouted B. C. 
 
 "Coming," replied Hank. He came aft. 
 
 127
 
 128 VANDERDECKEN 
 
 "I'm thinking of the girl down below, it's she 
 that's most likely fastened the door, she's most 
 likely scared out of her life the way we've took 
 her off and not knowing who we are." 
 
 "Sure," said Hank. 
 
 "She nearly tore my head off as I was carrying 
 her I remember getting a cat out of a trap 
 once, it acted just the same scared 
 
 "Listen," said Hank, who was standing close 
 to the cabin skylight. 
 
 The skylight was a bit open and fastened from 
 inside; through the opening came sounds as of 
 someone moving about. 
 
 "She's moving," said B. C. "She's got over 
 her fright. Down with you, Hank, and get her 
 story, tell her I'll be down when George comes 
 aft, tell her she's as safe with us as she'd be with 
 her gran 'mother." 
 
 Hank descended. 
 
 Candon heard him knock then his voice. 
 
 "Halloo there." 
 
 Silence. 
 
 "Halloo there." 
 
 Then came a determined little voice. 
 
 "Clear off I've got a pistol" 
 
 Candon, listening, remembered the Lugger 
 pistol he had left on the cabin table. 
 
 Then Hank's voice. 
 
 "Don't be scared, com'n' open the door, don't 
 be soared."
 
 DOWN BELOW 129 
 
 The voice: "I'm not a person to be scared 
 you ought to know that." 
 
 Down below the perplexed Hank, standing 
 before the closed door, was at pause for a mo- 
 ment. Why ought he to have known that! Was 
 she mad after all! 
 
 "Well, open the door anyhow," said he. 
 "Don't you know we're your friends. Good 
 Lord, don't you know what we've risked getting 
 you away from that lot? Come on all the food 
 and stuff's in the lockers and lazarette and we're 
 clean perishing for something to eat." 
 
 "That's good," said the voice, "you'll have to 
 perish till morning, then we'll talk. Now go 
 away, please." 
 
 "Whach you say?" 
 
 "Scatter." 
 
 A long pause. Then Hank's voice, angry. "I 
 tell you what I wish to the Lord we'd left you 
 there." 
 
 And the voice: "You'll be wishing it more 
 when you're in the penitentiary." 
 
 Then Candon could almost hear the perplexed 
 Hank scratching his head. A long pause. Then 
 Hank: 
 
 "But for the Lord's sake, you don't think we 
 want to do you any harm? " 
 
 The voice : * * Then what did you want to do f " 
 
 Hank: "Get you away from that lot." 
 
 The voice: "What for?" 
 
 Hank: "What for why to save you from
 
 130 VANDERDECKEN 
 
 them to save you body and soul didn't you 
 know they were taking you to perdition, clean 
 perdition. ' ' 
 
 Then the voice, after a moment's pause: "I 
 don't know whether you're toughs or religious 
 cranks. It doesn't matter. Anyhow this door 
 doesn't open s'long as it's dark. Now clear, 
 come again in the morning and, if you take my 
 advice, steer straight for Santa Barbara. If you 
 put me ashore safe by morning maybe I'll try 
 and help you with the police, but I don't promise 
 now clear." 
 
 Hank cleared. 
 
 On deck he found George who had come aft. 
 " She's gone bughouse," said Hank, "or else she 
 was one of them, helping in the contraband." 
 
 He recounted the dialogue. "She's got that 
 Lugger pistol and seems to me, boys, she's got the 
 game. It's worse than Pittsburg. Called me a 
 religious crank. Anyhow she's got us, got the 
 grub under her thumb unless we make out with 
 the rice and truck the Chinks feed on." 
 
 "I can't make it out," said George. "I'd 
 have sworn by the look we got at her, through 
 the glass, that she was a prisoner with those 
 scamps. D'y' remember the way she carried on, 
 went and threw herself down on the ground with 
 her face hidden in her arm?" 
 
 "Seems to me," said Hank, "we've been read- 
 ing into the situation more than was in it. She 
 was no prisoner. She was one of them daughter
 
 DOWN BELOW 131 
 
 most likely of that Jew woman I hauled off you 
 well, I wish we'd left her alone and to think of 
 the size of her sitting up and crowing like that. ' ' 
 
 "Oh, it's nothing," said George, "it's the day 
 of the flapper. She most likely was running that 
 show. It's part of the new world the millen- 
 nium that was to come after the war!" 
 
 Candon alone said nothing. The thing had hit 
 him even harder than Hank. The knight errant 
 in him was flattened out, at least for the moment. 
 He remembered the cat he had released from the 
 trap and how it had clawed him but it had taken 
 milk from his hand immediately after and become 
 his friend, whereas this creature ! Then it 
 came to him out of his own mind for Hank's 
 words had produced little effect on him that the 
 truth was he had released her from no trap. 
 She was part and parcel with those scoundrels, a 
 vicious girl made vicious no doubt from bad 
 association. This conviction suddenly coming to 
 his mind produced an uplift. 
 
 "Boys," said B. C. suddenly, "we'll tame her. 
 There's something moving in this more than we 
 can see. Anyhow, we've got her away from 
 those ginks to start with. ' ' 
 
 "That's true," said Hank, his mind taking 
 suddenly the colour of Candon 's. But George 
 was of rougher stuff than these idealists. He 
 went to the skylight and cautiously tried to peep, 
 but could see nothing, then he listened but could 
 hear nothing. He came back to the others.
 
 132 VANDERDECKEN 
 
 "She's lying down, most likely, can't see her 
 or hear her it's all very well talking of taming 
 what do you think this show is? I didn't start 
 ont to tame girls, don't know how to begin, either, 
 I know, it's as much my fault as yours we 
 shouldn't have mixed up in the business and I 
 tell you we are in a tight place. That crowd will 
 swear anything against us and she'll back them. 
 She talked of the police. That's just so, all these 
 white slavers and dope sellers and contrabanders 
 are hand in glove with the police. They couldn't 
 do their business else; we should have left them 
 
 alone. " 
 
 "Now that's clean wrong," said Hank. 
 "Doesn't matter a rap if the girl's a tough, we 
 saved her, anyhow. We did the right thing and 
 she can't make it wrong by being wrong herself." 
 
 "That's a fact," said Candon. 
 
 4 ' Maybe, ' ' replied George. ' ' All the same she 's 
 done us out of our bunks, and what are you going 
 to do with her, anyway? Here you are tied up 
 with a girl, you've taken her from her mother, if 
 that old Jew woman was her mother, ripped her 
 clean out of her environment, she's on our hands. 
 If she doesn't go back to that lot, what are we to 
 do with her?" 
 
 Hank got peppery. "Why in the nation didn't 
 you think of that before we took her," asked he. 
 
 "Why you know well enough," answered the 
 other, "we thought that lot had stolen her away 
 from her people, naturally I thought we'd put
 
 DOWN BELOW 133 
 
 her back again with her people, whereas, now, 
 look where we are. Suppose even we do tame 
 her, as you call it, and she goes straight, who's 
 to feed her and keep her?" 
 
 "Why, Bud," said Hank, "we'll manage some- 
 how. Look at you with all your dollars, what 
 better use could you make of a few of them, and 
 we '11 help." 
 
 "Yes, we'll help," said Candon, forgetting the 
 fact that he was due for either the penitentiary 
 or hoofing it to Callao from the Bay of Whales. 
 "We'll help and the three of us will make out 
 somehow." 
 
 The millionaire said nothing for a moment. He 
 was about to fly out at the cool way these bene- 
 factors of humanity were disposing of his credit 
 and coin. Then he calmed down and said nothing 
 and went forward to get some of the "rice and 
 truck the Chinks feed on" for his companions, 
 also a beaker of water. 
 
 The weather was warm, so warm that sleeping 
 on deck was no penance and Charley being called 
 to the wheel the Wear Jack and her strange cargo 
 snored on south ever south under the night of 
 stars.
 
 CHAPTER XXI 
 
 TOMMIE 
 
 HANK and Candon were asleep, whilst 
 George stood as officer of the watch. A 
 great blaze of light fanning up beyond 
 the coast hills showed the Wear Jack under all 
 plain sail and the gulls following her, royal terns 
 and loons and black-headed gulls, whilst far 
 above a Brandt's cormorant formed an escort in 
 the blue, wheeling, dropping as though to pierce 
 the deck, and then passing off with a cry, north- 
 ward, towards the vanished islands. 
 
 Away over there to the east, fog held the lower 
 hills and made a country of rolling snow to the 
 sea edge, a country now white, now golden as the 
 great sun rose above it, now breaking here and 
 there, and now flying before the wind like the 
 banners of a shattered army. 
 
 At eight o'clock, when they had breakfasted 
 somehow out of materials supplied by Charley, 
 Hank suddenly took the wheel of affairs. 
 
 Not a sound had broken the ominous silence 
 down below and up to now the barred-out men 
 had not spoken a word on the matter. 
 
 134
 
 TOMMIE 135 
 
 "It's lucky for us we have a crew of Chinks," 
 said Hank suddenly and apropos of nothing, "the 
 Chinks don't know and if they did they wouldn't 
 care. If we took our breakfast standing on our 
 heads it would be all the same to them. Well, see 
 here, you fellows, what we going to do? We 
 have to get done with this business right now. 
 I've got a stiff back sleeping in the scuppers and 
 I don't propose to feed for the rest of my natural 
 on this Chow junk. Seeing I did the talking last 
 night, I propose going down to prospect and have 
 a parley." 
 
 "Right!" said the other two with a sudden 
 brightening, as though a burden had been lifted 
 from them. 
 
 "If she won't open," said Hank, as he got on 
 his long legs, "I'll bust that door in. You keep 
 your ears skinned at the hatch and come along 
 down if there's trouble." 
 
 They moved up close to the hatch and Hank 
 went down. They heard his knock and almost 
 immediately on the knock a clear voice say: 
 "Yes?" 
 
 Then Hank: "It's come day now, will you 
 open? I want to have a word with you." 
 
 The voice: "Yes. I will open, on one condi- 
 tion, that after I have drawn the bolts you will 
 wait till I give the word before you come in." 
 
 "Right," 
 
 "If you don't, I'll shoot." 
 
 "Right."
 
 136 VANDERDECKEN 
 
 They heard the bolts being drawn. Then, after 
 a moment, giving her time to get to the other end 
 of the cabin, they heard her cry, * ' Come in. ' ' 
 
 Then her voice: "Well?" 
 
 Silence. 
 
 The voice : ' ' Well what on earth is the matter 
 with you? Can't you speak?" 
 
 Hank: "I'm clean knocked out. Suffering 
 Moses!" 
 
 The voice: "I don't want to know anything 
 about Moses and his sufferings, I just want to 
 know who you are, the name of this ship, and 
 what you mean. Don't come nearer!" 
 
 Hank : ' ' I 'm not Can 't you see I 'm hit ? This 
 has been a mistake." 
 
 The voice: "I should think so." 
 
 Hank: "Now I see you in the light of clay, the 
 whole thing has jumped together in my head 
 Lord! what a mistake." 
 
 The voice: "Well?" 
 
 "Hank: "I'll get on deck for a moment if you 
 dont mind. I'm hit." 
 
 The voice: "So you have said. Well, get on 
 deck and recover yourself and be quick about it 
 if it's a mistake you've got to mend it and get me 
 back go on." 
 
 Hank came on deck, he beckoned to the others 
 and led them forward. 
 
 "Boys." 
 
 "Goon!" 
 
 "Boys, it's Tommie Coulthurst."
 
 TOMMIE 137 
 
 The awful silence that followed this crushing 
 announcement lasted for full twenty seconds, a 
 silence broken only by the slash of the bow wash, 
 the creak of a block and the cry of the gulls. 
 
 Then George said: "Oh, Lord!" 
 
 "You ain't mistaken?" asked Candon feebly. 
 Hank did not even reply. 
 
 "But we've busted their ship," said George, as 
 if protesting against the enormity of the idea that 
 had just put itself together in his brain, "and I 
 nearly did for that gink with the guitar." 
 
 "I know," said Hank, "and I downed that other 
 chap and hauled that Jew woman off you by the 
 left leg well, there we are. What's wrong with 
 this cruise anyhow?" 
 
 "I dunno," said George. "My head's turned 
 inside out. Down with you, Hank, and get her 
 up get her up, we've gotta try and explain. 
 Down with you." 
 
 Hank started aft on a run and vanished. A 
 minute later a deck chair appeared at the hatch, 
 followed by Hank. After Hank came a little hand 
 holding a Lugger pistol, and then the head and 
 body of Tomruie Coulthurst. 
 
 She looked smaller even than by the firelight, 
 small but so exquisitely proportioned that you 
 did not bother about her size. She had no hat, 
 her steadfast seaweed brown eyes were fixed on 
 the men before her and the strange and 
 extraordinary thing was that her face as she 
 gazed at them brought them comfort of a kind.
 
 138 VANDERDECKEN 
 
 For Tommie's face, though small enough, had 
 nothing small in it. It was good to look upon as 
 Truth and Honesty and Courage could make it 
 and Beauty had lent a hand. 
 
 Hank put out the chair. 
 
 "Will you sit down," said Hank. 
 
 Before sitting down she took a glance round at 
 the deck and the Chink at the wheel. Then as 
 though the pistol were bothering her, she threw it 
 into the scupper. She seemed to have read every- 
 thing in the situation and found no danger. 
 
 "Well," said she, "what on earth is it all?" 
 
 "It's a mistake," said Hank. 
 
 ' * So you have told me but seems to me we are 
 getting further from Santa Barbara, we are going 
 down the coast, aren't we?" 
 
 "We are," said George, "and I'll put the ship 
 about right away if you like only I'd ask you to 
 listen to us first and a few miles more or less don't 
 matter. ' ' 
 
 "Go on," said Tommie. 
 
 George, who had recovered his wits sooner 
 than the others, had seized on an idea. Maybe 
 it was Tommie 's face that inspired it. 
 
 "The whole of this business is a most awful 
 mix-up," he began. "First I'd better tell you who 
 we are. My name's Du Cane. George Harley du 
 Cane. This is Mr. Hank Fisher, and this is Mr. 
 Candon. I don't know if you have read in the 
 papers of a yacht putting out from San Francisco
 
 TOMMIE 139 
 
 to catch Vanderdecken, the man who has been 
 raiding yachts f ' ' 
 
 "Yes," said Tommie, "I know about it." 
 
 "Well, this is the yacht. We got along down to 
 San Nicolas and going ashore we saw a Chinese 
 camp. We spotted you through a glass and came 
 to the conclusion you were in the hands of Chinese 
 white slavers. We made up our minds to rescue 
 you." 
 
 "Good Lord!" said Tommie, sitting forward in 
 her chair with wide pupils. 
 
 "And seems to me we did it," said George. 
 "Can you imagine anything more horrible?" 
 
 Tommie 's mouth was open, relaxed, yet in a 
 way rigid. She seemed in the grip of petrified 
 laughter. 
 
 "Not only that," went on George, "but we 
 knocked the mast out of that junk. She chased 
 us and we rammed her. What was she? Part of 
 your show?" 
 
 Tommie 's mouth had suddenly closed itself, 
 laughter had vanished and her eyes shone. 
 
 "Yes, part of our show." 
 
 "And those were real Chinks hatchet men?" 
 
 "Yep we always work with real stuff." 
 
 "We ought to have recognized you," went on 
 George, "we've seen you often enough in the 
 pictures and the press, but the distance was too 
 big, besides looking from a distance you gave us 
 the impression we saw you throw yourself 
 down."
 
 140 VANDERDECKEN 
 
 "I was showing Mr. Althusen a pose," said 
 Tommie. 
 "Altinuenf" 
 
 "The producer." 
 
 "Was that the man playing the guitar by the 
 fire?" 
 
 "Yep." Her eyes still blazed strangely. Hank 
 thought she was going to fly out at them. 
 
 "He smashed his guitar on me," said George. 
 "It's awful." 
 
 "I think it's splendid!" said Tommie.
 
 CHAPTEE XXH 
 
 A PBOBLEM IN PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 IF the deck had opened delivering up Mr. 
 Althusen and his broken guitar the three men 
 could not have been more astonished. 
 
 "I think it's splendid," she said again. "You 
 saw everything all wrong, but how could you know. 
 I think it's just fine. Those hatchet men were a 
 tough crowd and they'd have killed you for sure 
 only you scattered them like you did. You saw a 
 girl being kidnapped as you thought and you just 
 dashed in. Nobody but white Americans would 
 have acted like that. ' ' 
 
 "Oh, anyone would," murmured Hank. 
 
 "No they wouldn't they'd gone off for the 
 police or said, 'Oh, my, how shocking,' and gone 
 off about their business. You struck. Well, I'm 
 sorry for locking you out, but I'm like yourselves, 
 I didn't know." 
 
 "Oh, that's nothing," said George. 
 
 Tommie's eyes were fixed on Candon. 
 
 ' * It was you collared me, ' ' said she to him. 
 
 The blue eyes of Candon met the liquid brown 
 eyes of Tommie. 
 
 141
 
 142 VANDERDECKEN 
 
 He nodded his head. 
 
 Tommie considered him for a moment atten- 
 tively, as though he were an object of curiosity or 
 a view anything but a living male being. It was 
 sometimes a most disconcerting thing about her, 
 this detachment from all trammels of sex and 
 convention, the detachment of a child. She 
 seemed making up her mind whether she liked 
 him or not and doing it quite openly, and her mind 
 seemed still not quite made up when, with a sigh, 
 she came to. 
 
 "Well," said she, "and now about getting 
 back." 
 
 "That's the question now," said George 
 hurriedly and with his lips suddenly gone dry so 
 that he had to moisten them. "We've got to get 
 you back." 
 
 "Yes, that's so," said Hank, unenthusiasti- 
 cally. "We've got to do it somehow or 'nother." 
 
 "Look here," said George, suddenly taking his 
 courage in both hands. "I don't mind the row 
 we're sure to get into, it's the guying that gets me. 
 Think of the papers. When we started out on this 
 fool business we got it pretty hot and now this 
 on top of everything. ' ' 
 
 "I know," said Tommie. She was sitting for- 
 ward in her chair, clasping her knees, biting her 
 lip in thought and staring at the deck planking. 
 She saw the position of the unfortunates as 
 clearly as they did. The fact that these men had 
 done for her a fine and chivalrous action which
 
 A PROBLEM IN PSYCHOLOGY 143 
 
 was still absurd hit her in an extraordinary way. 
 Her sturdy and honest little soul revolted at the 
 thought of what the press would make of the 
 business. She could hear the laughter only wait- 
 ing to be touched off, she could read the scare 
 head-lines. She knew, for publicity was part of 
 her life. 
 
 The stage was already prepared for the farce : 
 by now every paper in America would be setting 
 up the story of how Tommie Coulthurst had 
 been abducted. It only waited for these men to 
 be dragged on as the abductors amidst a roar of 
 laughter that would sound right round the world. 
 
 She had read in the Los Angeles papers the 
 humorous comments on them and their expedition 
 and now, this ! 
 
 No, it must not be. 
 
 For a moment she looked back at the scene of 
 the night before, finer than any scene in a cinema 
 play, real, dramatic, heroic, yet seemingly based 
 on absurdity was it absurdity! Not a bit not 
 unless the finer promptings of humanity were 
 absurd and courage and daring ridiculous. They 
 had risked a lot, these men, and she had never in 
 her life before seen men in action. Ridicule of 
 them would hit every fibre of her being. No, it 
 must not be. Question was how to save them. 
 
 ''Say," said Tommie, suddenly clasping her 
 knees tighter and looking up, "we're in a tough 
 tangle, aren't we?" 
 
 The others seemed to agree. "Sam Brown,"
 
 144 VANDERDECKEN 
 
 went on Tommie, "he's one of the electric men at 
 the Wallack Studios, caught a rat an' put it in 
 a flower pot with a slate on top and a weight on 
 the slate and left it till next morning; he keeps 
 dogs, an' came to find it and it was gone, said it 
 must have got out and put the slate back, and 
 Wallack told us to remember that rat if we were 
 ever cornered by difficulties in our work an' take 
 as our motto, 'Never say die till you're dead.' 
 Well, we're in a tight place but we aren't dead. 
 Question is what's the first thing to do?" 
 
 "The first thing," said Hank, "why, it's to get 
 you back safe." 
 
 "I'm safe enough," said Tommie. "It's not a 
 question of safety s' much as smothering this 
 thing. S'pose we put back now to Santa Barbara, 
 where 'd you be? No, the first thing is to get you 
 time. I reckon that rat would have been eaten if 
 he hadn't had time to think his way out or if 
 someone hadn't foozled along and loosed him. 
 What's your plans? You said you were out after 
 Vanderdecken, where 'd you expect to catch him?" 
 
 Hank looked at Candon and noticed that he had 
 turned away. 
 
 "Well, it's not him we are after now so much 
 as his boodle," said Hank. "W T e know where it's 
 hid and we want to get it." 
 
 "Where's it hid?" 
 
 "Place called the Bay of Whales down below 
 Cape St. Lucas."
 
 A PROBLEM IX PSYCHOLOGY 145 
 
 "How long will it take you to fetch there and 
 back?" 
 
 "About a fortnight, maybe." 
 
 Tommie considered for a moment. 
 
 "Well," she said at last, "seems to me that the 
 only thing to do is to go on till we meet some ship 
 that'll take me back. When I get back I'll have 
 to do a lot of lying, that's all. Ten to one they'll 
 put this business down to Vanderdecken and 
 maybe I'll say Vanderdecken took me and you 
 collared me back from him how'd that be?" 
 
 Candon turned. He struck his right fist into 
 his open left palm. "There's more'n this than 
 I can get the lie of," said B. C. as if to himself. 
 
 "What you say?" asked Tommie. 
 
 "Oh, he means it's a mix-up," said George. 
 "But see here we can't do it." 
 
 "Which?" 
 
 "We can't put more on you than we've done 
 already. I know, I was mean enough to want 
 you to go on with us when I started that talk 
 about our being guyed it's different now." 
 
 "Yep," said Hank. 
 
 "Sure," said Candon. 
 
 "Have you done?" asked Tommie. "Well 
 then I'm going on, where 's the damage? I'm used 
 to the rough and the open. That film we were 
 working on is finished and I guess a few days' 
 holiday won't do me any harm. B 'sides it works 
 up the publicity. Why, every day I'm away is 
 worth a thousand dollars to Wallacks, leaving
 
 146 VANDERDECKEN 
 
 myself alone. They'll book that film in Timbuc- 
 too. Do you see? It's no trouble to me, why 
 should you worry? Now I propose we get some- 
 thing to eat." 
 
 "But how about clothes," asked George. 
 
 "Which, mine? Oh, I reckon I'll manage 
 somehow. The thing that gets me is a tooth- 
 brush. ' ' 
 
 "Thank God," said George. 
 
 "Which?" 
 
 "I've got four new ones," said the millionaire.
 
 CHAPTER XXIH 
 
 THE NEW CHUM 
 
 THE extraordinary thing about Miss Coult- 
 hurst was the absence and yet the presence 
 of the feminine in her. Possessed of all 
 the electrical properties of a woman and the 
 chummable properties of a man, this dangerous 
 individual presiding at the breakfast table of the 
 Wear Jack and dispensing tea to her captors 
 created an atmosphere in which even the fried 
 eggs seemed part of romantic adventure. 
 
 The sordid had dropped out of everything, 
 fear of consequences had vanished for the mo- 
 ment, the shifting sunlight on the Venesta panel- 
 ings, the glitter of the Tyrebuck tea things, the 
 warm sea-scented air blowing through the sky- 
 light, everything bright and pleasant seemed to 
 the hypnotised ones part of Tommie. 
 
 There was no making conversation at that 
 breakfast party. Shut up all night with no one 
 to talk to, she did the talking, explaining first of 
 all and staging for their consideration the people 
 they had attacked the night before. Althusen was 
 the biggest producer in Los Angeles that is to 
 
 147
 
 148 VANDERDECKEN 
 
 say the world, and Moscovitch, the camera man, 
 was on all fours with him, Mrs. Raphael was 
 Julia Raphael, the actress, and the play was 
 4 'The Chink and the Girl." The hatchet men 
 were real kai-gingh and Tommie was the girl they 
 were making off with, and the scene on San 
 Nicolas was not the end of the play but some- 
 where in the middle, for pictures are produced 
 in sections labelled and numbered and sometimes 
 the end sections are produced first. 
 
 Tommie had been born on a ranch. She was 
 quite free with her private history. Her father 
 was Ben Coulthurst maybe they'd heard of 
 him. Well, anyway, he was well-known in Texas 
 *till he went broke and died and left Tommie to the 
 care of an aunt who lived in San Francisco where 
 Tommie was half smothered she couldn't stand 
 cities and maybe would have died if the movie 
 business hadn't come along and saved her. Fresh 
 air stunts, as they knew, were her vocation, and 
 she guessed she w r as made of india rubber, seeing 
 up to this she had only broken one collarbone. 
 Her last experience was dropping from an aero- 
 plane on to the top of a sixty-mile-an-hour 
 express. 
 
 "I've seen you do that," said Hank. "Made 
 me sweat in the palms of my hands. ' ' 
 
 Well, that was nothing; plane and express 
 moving at the same speed it was as simple as 
 stepping off the sidewalk; being thrown out of a 
 window was a lot worse. She thanked her Maker
 
 THE NEW CHUM 149 
 
 she was born so small, but what got her goat was 
 the nicknames her diminutive size had evoked. 
 Some smartie on a Los Angeles paper had called 
 her the "Pocket Artemis." What was an Arte- 
 mis anyway? 
 
 "Search me," said Hank. 
 
 "It's a goddess," said George, "same thing as 
 Diana. ' ' 
 
 Well, she had made him apologise, anyhow. 
 
 Candon alone took little part in the conversa- 
 tion. This gentleman, so ready in an emergency, 
 seemed all abroad before the creature he had 
 captured and carried off. He sat absorbing her 
 without neglecting his food and later on when she 
 was on deck he appeared with half an armful 
 of books. 
 
 She was a book worm in private life and had 
 hinted at the fact, out of which B. C. made profit. 
 
 "Here's some books," said he. "They aren't 
 much, but they're all we've got. That chair 
 comfortable?" 
 
 Then they fell into talk, Candon taking his seat 
 beside her on the deck and close to the little heap 
 of books. 
 
 They had scarcely spoken to one another at the 
 breakfast table and now, all of a sudden, they 
 were chattering together like magpies. Hank and 
 George, smoking in the cabin down below, could 
 hear their voices through the skylight. 
 
 "Wonder what she'd say if she knew," said 
 Hank in a grumbling tone.
 
 150 VANDERDECKEN 
 
 "Knew what?" asked George. 
 
 " 'Bout B. C. being Vanderdecken." 
 
 "Oh, she'd ten to one like him all the better," 
 said George. "It's his watch and I wish he'd 
 quit fooling and look after the ship." 
 
 "The ship's all right," said Hank. 
 
 "What do you mean?" 
 
 "You couldn't hurt her or break her on a rock, 
 not till she's done with us; you couldn't rip the 
 masts out of her or put her ashore, not till she's 
 finished with us; she's a mug trap and we're the 
 mugs. I believe Jake put a spell on her. What's 
 to be the end of it? I tell you it makes me crawl 
 down the back when I think of that junk. What 
 made that blue-eyed squatteroo of a B. C. ram her 
 like that for?" 
 
 "Well, if he hadn't, she'd have boarded us." 
 
 "Boarded us, be hanged! If he'd blame well 
 stuck ashore at 'Frisco, we wouldn't have landed 
 at San Nicolas." 
 
 "Well, there's no use whining," said George. 
 "We're in the soup question is how to get out. 
 We've got to collar that boodle first so's to have 
 something to show." 
 
 "Something to show Lord! We'll be shows 
 enough. ' ' 
 
 "Well, strikes me since we went into such a 
 damn-fool business " 
 
 Hank snorted. "Well, I didn't pull you in, you 
 would butt in it's none of my fault." 
 
 "Who said it was?"
 
 THE NEW CHUM 151 
 
 1 1 1 'm not saying who said it was or who said it 
 wasn't thing is, there's no use in complaining." 
 
 "I said that a moment ago." 
 
 "Oh, well, there you are I'm going on deck." 
 
 Almost a quarrel and all because the pocket 
 Artemis was chatting to another man who had 
 blue eyes a blue-eyed squatteroo who was only 
 yesterday good old B. C.
 
 CHAPTER XXIV 
 
 THE FEEIQHTEB 
 
 THE sea grew bluer. 
 Day by day the Kiro Shiwo increased its 
 splendour as the Wear Jack, at a steady ten 
 knot clip, left the latitude of Guadeloupe behind, 
 raising Eugenio Point and the heat-hazy coast 
 that stretches to Cape San Pablo. 
 
 The threatened difference between Hank and 
 George had died out. The reason of this release 
 was not far to seek. Tommie, at that moment of 
 her life, was as destitute of all the infernal sex 
 wiles of womanhood as a melon. She had no idea 
 of men as anything else than companions; that 
 was why the pocket Artemis failed a bit in love 
 scenes. A year ago she had signed a contract 
 with the "Wallack and Jackson Company by which 
 she received forty thousand dollars a year for 
 five years, and Wallack had reason sometimes to 
 grumble. Tommie had no idea of how to fling 
 herself into the arms of movie heroes, or to do 
 the face-work in a close-up when the heroine is 
 exhibiting to the audience the grin and glad eye, 
 or the " Abandon," or the "Passionate Appeal" 
 so dear to the movie fan. 
 
 "Good God, that ain't the way to make love," 
 
 152
 
 THE FREIGHTER 153 
 
 would cry Scudder, her first producer. "Nuzzle 
 him stop. Now then, make ready and get 
 abandon into it. He's not the plumber come to 
 mend the bath, nor your long-lost brother you 
 wished had remained in 'Urope and you're 
 hugging for the sake of appearance. He's the guy 
 you're in love with. Now then, put some heart, 
 punch and pep into it now then ! Camera ! ' ' 
 
 No good. 
 
 "Oh Lord, oh Lord!" the perspiring Scudder 
 would cry, "looks as if you were nursing a teddy 
 bear. Strain him to your heart. Stop flapping 
 your hands on his back. Now, look up in his 
 face so astonished yet almost fearful. Can't 
 you understand the wonder of love just born in 
 the human heart, the soul's awakening? Lord! 
 you're not lookin' at an eclipse of the sun ! That's 
 better, hang on so, count ten and then nuzzle 
 him." 
 
 But despite all directions Tommie was some- 
 what a failure in passion. 
 
 Wallack summed the position up when he 
 declared that it would be worth paying ten 
 thousand dollars a year to some man that would 
 do the soul's awakening business with Tommie. 
 She could laugh, weep, fly into a temper, ride a 
 mustang bare-backed, drive a motor car over a 
 precipice, be as funny in her diminutive way as 
 Charlie Chaplin, but she couldn't make love worth 
 a cent. 
 
 That was what Hank Fisher & Co. sensed, when
 
 154. VANDERDECKEN 
 
 the girl illusion vanished, disclosing a jolly com- 
 panion and nothing more ; sensed, without in the 
 least sensing the fact that owing maybe to her 
 small size, she had a power almost as strong as 
 the power that wakens the wonder of love in the 
 human heart. 
 
 Life was different on board, owing to this new 
 importation; busier too. This was an entirely 
 new stunt, to Tommie, and just as she knew every- 
 thing about an automobile, an aeroplane, and a 
 horse, she seemed determined to know everything 
 about the Wear Jack. Her capacity for assimilat- 
 ing detail was phenomenal ; the use of everything 
 from the main sheet buffer to the mast winch 
 had to be explained, she had to learn how to steer, 
 and, having learned, she insisted on taking her 
 trick at the wheel. When she was not sitting with 
 her nose in a book, she was helping or hindering 
 in the running of the ship. Then there was the 
 question of her clothes to keep them busy. 
 
 Drawing on to the tropics, it was more a 
 question of shedding clothes, especially when it 
 came to the matter of tweed coats and skirts. 
 Bud, in his millionaire way, had come well pro- 
 vided ; boxes and boxes had arrived from Hewson 
 & Loder's and had been received by Hank and 
 stowed as "more of Bud's truck." White silk 
 shirts, suits of white drill, they all rose up like a 
 white cloud in George's mind one blue and burning 
 morning as he contemplated Tommie in her 
 stuffy tweeds.
 
 THE FREIGHTER 155 
 
 "Look here, T. C.," said George, "you can't 
 get along in that toggery. I've half a dozen suits 
 of white down below and I'll get one of the Chinks 
 to tailor a couple of them for you. Hank, roust 
 out those boxes, will you?" 
 
 They tried a white drill coat on her. 
 
 They had never really recognised her size till 
 they saw her in that coat, which would almost 
 have done her for an overcoat. Then they recog- 
 nised that perfect proportion had given her 
 stature and that, if the gods had made her head 
 an inch or so more in circumference, she would 
 have been a dwarf. 
 
 Then Hank started forward to find a tailor 
 amongst the Chinks and returned with a slit- 
 eyed individual who contemplated his strange 
 customer, standing like Mr. Hyde in the garment 
 of Dr. Jekyll, took eye measurements of the 
 length of her limbs and the circumference of her 
 waist and retired to the foc'sle with two pairs of 
 white drill trousers and two coats to work his 
 works, also some white silk pajamas and shirts, 
 producing by the next morning an outfit which 
 fitted, more or less. She solved the question of 
 shoes and stockings by discarding them on deck. 
 
 That was on the morning when, across the sea 
 to port, Cape San Lazaro showed itself and the 
 heat-hazy opening to Magdalena Bay. 
 
 The steady nor 'westerly breeze that had held 
 all night began to flicker out at dawn ; when they 
 came up from breakfast the world had gone to
 
 156 VANDERDECKEN 
 
 sleep. From the hazy coast to the hazy horizon 
 nothing moved but the vast marching glassy 
 swell coming up from a thousand miles away and 
 unruffled by the faintest breeze. 
 
 Tommie, having come on deck and taken a sniff 
 at the glacial condition of things, curled herself 
 in one of the deck chairs with a book. The Wear 
 Jack was well provided with deck chairs and 
 Hank, having inspected the weather, dived below 
 and brought one up ; George followed suit. Then, 
 having placed the chairs about under the awning 
 which had been rigged, they sat and smoked and 
 talked, Tommie, up to her eyes in her confounded 
 book, taking no part in the conversation. 
 
 T. C. was one of those readers who become 
 absolutely dead to surroundings. Curled there 
 with her nose in "Traffics and Discoveries," she 
 looked as if you might have knicked her without 
 waking her, and this fact somehow cast a pall over 
 the conversation of Hank and Bud, who, after a 
 few minutes, found their conversation beginning 
 to dry up. 
 
 "Lord," said Hank, "I wonder how long this 
 beastly calm's going to hold." 
 
 "Don't know," said George. 
 
 Then Candon came on dwk. He had no chair. 
 He stood with his back to the port rail cutting up 
 some tobacco jad filling a pipe. 
 
 "I wo^er how long this beastly calm is going 
 to hold," said George. 
 
 'Lord knows," said Candon.
 
 THE FREIGHTER 157 
 
 Tommie chuckled. Something in the book had 
 tickled her, she turned over a page rapidly and 
 plunged deeper into oblivion like a puffin after 
 smelts. 
 
 "What's the current taking us?" asked George. 
 
 "Maybe three knots," said Hank. "There's 
 no saying." He yawned, then, as though the idea 
 had just struck him, "Say what's wrong with 
 trying the engine?" 
 
 "It's too beastly hot for tinkering over 
 engines," yawned George, "and B. C. says he 
 can't get the thing to go." 
 
 "Go'n' have another try, B. C.," said Hank. 
 "There's no use in us sitting here wagging our 
 tails and waiting for the wind. Tell you what, 
 I'll draw lots with you give's a piece of paper, 
 Bud." 
 
 George produced an old letter and Hank tore 
 off three slips, one long and two short. 
 
 Candon, with little interest in the business, 
 drew a short slip, George the long one. 
 
 "It's me," said George rising. "Well now, I'll 
 just tell you, if I don't get the thing to revolute 
 I'll stick there till I do. I'm not going-'to be beat 
 by a bit of machinery." He moved towards the 
 hatch. 
 
 "I'll go with you," said Tommie, suddenly 
 dog's-earing a page and closing her book, as 
 though she had been listening to the whole con- 
 versation, which, in a way, she had. 
 
 Hank and Candon were left alone and Candon
 
 158 VANDERDECKEN 
 
 took his seat in the chair vacated by George. 
 Neither seemed in good humour ; perhaps it was 
 the heat. 
 
 From down below, through the open hatch 
 leading to the little engine room, they could hear 
 voices! George's voice and the voice of T. C. 
 
 Then, as they sat yawning, another sound came, 
 faint and far away, rhythmical, ghostly. 
 
 Hank raised himself and looked. Away to the 
 s'uth'ard, across the glassy sea, a freighter was 
 coming up. She was a great distance off, but in 
 the absolute stillness and across that glacial calm 
 the thud of her propellers could be felt by the ear. 
 
 Both men left their chairs and leaned on the 
 rail watching her. 
 
 Said Candon, after a moment's silence, "D'y' 
 know what I've been thinking? I've been thinking 
 we've played it pretty low-down on T. C." 
 
 "How?" 
 
 "Well, it's this way. McGinnis will be after 
 us, sure, as soon as he can get his hoofs under 
 him. He'll know we're making for the Bay of 
 Whales and he'll be after us. Question is, can 
 he get the Heart tinkered up in time, or would 
 he take another boat. If he does and catches 
 us, there's sure to be a fight. We should have 
 told T. C. that. I thought of it this morning at 
 breakfast. ' ' 
 
 "Well, why didn't you tell her?" 
 
 "Well, I didn't, somehow. There's another
 
 THE FREIGHTER 159 
 
 thing, we've never told her who I am. That's 
 worried me." 
 
 1 'Well, it's easy enough to tell her." 
 
 "No, sir, it isn't, not by a long chalk. I almost 
 came to it yesterday. It was when you two were 
 down below and I had her here on deck showing 
 her how to make a fisherman's bend. It came to 
 me to tell her and I opened out about Vander- 
 decken, saying he wasn't maybe as bad as some 
 folk painted him, then she closed me up and put 
 the lid on." 
 
 "What did she say?" 
 
 "Said stealing was stealing and taking women's 
 jewelry was a dirty trick." 
 
 "Why didn't you explain?" 
 
 "Because she was right. Right or wrong, 
 how's a fellow to explain? Well, there it is. 
 You'd better go down to her and say, 'That lad 
 Candon's Vanderdecken and Pat McGinnis is 
 after him and there'll maybe be a dust-up when 
 we get down to the Bay, and there's a freighter 
 coming along that'll take you back north and 
 you'd better get aboard her.' " 
 
 "Me!" 
 
 "Yes, you it's clean beyond me." 
 
 Hank watched the freighter. She was away up 
 now out of the water and showing the white of her 
 bridge screen. At her present speed she would 
 soon be level with them. 
 
 "She looks to be in ballast, don't she?" said 
 Hank. 
 
 "Yep."
 
 160 VANDERDECKEN 
 
 "Where's she going, do you think!" 
 
 " 'Frisco, sure." 
 
 "That's a long way from Los Angeles." 
 
 "Maybe, but it's nearer than the Bay o' 
 Whales." 
 
 The freighter grew; she was making anything 
 from twelve to fifteen knots ; she would pass the 
 Wear Jack and a signal would stop her as sure ap 
 a bullet through the eye will stop a man. 
 
 Then, suddenly, something that had risen to 
 Hank's surface intelligence like a bubble, burst 
 angrily. 
 
 "You can go down and tell her yourself," said 
 he, "it's no affair of mine. If she wasn't fooling 
 there with Bud, she'd have seen the ship. How'n 
 the nation do you think I 'm going to go down and 
 give you away like that ? ' ' 
 
 Candon hung silent, as if offended with the 
 other. He wasn't in the least. His eyes were 
 fixed on the water over the side. Eight below, in 
 the bit of shadow cast by the ship against the 
 morning sun, the water lay, pure emerald, and 
 showing fathom-deep glimpses of life, scraps of 
 fuci, hints of jelly fish and once, far down, like a 
 moving jewel in a world of crystal, an albacore 
 passing swift as a sword thrust. 
 
 Ahead of them on the lifting swell a turtle was 
 sunning itself awash in the blue of that lazy silent 
 sea, one polished plate of its carapace showing 
 like a spot of burnished steel. 
 
 Candon found himself wondering why one plate 
 should shine like that. It looked now like a little
 
 THE FREIGHTER 161 
 
 window in a roof, then it seemed to Mm that out 
 of that window came an idea, or rather a vision. 
 A horrible vision of the freighter going off with 
 Tommie and vanishing beyond the northern sky- 
 line with her. Not till that moment had he 
 recognised that T. C. was at once the lynch-pin of 
 their coach and the thing that had suddenly come 
 to lend reason to his own life. His whole existence 
 had led logically up to the Vanderdecken business 
 and the Vanderdecken business had led to her 
 capture and her capture had given him something 
 to care for, not as a man cares for a girl, but 
 more as a lonely man cares for a child or a dog. 
 It was her small size, maybe, that clinched the 
 thing with him and made him feel that he'd sooner 
 do a dive overside than lose touch with her. 
 
 Hank was feeling at that moment pretty much 
 the same. The microscopic Tommie had captured 
 the leathery Hank as a chum. 
 
 The freighter drew on and they could see now 
 the touch of white where the spume rose in a 
 feather at her fore foot. It was a huge brute of a 
 Coleman liner up from Callao or Valparaiso, a 
 five thousand tonner with a rust-red funnel. 
 
 If they stopped her, it would be necessary to 
 get T. C. on deck right away and the Chinks ready 
 to man the boat. There would be scarcely time 
 to say good-bye besides, it was ten to one T. C. 
 wouldn't want to go besides she was in those 
 togs. The freighter was abreast of them now. 
 They watched her without a word. Suddenly a 
 stream of bunting fluttered up and blew out on
 
 162 VANDERDECKEN 
 
 the wind of her passage. Candon shaded his eyes 
 and looked. 
 
 ''Wishing us a pleasant voyage," said Candon. 
 
 They watched the flags flutter down and the 
 great turtle backed stern with the sunlight on it 
 and the plumes of foam from the propellers. 
 Then, as the wash reached them, making the Wear 
 Jack groan and clatter her blocks, came a new 
 sound, a thrud-thrud-thrud right under their feet, 
 followed by the voice of George yelling, ' ' Hi, you 
 chaps, get the helm on her, engine's going." 
 
 Candon sprang to the wheel and Hank came 
 and stood beside him. 
 
 Hank said, "That freighter must have thought 
 us awful swine not acknowledging their signal." 
 
 "Maybe they thought right," said Candon. 
 
 At that moment, George appeared, triumphant 
 from the engine room. "She's running a treat," 
 said he, "and T. C.'s looking after her. What's 
 made the cross swell?" Without waiting for an 
 answer and at a call from Tommie, he dived below 
 again. 
 
 Half an hour later when he came on deck, taking 
 a look aft, George said: "Now if we hadn't an 
 auxiliary engine and if it wasn't running well, 
 this calm would have lasted a fortnight. Look 
 there!" 
 
 They looked. Away to northward a vast 
 expanse of the glassy swell had turned to a tray of 
 smashed sapphires. 
 
 It was the breeze.
 
 CHAPTER XXV 
 
 THEY TURN THE CORNER 
 
 THEY had given Tommie the after cabin, but 
 this hot weather the three of them kept the 
 deck at night so that she might have her 
 door open, and to-night, just before dawn when 
 the Wear Jack was right on to Cape St. Lucas, 
 Candon and George were keeping watch and 
 listening to Hank. Hank was lying on the deck 
 with a pillow under his head, snoring. The engine 
 had been shut off to save gasoline, and the Wear 
 Jack, with a Chink at the wheel and the main boom 
 guyed out, was sailing dead before the wind, 
 under a million stars, through a silence broken 
 only by the bow wash and the snores of Hank. 
 
 Candon, pacing the deck with George, was in a 
 reflective mood. 
 
 "Wonder what that Chink's thinking about?" 
 said he. ' ' Home mostlike. They say every China- 
 man carries China about with him in his box and 
 unpacks it when he lights his opium pipe. Well, 
 it's a good thing to have a home. Lord! what's 
 the good of anything else, what's the good of 
 working for money to spend in Chicago or 
 
 163
 
 164 VANDERDECKEN 
 
 N' York? I reckon there's many a millionaire in 
 the cities, living all day in his office on pills an' 
 pepsin, would swop his dollars for the old home 
 if he could get it back, the old shanty near where 
 the cows used to graze in the meadows and the 
 fish jump in the stream, with his old dad and his 
 mother sitting by the fire and his sister Sue 
 playin' on the step." 
 
 "Where was your home?" asked George. 
 
 "Never had one," said Candon, "and never 
 will." 
 
 "Oh, yes, you will." 
 
 "Don't see it. Don't see where it's to come 
 from, even if I had the dollars. I'm a lone man. 
 Reckon there's bucks in every herd same as me. 
 Look at me, getting on for forty and the nearest 
 thing to a home is a penitentiary. That's so." 
 
 "Now look here, B. C.," said George, then he 
 stopped dead. A sudden great uplift had come in 
 his mind. Perhaps it was the night of stars 
 through which they were driving or some waft 
 from old Harley du Cane, the railway wrecker, 
 who, still, always had his hand in his pocket for 
 any unfortunate ; perhaps he had long and sub- 
 consciously been debating in his mind the case of 
 Candon: who knows? 
 
 "You were going to say *" said Candon. 
 
 "Just this," said George. "Close up on the 
 penitentiary business. There's worse men than 
 you in the church, B. C., or I'm a nigger. You're
 
 THEY TURN THE CORNER 165 
 
 going to have a home yet and a jolly good one. 
 I've got it for you." 
 
 "Where?" 
 
 "In my pocket. Fruit farming, that's your 
 line, and a partner that can put up the dollars 
 that's me." 
 
 Candon was silent foi- a moment. 
 
 "It's good of you," said he at last, "damn good 
 of you. I reckon I could make a business pay if 
 it came to that, but there's more than dollars, 
 Bud. I reckon I was born a wild duck. I've no 
 anchor on board that wouldn't pull out of the 
 mud first bit of wind that'd make me want to go 
 wandering. ' ' 
 
 "I'll fix you up with an anchor," said Bud, 
 ' ' somehow or other. You leave things to me and 
 trust your uncle Bud." 
 
 He was thinking of getting Candon married, 
 somehow, to some girl. He could almost visualize 
 her: a big, healthy, honest American girl, busi- 
 nesslike, with a heart the size of a cauliflower 
 some anchor. 
 
 "Sun's coming," said George, turning and 
 stirring Hank awake with the point of his toe. 
 Hank sat up yawning. 
 
 Away on the port bow, against a watery blue 
 window of sky, Cape St. Lucas showed, its light- 
 house winking at the dawn. Then came the clang 
 of gulls, starting for the fishing, and moment by 
 moment as they watched, the sea beyond the cape 
 showed sharper, steel-blue and desolate beyond
 
 166 VANDERDECKEN 
 
 words. The north could show nothing colder, till, 
 all at once, over the hills came colour on a sud- 
 denly materialised reef of cloud. 
 
 They held their course whilst the day grew 
 broader and the cape fell astern; then, shifting 
 the helm, they steered right into the eye of the 
 sun for the coast of Mexico. 
 
 They had turned the tip of Lower California.
 
 CHAPTER XXVI 
 
 THE BAY OF WHALES 
 
 MAGDALENA BAY, that great expanse of 
 protected water between Punta Entrado 
 and Santa Margarita Island, was once a 
 great haunt of the sulphur bottom whales. Then 
 came the shark fishers and then came the Amer- 
 ican Pacific Fleet and made a gun practice ground 
 of it, just as they have made a speed testing 
 ground of the Santa Barbara Channel between 
 the Channel Islands and the coast. Maybe that 
 drove the sulphur bottoms to go south all in a 
 body and the more pessimistical ones to commit 
 suicide in a bunch, and all on the same day in the 
 bay once known as the Bay of Jaures and now as 
 the Bay of Whales. For the bones seem all of the 
 same date, ghost-white, calcined by sun and worn 
 by the moving sands that cover them and uncover 
 them and the winds that drive the sands. 
 
 Another thing, you find them almost to the foot 
 of the low cliffs that ring the bay. How has this 
 happened? The wind. The wind that can lift as 
 well as drift, the wind that is always redisposing 
 the sands. 
 
 167
 
 168 VANDERDECKEN 
 
 The bay stretches for a distance of four miles 
 between horn and horn ; the water is strewn with 
 reefs visible at low tide. Emerald shallows and 
 sapphire depths and foam lines and snow of gulls 
 all show more beautiful than any picture; and 
 beyond lie the sands and the cliffs and the country 
 desolate as when Jaures first sighted it. Near 
 the centre of the beach, at the sea edge, stands a 
 great rock shaped like a pulpit. 
 
 "That's the bay," said Candon, pointing ahead. 
 
 It was noon and the Wear Jack, with all plain 
 sail set, was driving straight for a great blue 
 break in the reefs, Hank at the helm and Candon 
 giving directions. The Chinks were all on deck, 
 gathered forward, their faces turned shoreward, 
 gazing at the land almost with interest. 
 
 ''Where are the whales?" asked Tommie sud- 
 denly. "You said it was all covered with the 
 skeletons of whales." 
 
 "You'll see them quick enough," said Candon. 
 "Port, steady so." 
 
 The rip of the outgoing tide was making a 
 lather round the reef spurs. Ahead the diamond- 
 bright dead blue water showed up to a line where 
 it suddenly turned to emerald. 
 
 "It's twenty fathoms up to there," said 
 Candon, "and then the sands take hold. I'm 
 anchoring somewhere about here. It's a good 
 bottom. Make ready with the anchor there!" 
 
 He held on for another minute or so, then the 
 wind spilled from the sails and the anchor fell in
 
 THE BAY OF WHALES 169 
 
 fifteen fathom water and nearly half a mile from 
 the shore. 
 
 The boat was got over, with two Chinks to do 
 the rowing, and they started, Candon steering. 
 
 "Where's the whales?" asked Tommie. 
 
 They were almost on to the beach now and there 
 lay the sands singing to the sun and wind. Miles 
 and miles of sand, with ponds of mirage to the 
 south, and gulls strutting on the uncovered beach ; 
 a vast desolation, with, far overhead, just a dot 
 in the blue, an eagle from the hills of Sinaloa. 
 An eagle so high as to be all but invisible, whose 
 eyes could yet number the shells on the beach 
 and the movement of the smallest crab. But 
 where were the whales? 
 
 T. C. had once seen a whale's skeleton in a 
 museum, set up and articulated. Her vivid imag- 
 ination had pictured a beach covered with whale 
 skeletons just like that, and, instead of thanking 
 providence for the absence of such a bone-yard, 
 her mind grumbled. She was wearing one of 
 Bud's superfluous panamas and she took it off 
 and put it on again. 
 
 As they landed close to the pulpit rock Hank 
 said nothing, George said nothing, Candon, visibly 
 disturbed, looked north and south. Here but a 
 short time ago had been ribs lying about like great 
 bent staves, skulls, vertebrae. Here to-day there 
 was nothing but sand. 
 
 He did not know that a fortnight ago a south 
 wind had "moved the beach," bringing up hun-
 
 170 VANDERDECKEN 
 
 dreds of thousands of tons of sand not only from 
 the south end but from the bay beyond ; that in a 
 month more, maybe, a north wind would move the 
 beach, sending the sand back home; that only 
 between the winds the bones were laid fully bare. 
 No storm was required to do the work, just a 
 steady driving wind sifting, sifting, sifting for 
 days and days. 
 
 The fact that the beach seemed higher just here 
 suddenly brought the truth to Candon. 
 
 "Boys," said he, "it's the sand." 
 
 No one spoke for a moment under the frost that 
 had fallen on them. Then Hank said, "Sure 
 you've struck the right bay?" 
 
 Like Tommie, he had pictured entire skeletons, 
 not bones and skulls lying flat and easily sanded 
 over. 
 
 "Sure. It's the sand has lifted over them." 
 
 Scarcely had he spoken when a thunderbolt fell 
 into the shallows a cable length away from the 
 shore. It was the eagle. In a moment it rose, a 
 fish in its talons, and went climbing the air to 
 seaward, and then up a vast spiral stairs in the 
 blue, and then, like an arrow, away to the far-off 
 hills. 
 
 It was like an underscore to the desolation of 
 this place, where man was disregarded if not un- 
 known. 
 
 "Well," said George, coming back to things, 
 "the bones aren't any use anyway. Let's start 
 for the boodle. Strike out for the cache, B. C."
 
 THE BAY OF WHALES 171 
 
 They turned, following their leader, and made 
 diagonally for the cliffs to the north. Candon 
 walked heavily, a vague suspicion filling his mind 
 that Hank and George held something more in 
 reservation than mere disappointment over absent 
 skeletons. The odious thought that they might 
 suspect him of being a fraud came to him as he 
 walked, but he had little time for self communing. 
 Something worse was in store, and he saw it now, 
 and wondered at his stupidity in not having seen 
 it before. 
 
 Amongst the implements of the expedition two 
 spades had been brought. The Chinks carried 
 these spades. They brought up the rear of the 
 procession, silent, imperturbable, apparently in- 
 curious. They would not do the digging when 
 the moment came. Candon and Hank, or George 
 would be easily able to negotiate the few feet of 
 hard sand that covered the treasure. The Chinks 
 just carried the spades. Candon stopped dead all 
 of a sudden. Then he went on, quickening his 
 pace almost to a run. The booty had been buried 
 at a place easily recognisable, on the southern 
 side of a little out-jut of the cliff and about ten 
 feet from an issue of water that came clear and 
 cold and bright through a crack in the cliff face. 
 
 The issue was still there, but it was far lower 
 than before; the sand had risen. The wind had 
 done its work and five feet or more of new sand 
 lay upon the cache. It ran up the cliff race like a 
 snow drift. Five or six feet of pliable sand that
 
 172 VANDERDECKEN 
 
 seemed an almost impassable barrier. The big 
 man folded his arms and stood for a moment 
 dumb. Then he laughed. 
 
 "Boys," said he, "I'm a fraud." 
 
 No answer came but the wash of the little waves 
 on the beach and far gull voices from the south. 
 He turned about fiercely. 
 
 "I've led you wrong. I've fooled you, but it's 
 not me. It's my pardner. It's the sand. Sand. 
 That's me and all my work. All I've ever stood 
 on, sand. Sand. Six foot deep." 
 
 "For the land's sake, B. C.," cried Hank, "get 
 a clutch on yourself. What's wrong with you 
 anyhow ? ' ' 
 
 "He means the sand has covered the cache," 
 said the steady voice of Tommie. 
 
 Candon did not look at her. It seemed to him 
 just then, in that moment of disappointment, that 
 Fate was carefully explaining to him the futility 
 of his works and his life, and in an immeasurably 
 short space of time all sorts of little details, from 
 his Alaskan experiences to his absurd rescue of 
 Tommie, all sorts of weaknesses, from his enjoy- 
 ment of robbery to his inaction in letting that 
 freighter pass, rose before him. He struggled to 
 find more words. 
 
 "It's just me," said he, and fell dumb and 
 brooding. 
 
 "Well," said George, "it's a long way to come 
 to be fooled like this but there's an end of it. 
 How many men would it take to move that stuff?"
 
 THE BAY OF WHALES 173 
 
 ' ' Six foot of sand and square yards of surface ; 
 it would take a steam dredger," said Hank, in a 
 hard voice. 
 
 Tommie 's eyes were fixed on Candon. She 
 knew little of the whole thing, but she knew suffer- 
 ing when she saw it. From what he had said and 
 from his attitude, she could almost read Candon 's 
 thoughts. The movie business is a teacher of 
 dumb expression. 
 
 "D'you mean to say you're going to turn this 
 down?" asked Tommie. 
 
 ''What's the good?" said George. He was 
 feeling just as Hank felt. The absence of whales' 
 bones, the flatness of landing on an ordinary beach 
 where they had expected to see strange sights, 
 had deflated them both. They did not doubt the 
 bona fides of B. C., but as a medicine man he was 
 at a discount. 
 
 They saw before them hopeless digging. The 
 thing was not hopeless, but in that moment of de- 
 fection and disappointment it seemed impossible. 
 
 "Well," said Tommie, "next time I start on a 
 show of this kind, I'll take girls along that's 
 all I've got to say." 
 
 In the dead silence following this bomb-shell, 
 Candon looked up and found himself looking 
 straight into the eyes of the redoubtable T. C. 
 
 "Talk of sands," she went on, talking to him 
 and seeming to disregard the others, "and all 
 your life has been sands and that nonsense, why 
 it's the sand in a man that makes him. Anyhow,
 
 174 VANDERDECKEN 
 
 I've not come all this distance to go back without 
 having a try. Aren't you going to dig?" 
 
 The scorn in her tone had no equivalent in her 
 mind, no more than the spur on a rider's heel has 
 to do with his mentality. She was out to save 
 B. C. from himself. Also, although she did not 
 care a button for the hidden "boodle," her whole 
 soul resented turning back when on the spot. 
 
 Candon, standing before her like a chidden 
 child, seemed to flush under his tan, then his eyes 
 turned to Hank. 
 
 "Lord! let's dig," suddenly said Hank. "Let's 
 have a try anyhow, if it takes a month." He 
 stopped and stared at the hopeless looking task 
 before him. "We'll get the whole of the Chinks 
 to help " 
 
 "Chinks!" said Candon, suddenly coming back 
 to his old self in a snap. "This is white men's 
 work I brought you here and I'll do it myself if 
 I have to dig with my hands. It's there, and 
 we've got to get it." 
 
 "I'll help," said Tommie. 
 
 "Well, I reckon we'll all help," said George, 
 unenthusiastically. 
 
 It was a strange fact that, of the three men, 
 Tommie had least power over George du Cane. 
 Less attraction for him maybe, even though the 
 very clothes on her back were his.
 
 CHAPTER XXVH 
 
 THE CONFESSION 
 
 THE size of the task was apparent to all of 
 them, but to none more clearly than 
 Candon. 
 
 First of all, reckoning to deal with hard stuff, 
 he had brought spades, not shovels. The bundle 
 had been buried hurriedly; even under the best 
 conditions he would have had to turn over many 
 square feet of stuff to find it. Then this soft fickle 
 sand was a terrible material to work on; it was 
 like trying to shovel away water, almost. But the 
 most daunting thing to him was the fact that fate 
 had induced him to make the cache on the south 
 side of the out-jut of cliff instead of the north, for 
 the south wind, blowing up from the bay beyond, 
 had added feet to the depth to be dealt with, just 
 as a wind drifts snow against any obstruction. 
 The sand level on the north of the jut was much 
 lower, and it was not drifted. Then there was the 
 question of time. Given time enough the McGrin- 
 nis crowd would surely arrive, if he knew any- 
 thing of them, and there would be a fight. And 
 there was the question of Tommie. 
 
 175
 
 176 VANDERDECKEN 
 
 This last consideration only came to him now 
 on top of her words, "I'll help." He stood for a 
 moment plunged back into thought. Then he 
 turned to the others. 
 
 ''Boys, I reckon I've been talking through my 
 hat. White man or yellow man it's all the same, 
 we'll all have to take our turn. Back with you, 
 you two, to the ship and get canvas enough for 
 tents. We'll want three. Grub, too; we'll want 
 enough for a week. Leave two Chinks to look 
 after the schooner and try to get some boarding 
 to make extra shovels, as much as you can, for 
 we'll want some to shore up the sand. We've got 
 to camp here right on our work." 
 
 "Sure," said Hank. "Come along, Bud, we'll 
 fetch the truck." They turned towards the boat. 
 
 "I'll go with you," said Tommie, "I want to 
 fetch my book." 
 
 "I'd rather you didn't," said Candon, "I want 
 you to help me here." 
 
 "Me!" said Tommie surprised. 
 
 "Yes if you don't mind." 
 
 "All right," said she. Then to Hank, "You'll 
 find the book in my bunk, and fetch me my tooth 
 brush, will you and that hair brush and my 
 pyjamas, if we've got to camp." 
 
 "Right," said Hank, "you trust me." 
 
 They shoved off, and to George, as he looked 
 back, the huge figure of Candon and the little 
 figure of his companion seemed strange standing 
 side by side on that desolate beach. Stranger
 
 THE CONFESSION 177 
 
 even than the whales ' skeletons that had vanished. 
 
 The wind had veered to the west and freshened, 
 blowing in cool from the sea. 
 
 "Well," said Tommie after they had watched 
 the boat half way to the schooner, ' ' what are you 
 going to do now? What did you want me for?" 
 
 * * I want to have a word with you, ' ' said Candon. 
 "S'pose we sit down. It's fresh and breezy here 
 and I can think better sitting down than standing 
 up. I'm bothered at your being dragged into 
 this business, and that's the truth, and I've things 
 to tell you." They sat down and the big man took 
 his pipe from his pocket and filled it in a leisurely 
 and far-away manner, absolutely automatically. 
 
 Tommie watched him, vastly interested all of 
 a sudden. 
 
 "It's this way," said he, "I got rid of the other 
 chaps so's I could get you alone, and I'm not 
 going one peg further in this business till you 
 know all about me and the chances you're running. 
 Y' remember one day on deck I was talking to 
 you about that chap Vanderdecken ? " 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "Well, I'm Vanderdecken." 
 
 "You're which?" 
 
 "I'm Vanderdecken. The swab that pirated 
 those yachts." 
 
 "You!" said Tommie. 
 
 "Yes. I'm the swab." 
 
 A long pause followed this definite statement. 
 The gulls cried and the waves broke. Tommie,
 
 178 VANDERDECKEN 
 
 leaning on her elbow and watching the breaking 
 waves, seemed trying to adjust her mind to this 
 idea and failing utterly. She was not considering 
 the question of how Vanderdecken, who was being 
 chased by Hank and George, had managed to be 
 in partners with them; she was up against the 
 great fact that Candon was a robber. It seemed 
 impossible to her, yet he said so. 
 
 "But what made you do it?" she cried, suddenly 
 sitting up and looking straight at him. 
 
 "I didn't start to do it," said he, throwing the 
 unlit pipe beside him on the sand. "All the same 
 I did it, and I '11 tell you how it was. ' ' He sat up 
 and holding his knees started to talk, telling her 
 the whole business. 
 
 It sounded worse than when he told Hank and 
 George, for he gave nothing in extenuation, just 
 the hard bricks. But hard bricks were good 
 enough for Tommie ; she could build better with 
 them and quicker than if he had handed her out 
 ornamental tiles to be inserted at given positions. 
 
 When he had done talking and when she had 
 done building her edifice from his words, she 
 shook her head over it. It wasn't straight. In 
 some ways it pleased her, as, for instance, the 
 liquor business. She had sympathy with that, but 
 the larceny appealed to her not as an act of piracy 
 but theft. T. C. would have been smothered in a 
 judge's wig, but she would have made an excellent 
 judge for all that. Candon was now clearly before 
 her, the man and his actions ; he had been frank
 
 THE CONFESSION 179 
 
 as day with her, he was a repentant sinner, and to 
 cap all he had saved her, at all events in intention, 
 from Chinese slavers. His size and his sailor 
 simplicity appealed to her. 
 
 All the same, her sense of right refused to be 
 stirred by the blue eyes of Candon, by his size, 
 his simplicity, his patent daring, by the something 
 or other that made her like him even better than 
 Hank or George, by the fact that he had carried 
 her off on his shoulder against her will and in the 
 face of destruction and absurdity. 
 
 "You shouldn't have done it," said Tommie. 
 "I don't want to rub it in, but you shouldn't. 
 You shouldn't have got mixed up with that 
 McGinnis crowd. What made you?" 
 
 "You've put your finger on it," said Candon. 
 1 ' I don 't know what made me. Want of steering. ' ' 
 
 "Well," said Tommie, "you wish you hadn't, 
 don't you?" 
 
 "You bet." 
 
 "Well then, you're half out of the hole. D'you 
 ever say your prayers ? ' ' 
 
 ' * Me ! no ' ' Candon laughed. * * Lord, no I 've 
 never been given that way." 
 
 "Maybe if you had you wouldn't have got into 
 this hole or maybe you would. No telling, ' ' said 
 Tommie. "I'm no praying beetle myself, but I 
 regularly ask the Lord for protection. You want 
 it in the movies. Dope and a broken neck is what 
 I'm afraid of. I don't mind being killed, but I 
 don't want to be killed suddenly or fall for cocaine
 
 180 VANDERDECKEN 
 
 or whisky, the way some do. Well, I guess work 
 is praying sometimes and I shouldn't wonder but 
 you'll have some praying to do with your fists, 
 getting the sand off that stuff. And when you've 
 sent it back to its owners, you'll have prayed 
 yourself clear that's my 'pinion." 
 
 "I've got something else to tell you," said 
 Candon, "I reckon you don't know me yet, any- 
 how you've got to have the lot now I've begun." 
 
 "Spit it out," said the confessor, a bit uneasy 
 in her mind at this new development and the 
 serious tone of the other. 
 
 "I told the boys there was a black streak in me. 
 And there is. I let you down." 
 
 "Let me down?" 
 
 "Yep. D'you remember when you were tinker- 
 ing at the engine that day the calm took us?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "Well, a big freighter passed within hail and 
 I let her go." 
 
 "Well, what about it?" 
 
 "I should have stopped her so that you might 
 have got back to 'Frisco." 
 
 "But I didn't want to go to 'Frisco." 
 
 "Why, you said the day we first had you on 
 board that you could get back on some ship." 
 
 "Oh, did I? I'd forgot well, I wouldn't have 
 gone in the freighter, to 'Frisco of all places." 
 
 "I didn't know that. From what you said I 
 should have stopped her." 
 
 "Why didn't you?"
 
 THE CONFESSION 181 
 
 "Well," said he, "I didn't want to lose you. 
 Hank and me didn't want you to go off and leave 
 us, you'd been such a good chum." 
 
 "Well, forget it. I didn't want to leave you, 
 either. Not me ! Why, this trip is the best holi- 
 day I've had for years. If that's all you have to 
 bother about, forget it. ' ' 
 
 "There's something else," said he. "The 
 McGinnis crowd is pretty sure to blow along down 
 after us and there'll be a fight, sure. You see, 
 we're held here by that sand; that will give them 
 time to get on our tracks." 
 
 "If they come, we'll have to fight them," said 
 Tommie. "But, if you ask me, I don't think 
 there's much fight in that lot, by what you say of 
 them." 
 
 "They're toughs, all the same. I'm telling 
 you, and I want you to choose right now we can 
 stay here and risk it, or push out and away back 
 and put you down at Santa Barbara, give us the 
 word." 
 
 Tommie considered deeply for a moment. Then 
 she said: "I'm not afraid. I reckon we can 
 match them if it comes to scratching. No, we'll 
 stick. You see, there's two things you can't put 
 me back in Santa Barbara without the whole of 
 this business coming out and Hank Fisher and 
 Bud du Cane being guyed to death. Your ship is 
 known, Althusen and that lot will give evidence 
 you can't put me back out of the Wear Jack any- 
 how."
 
 182 VANDERDECKEX 
 
 "Then how are you to get back!" asked Candon. 
 
 "I've been trying to think that long enough," 
 said Tommie. "You remember the rat in the 
 flower pot something or another will turn up, 
 or I'll have to do some more thinking." 
 
 "Do you know what I'm thinking?" asked 
 Candon. "I'm thinking there's not many would 
 stick this out just to save a couple of men from 
 being guyed." 
 
 "Maybe I don't know. Anyhow the other 
 thing is I want to see the end of this business and 
 that stuff got out of the sand and handed back to 
 its owners. Lord, can't you see? If we turned 
 back now we'd be quitters, and I don't know 
 what you'd do with yourself; but I tell you what 
 I'd do with myself, I'd take to making lace for a 
 living or go as mother's help paugh !" 
 
 "God!" said Candon, "give me your fist." 
 
 Tommie held out her fist and they shook
 
 CHAPTER XXVIII 
 
 HANK 
 
 HANK, as before mentioned, was a man of 
 resource; there was nothing much he 
 could not do with his hands backed by his 
 head. In two hours on board the Wear Jack he 
 had found the materials for and constructed three 
 tent poles ; in the sail room, and by sacrificing the 
 awning, he had obtained the necessary canvas; 
 ropes and pegs evolved themselves from nowhere 
 as if by magic. Then in some way, and from the 
 interior of the Wear Jack, he managed to get 
 planking, not much, but enough for his purpose. 
 Whilst he worked on these matters, George super- 
 intended the removal of stores, bully beef, canned 
 tomatoes, canned kippered herrings, biscuits, 
 butter, tea, condensed milk, rice. He sent two 
 Chinks ashore with a boat-load; then, when they 
 came back, the rest of the stuff was loaded into 
 the boat, together with the tent poles and canvas 
 and blankets. Last came a small bundle contain- 
 ing Tommie's night things and tooth brush. Then 
 they pushed off. 
 
 Candon helped in the unloading of the boat and 
 then they set to raising the tents. 
 
 183
 
 184 VANDERDECKEN 
 
 In this section of the bay there were two breaks 
 in the line of cliffs, a north and a south break. 
 Hank drew the line of the tents between the 
 breaks and at right angles to the cliffs, so as to 
 escape, as much as possible, the hot land wind 
 when it blew. Also he put a long distance between 
 each tent. Tommie's was nearest the cliffs, the 
 Chinks' nearest the sea. By sunset the canvas 
 was up, a fire lit, a beaker filled with fresh water 
 from the issue in the cliff and the stores piled to 
 leeward of the middle tent. Hank had even 
 brought mosquito netting and a plan for using 
 it in the tents. He seemed to have forgotten 
 nothing, till Tommie opened her bundle. 
 
 "Where's my book?" asked Tommie. 
 
 " Blest if I haven't forgot it!" cried Hank. 
 ' ' Chucklehead say! I'll put off right now and 
 fetch it." 
 
 "Oh, it'll wait," said the other. "I guess I'll 
 be busy enough for a while not to want books. You 
 can fetch it tomorrow." 
 
 If Hank had known the consequences of delay, 
 he would have fetched it there and then, but he 
 didn't. He went to attend to the fire. The fire 
 was built of dry seaweed, bits of a broken-up 
 packing case and fragments of wreck wood, and 
 when the kettle was boiled over it and tea made, 
 the sun had set and the stars were looking down 
 on the beach. 
 
 After supper Tommie went off to her tent, 
 leaving the men to smoke. The two Chinks, who
 
 HANK 185 
 
 liad built a microscopic fire of their own, were 
 seated close to it talking, maybe of China and 
 home. The wind had died out and through the 
 warm night the sound of the waves all down the 
 beach came like a lullaby. 
 
 Hank was giving his ideas of how they should 
 start in the morning attacking the sand, when 
 Candon, who had been smoking silently, suddenly 
 cut in. 
 
 "I've told her," said Candon. 
 
 "What you say?" asked Hank. 
 
 "I've told her all about myself and who I am, 
 and the chances, told her when you chaps went 
 off for the stores. Told her it's possible McGinnis 
 may light down on us before w r e've done, seeing 
 the work before us on that sand, and there'll may- 
 be be fighting she oughtn't to be mixed up in." 
 
 "B' gosh!" said Hank. "I never thought of 
 that. What did she say?" 
 
 "Oh, she said, 'Let him come.' Wouldn't listen 
 to anything about turning back, said we'd be 
 quitters if we dropped it now." 
 
 "Lord, she's a peach." 
 
 "She's more than that," said Candon. "Well, 
 I'm going for a breather before turning in." He 
 tapped his pipe out and, rising, walked off down 
 along the sea edge. 
 
 George laughed. He was laughing at the size 
 of Candon compared to the size of Tommie, and 
 the quaint idea that had suddenly come to him,
 
 186 VANDERDECKEN 
 
 the idea that Candon had suddenly become gone 
 on her. 
 
 George could view the matter in a detached 
 way, for though T. C. appealed to him as an 
 individual, he scarcely considered her as a girl. 
 
 A lot of little signs and symptoms collected 
 themselves together in his head, capped by the 
 tone of those words, "She's more than that." 
 Yes, it was highly probable that the heart punch 
 had come to B. C. Why not? Tommie as an 
 anchor wasn't much, as far as size went, yet as 
 far as character and heart who could tell? All 
 the indications were in her favour. 
 
 "She's a peach," murmured Hank, half aloud, 
 half to himself. 
 
 Hullo, thought George, has old Hank gone bug- 
 house on her too! Then aloud: "You mean 
 Tommie?" 
 
 "Yep." 
 
 "Oh, she's not so bad." 
 
 "And I went and forgot her book! Bud, d'you 
 remember to-day, when we were all standing like 
 a lot of lost hoodlums, going to turn our backs 
 on this proposition, and the way she yanked us 
 round? It came on me then." 
 
 "What?" 
 
 "I dunno. Bud, say " 
 
 "Yes?" 
 
 "She's great. It came on me to-day like a belt 
 on the head with a sandbag. It came to me before. 
 Remember the day she was first aboard and
 
 HANK 187 
 
 wouldn't put back, wanting to save our faces? 
 Well, that hit me, but the jaw punch got me to-day, 
 and just now when she trundled off to her tent, 
 lugging that blanket behind her, I seemed to get 
 one in the solar plexus that near sent me through 
 the ropes. Bud, I'm on my back, being counted 
 out." 
 
 "Oh, talk sense," said Bud. "We've too much 
 work on hand to be carrying on with girls. Tie a 
 knot in it, Hank, till we're clear of this place, 
 anyhow. Besides it's ten to one there's some 
 other chap after her. ' ' 
 
 A form loomed up coming towards them. It 
 was Candon.
 
 CHAPTER XXIX 
 
 THE SAND 
 
 AT seven the next morning the digging began. 
 At six, when Hank turned out of the tent, 
 the aspect of the beach had changed. A 
 north wind, rising before midnight, had blown 
 steadily and strongly unheard and unheeded by 
 the snoring sleepers in the tents. It died out 
 after dawn. 
 
 Hank called George to look. Here and there 
 away across the sands white spots were visible, 
 some like the tops of gigantic mushrooms. One 
 quite close to them showed as the top of a whale's 
 skull. Further on a huge rib hinted of itself. 
 There were little sand-drifts on the windward side 
 of the tents. 
 
 "Wind's been shifting the sand," said George, 
 ' l it 's all over me. ' ' His hair was full of sand and 
 his pockets. Hank was in the same condition. 
 Tommie came out of her tent blinking at the sun. 
 
 "Say, I'm all sand," cried Tommie. 
 
 "Wind's been blowing," said Hank; "look at 
 the bones." 
 
 The sand seemed lower over the cache. 
 
 188
 
 THE SAND 189 
 
 Candon gave it as his opinion that it was at 
 least a foot lower. Then without more ado they 
 began to dig, using the two spades and one of the 
 shovels improvised by Hank. 
 
 Candon, Hank and one of the Chinks were the 
 diggers. They had divided themselves into two 
 gangs, George, Tommie, and the other Chink 
 forming the second gang; and they, having seen 
 the work started, went off to prepare breakfast. 
 
 After breakfast they started again, working in 
 two shifts of half an hour each, and keeping it 
 up till eleven. Then they knocked off, fagged out 
 but somehow happy. The middle of the day was 
 too hot for work and after dinner they slept till 
 three, knocking off finally somewhere about six. 
 A hole ten feet broad from north to south, eight 
 feet from east to west, and nearly three feet deep 
 was the result of their work, the excavated stuff 
 being banked north and south, so that if the wind 
 blew up from either quarter, there would be less 
 drift of sand into the hole. Hank watered these 
 banks as far as he could with water from the 
 spring in the cliff to make the sand "stay put"; 
 then they went off to supper. 
 
 T. C. had worked in her way as hard as any of 
 them, taking as a sort of personal insult any 
 suggestion that she was overdoing herself. Dog- 
 tired now, she was seated on the sand by the 
 middle tent reading an old Chicago Tribune that 
 George had brought ashore, whilst the others 
 prepared supper.
 
 190 VANDERDECKEN 
 
 "Lord," said Hank, as he knelt building up the 
 fire. "If I haven't forgot to send for your book." 
 He looked towards the boat on the beach and half 
 rose to his feet. 
 
 "I'm not wanting it," said Tommie. "This is 
 good enough for me, I'm too tired for books 
 tea's what I want." 
 
 She dived into the paper again, emerging when 
 supper was announced with the gist of an article 
 on the League of Nations between her teeth. 
 T. C. had strong political opinions, and her own 
 ideas about the League of Nations. She did not 
 favour the League and said so. 
 
 Hank, opening a can of salmon and hit in his 
 ideals, forgot it, waved it in the air and started 
 to do battle with Tommie. That was Hank all 
 over; heart-punched, lying on his back with 
 Cupid counting him out, he saw for a moment 
 only the banner of universal peace and brother- 
 hood waving above him. 
 
 "But it isn't so," cried Hank. "There's no 
 Monroe doctrines in morality. America can't sit 
 scratching herself when others are up and doing. 
 Why the nations have got war down, down, right 
 now, kicking under the blanket, and it only wants 
 America to sit on her head to keep her down." 
 
 "America's got to be strong before she does 
 anything," fired Tommie. "How's she to be 
 strong if a lot of foreigners sitting in Geneva 
 can tell her to do this or that? "Why they'd cut 
 her fists off."
 
 THE SAND 191 
 
 "Strong," cried Hank. "Why armies and 
 navies aren't strength. Love of man for man " 
 
 "Mean to tell me you could love Turks?" 
 
 "Ain't talking of Turks." 
 
 "Greeks then Portugueses say, tell me 
 straight do you love niggers?" 
 
 The sight of Tommie "het up" and with spark- 
 ling eyes gave the struggling hero such another 
 heart punch that he collapsed, lost sight of the 
 banner of brotherhood and went on opening the 
 can of salmon. 
 
 "Maybe I'm wrong and maybe you're right," 
 said he, "it's a big question. Pass me that plate, 
 will you, Bud?" 
 
 Candon had said nothing. He had deserted 
 his co-idealist like a skunk, and seemed engaged 
 in re-reviewing the League of Nations by the light 
 of Tommie. 
 
 Half an hour after supper the whole lot of 
 them were snoring in their tents, pole-axed by 
 sleep.
 
 CHAPTER XXX 
 
 STRANGERS ON THE BEACH 
 
 NEXT day passed in labour, another two feet 
 being added to the depth. 
 At ten o'clock on the morning after as 
 the Tommie-Chink-Bud shift were taking on 
 digging, Hank, shaking sand from his clothes, 
 called out to the others to look. 
 
 Down from the southern defile in the cliffs a 
 small procession was coming on to the beach. 
 First came a man in a broad-brimmed hat, then 
 another leading a mule, and another following 
 after. 
 
 "Mexicans," said George. 
 
 "Sure," said Hank. "Look! they've seen us, 
 they've stopped, now they're going on, right down 
 to the sea edge. Wonder what they're after?" 
 
 The Mexicans, having reached the sea edge, 
 began to wander along it coming in the direction 
 of the tents. Every now and then they stopped 
 to gather something. 
 
 "Seaweed," said Hank. "Look, they are shov- 
 ing it into a sack on the mule." 
 
 "Well, come on," said Tommie. She jumped 
 into the sand pit and began to dig, Bud and the 
 
 192
 
 STRANGERS ON THE BEACH 193 
 
 Chink following her. Hank rolling a cigarette, 
 sat down and watched the seaweed gatherers. 
 
 The tide was half out and they were following 
 it, walking along the extreme edge of the water. 
 Then he saw them stop and take something from 
 the mule's back. 
 
 "Shovels," said Hank to himself. As chief 
 engineer of the business, Hank, from the first, had 
 been impressed by the fact that the deeper they 
 went the harder the work would be, simply 
 because the sand had to be flung out of the pit. 
 The first few feet in depth it was easy enough, 
 but the depth already gained was beginning to 
 tell, and the banks of excavated stuff to north and 
 south made matters worse by increasing the 
 height over which the sand had to be flung. 
 
 "B. C. !" suddenly cried Hank, springing to 
 his feet. "Shovels!" 
 
 Candon, who was lying on his back with his hat 
 over his face, resting for a moment, sat up. 
 
 Hank was gone, running full speed and whoop- 
 ing as he ran. 
 
 He reached the sea edge and caught up with 
 the beach-combers who were digging for huge 
 clams just when a bank of sand and mud touched 
 the true sand. Close to them now, they showed 
 up as three tanned, lean, hard-bitten individuals, 
 carrying big satisfactory heart-shaped Mexican 
 shovels, and looking all nerves and sinews, with 
 faces expressionless as the face of the mule that 
 stood by with its two sacks bulging, one evidently
 
 194 VANDERDECKEN 
 
 with provender, the other with gathered sea-weed. 
 
 "Hi, you jossers," cried Hank, "want a job, 
 hey ? Mucho plenty dollars, dig for Americanos. ' ' 
 He made movements as of digging and pointed 
 towards the sand hole. 
 
 "No intende," replied the tallest of the three. 
 
 1 * Come on, ' ' said Hank, taking the long man by 
 the arm and leading the way. He had remembered 
 that Candon said he could talk Spanish. 
 
 The others were all out of the sand hole watch- 
 ing, and halfway up Candon and George joined 
 Hank. 
 
 "Here's your dredging machine," cried Hank. 
 "Look at the shovels, ain't they lovely? Get at 
 them, B. C., and ask their terms." 
 
 Candon spoke with the long man, seeming to 
 explain matters. 
 
 "Five dollars a day each," said Candon. 
 "They say they'll work all day for that." 
 
 "Fifteen dollars," said Hank. "Take 'em on, 
 it's cheap. We can get rid of them before we 
 strike the stuff, take 'em on for one day, anyhow. ' ' 
 
 Candon concluded the bargain. Then he led 
 the beach-combers to the hole and explained 
 matters. They understood, then, having^consulted 
 together like experts, they took the matter into 
 their own hands, asking only that the others 
 should set to work and remove the banks of refuse 
 to north and south of the hole. 
 
 "Well," said Hank as they sat at dinner that 
 day, "give me Mexicans for work. A raft of
 
 STRANGERS ON THE BEACH 195 
 
 niggers couldn't have moved the dirt quicker 'n 
 those chaps. Why, we'll be down to bed rock by 
 to-night." 
 
 "I gingered them up," said Candon, "told them 
 if they got down to what I wanted to find by 
 tonight, I'd give them ten dollars extra apiece. 
 But they won't do it." 
 
 By six o'clock that evening, however, the job 
 was nearly done. Candon reckoned that only a 
 few hours more work would find the stuff, unless 
 a heavy wind blew up in the night and spoiled 
 things. 
 
 He paid the hired men off with dollars supplied 
 by George and then they sat down to supper, the 
 beach-combers camping near by and having the 
 time of their lives with canned salmon, ships 
 bread and peaches supplied for nothing. 
 
 Tommie had fallen in love with the mule. It 
 had eaten half a Chicago Tribune blowing about 
 on the sands and she was feeding it now with 
 wafers, which the brute took in a gingerly and 
 delicate manner, as though chicken and asparagus 
 had been its up-bringing, instead of old gasoline 
 cans and esparto grass. 
 
 "She's made friends with that mule," said 
 George. 
 
 "She's made friends with Satan," said Hank. 
 "Look at her talking to those greasers as if she 
 knew their lingo." 
 
 "She's making them laugh," said Candon.
 
 196 VANDERDECKEN 
 
 An hour after supper the beach was at peace. 
 Even the mule had fallen into the frame of the 
 picture. 
 
 It was lying down by its sleeping masters. 
 Away out across the water, the amber light of the 
 Wear Jack showed beneath the stars. 
 
 An hour passed. Then things changed. The 
 mule was lying dreaming, maybe, of more wafers, 
 and in the starlight, like shadows, the forms of 
 the three Mexicans, each with a shovel over its 
 shoulder, were passing towards the sand-hole.
 
 CHAPTEK XXXI 
 
 * ' TOMMIB 'S GONE I ' ' 
 
 OIJSE U P Hank!" 
 
 Hank, snoring on his back, flung out 
 bis arms, opened his eyes, yawned and 
 stared at the beautiful blazing morning visible 
 through the tent opening. 
 
 "Lord! it's good to be alive!" said Hank. He 
 dressed and came out. 
 
 Candon was tinkering at the fire. The mule, 
 on its feet now, was standing, whilst Tommie was 
 feeding it with dried grass taken from the prov- 
 ender bag, the Mexicans, sitting like tired men, 
 were smoking cigarettes, whilst the four mile 
 beach sang to the crystal waves and the white 
 gulls laughed. 
 
 It was a pretty picture. 
 
 Tommie came running to the heap of stores by 
 the middle tent, chose a couple of tins, wrapped 
 up some biscuits in a bit of newspaper and pre- 
 sented the lot to the Mexicans. 
 
 "They look so tired," said she, as they sat down 
 to breakfast. 
 
 "Well they ought to be," said Hank, "seeing 
 
 197
 
 198 VANDERDECKEN 
 
 the way they've been digging. Boys, I reckon 
 they ought to have a bonus." 
 
 "They've had fifteen dollars," said the prac- 
 tical George, "and their grub." 
 
 "Maybe," said Hank, "but they've done fifty 
 dollars' worth of work, seeing how we're placed. 
 I vote we give them five dollars extra." 
 
 "I'm with you," said Candon. 
 
 "Ten," said Tommie. 
 
 "I've only a ten dollar bill left on me," said 
 George. "Don't matter, give it to them." 
 
 Tommie took the note and, leaving her break- 
 fast, tripped over to the Mexicans. Then she 
 came back. 
 
 Half an hour later, armed only with the spades 
 and Hank's improvised shovel, they set to work. 
 
 "Let's borrow the greasers' shovels," said 
 George. 
 
 "I'd rather not," said Candon, "they'll be 
 going off the beach soon, and I'd rather they 
 weren't here when we strike the stuff, we'll be 
 soon on it now." 
 
 "What's the matter with the sand?" asked 
 Hank as he contemplated the floor of the hole. 
 "Looks as if it had been beaten down with a 
 shovel." 
 
 "Shovel nothing " said George, "it's their 
 flat feet, come on ! " 
 
 By half past eleven o'clock, Candon reckoned 
 that the depth required had been reached if not 
 passed.
 
 "TOMMIE'S GONE!" 199 
 
 "We'll get it this evening," said he, "as sure's 
 my name's Bob Candon." 
 
 "Hope so," said George. 
 
 As they turned to the tents for dinner and 
 siesta, they found that the Mexicans were still on 
 the beach a bit to the southward, strolling along 
 by the sea edge. Then they came back northwards. 
 
 "I wish those greasers would go," said George. 
 
 When they turned in for the mid-day siesta, 
 the beach-combers seemed to have made a little 
 camp for the purpose of rest and cigarette smok- 
 ing half-way between the sea edge and the 
 southern defile in the cliffs. 
 
 George slept, at first the sleep of the just, then 
 began the sleep of canned kippered herrings and 
 80 in the shade. Tyrebuck was buried alive 
 somewhere on the beach and they were trying to 
 locate him without treading on him ; then, having 
 seemingly given up this quest, they were seated 
 playing cards with Hank's late partner, the lady 
 who could put a whole potato in her mouth. They 
 were playing a new sort of game which the ingen- 
 ious Hank had invented and which he called Back 
 to Front. That is to say they were holding their 
 cards so that each player could only see the backs 
 of his own hand and the fronts of his partner's 
 hand. It was bridge, moreover, and they were 
 playing for potato points. How long this ex- 
 tremely intellectual game lasted, it is impossible 
 to say. It was suddenly interrupted.
 
 200 VANDERDECKEN 
 
 Hank outside the tent had seized his foot and 
 seemed trying to pull his leg off. 
 
 "Come out!" cried Hank. "She's gone!" 
 
 "Gone! Who's gone!" 
 
 "Tommie. They've stolen her." 
 
 Candon, already awakened and out, was run- 
 ning around looking at the sand as if hunting her 
 foot steps. 
 
 The raving Hank explained that, unable to 
 sleep, he had come out and found the Mexicans 
 gone. Some premonition of evil had made him 
 glance at Tommie's tent opening. Not being able 
 to see her, he looked closer. She was gone. They 
 had stolen her. 
 
 "After them!" cried George. 
 
 Aroused from a fantastic dream he found him- 
 self faced with something almost equally fantastic. 
 The size of Tommie made a lot of things possible. 
 Visions of her, captured and strangled and stuffed 
 into one of the bags on the mule's back, rose 
 before him, though why or for what purpose the 
 greasers should commit such an act was not clear. 
 
 The going was hard over the sand till they 
 reached the defile in the cliffs towards which the 
 mule tracks seemed to lead. Here the way led 
 gently uphill over broken rocky ground till they 
 reached a low plateau where, under the unchang- 
 ing sunlight, the landscape lay spread in humps 
 and hollows to the hills away to the east. Rock, 
 sagebrush and sand, cactus, sand, sagebrush, it 
 lay before them; but of Tommie, the mule or her
 
 VTOMMIE'S GONE!" 201 
 
 captors, there was no trace or sign. The sand 
 here was no use for tracking purposes, it was 
 beach sand blown up by west winds and lay only in 
 places, rock was the true floor, rock rising some- 
 times six feet in camel humps obstructing the 
 view. 
 
 Oandon climbed one of these kopjes, shaded his 
 eyes and looked. Then he gave a shout. 
 
 "Got 'em," cried Candon, "right ahead. After 
 me, boys!" 
 
 He came tumbling down and started at full 
 speed, taking a track that led due east between 
 the hillocks, till, rounding a boulder, away ahead 
 of them, they saw the mule and its companions 
 slowly winding their way in a south-easterly 
 direction but not a trace of Tommie. 
 
 They closed up rapidly, the Mexicans turned 
 at the shout of Hank, then, as if a bomb shell had 
 burst amongst them, they scattered, leaving the 
 mule to its fate and running south, sou 'east and 
 east. 
 
 "Mule first," cried Hank. 
 
 Through the canvas of the great bulging sack 
 of sea-weed on the mule's back, he could see the 
 small corpse of Tommie, strangled, maybe, 
 doubled up, done for. 
 
 The mule, left to itself, had begun to feed on a 
 patch of grass as tough looking as bow-string 
 hemp. It cocked an eye at the oncomers and 
 continued feeding till they got close up to it. 
 
 "Look out!" yelled Hank.
 
 202 VANDERDECKEN 
 
 The heels of the brute had missed him by inches. 
 
 They scattered, picking up rocks by instinct 
 and instinctively planning and carrying out their 
 attack without word of common counsel. It was 
 the primitive man, no doubt, aroused by rage; 
 at all events the mule, mechanically grazing, got, 
 next moment, a whack on its rump with a rock 
 that made it squeal and wheel only to get another 
 on its flank. It flung its heels up as if trying to 
 kick heaven. 
 
 "Stand clear," cried Hank. The sack, prov- 
 ender and shovels had fallen to the ground and 
 the mule, seeing an open course and impelled by 
 another rock, was off. 
 
 Hank flung himself on the sack. There was no 
 Tommie in it, only seaweed. Candon, recognising 
 this, made off, running after the Mexicans, but 
 something was protruding from the provender 
 bag that was not provender. Hank pulled it out. 
 It was a parcel done up in oil cloth and tied 
 clumsily with tarred string. 
 
 "Lord!" cried George. "The boodle!" 
 
 The shock of the discovery almost made them 
 forget Tommie for a moment. 
 
 "Hounds," said Hank. "They must have been 
 digging last night after we turned in." 
 
 "And they've opened it," said George. "Look 
 at the way it's tied up again and that knot's a 
 granny. Oh, damn! What's the use of bothering? 
 We haven't got her. Hank, clutch a hold of the
 
 "TOMMIE'S GONE!" 203 
 
 damned thing and hide it somewhere and come on. 
 Scatter and hunt." 
 
 Candon had made off due east. They heard his 
 voice shouting, ''Hi, there, hi there! Tommie! 
 Ahoy there!" Then Hank, throwing the parcel 
 at the foot of a prominent upstanding rock, made 
 off south and Bud north. 
 
 The eagle of the Simaloa hills, having fed its 
 young that morning, had returned to its watch 
 tower and from there she saw the hunt. She saw 
 Hank overtaking and kicking a Mexican, Bud 
 chasing another Mexican, Candon pursuing a 
 third. Philosophising, perhaps, on the craziness 
 of human beings, she saw the chase of the 
 Mexicans relinquished and the pursuers each now 
 seemingly in pursuit of something else. 
 
 An hour later Hank, returning to the rock 
 where he had flung the bundle, found Bud. 
 
 "She's not here," said Hank, "but she can't 
 be anywhere else I'm done there's nothing for 
 it but to hike back and get all the Chinks and comb 
 this place. It's not the Mexicans. She's maybe 
 wandered out here alone and fallen off a rock or 
 into a hole or got sunstroke. Come on and fetch 
 the Chinks." 
 
 "Where's B. C.f" 
 
 "I dunno. Chasing away there somewhere 
 come on." 
 
 He caught up the bundle and they started, the 
 most dejected pair of human beings in Mexico at 
 that moment. They couldn't speak. They came
 
 204. VANDERDECKEN 
 
 through the defile in the cliffs and there on the 
 sands lay the new beached boat, and on the sands 
 the tents, and half in and out of her tent, sitting 
 with her head in the shade and her feet in the sun, 
 Tommie reading a book. 
 
 Hank dropped the bundle and ran towards her, 
 shouting as he ran and waving his arms.
 
 CHAPTER XXXII 
 
 THE RETURN OF CANDON" 
 
 BUD saw her spring up, evidently fancying 
 some danger was upon them, then he saw 
 Hank seizing her and jumping her round 
 in a sort of dance. 
 
 When he reached them, Plank had flung himself 
 down on the sand and was laughing. 
 
 "He's gone crazy," said Tommie, laughing 
 despite herself. "Where on earth you been?" 
 
 "Been!" cried George. "Hunting Mexico for 
 you, thinking you were lost. Where have you 
 been?" 
 
 "Me only to get my book. I took the boat 
 when you two were asleep and I got back here a 
 few minutes ago and found you all gone." 
 
 "Well," said Bud, sitting down on the sand. 
 "I was asleep when Hank pulled me out by the 
 leg, saying you were gone and the Mexicans had 
 stolen you, then we all started off to chase them 
 and hunt for you." 
 
 "But didn't you see the boat was gone?" asked 
 she. 
 
 "I only saw you were gone," said Hank, "and 
 the Mexicans."
 
 206 VANDERDECKEN 
 
 "Hank told us they'd boned you and made off 
 with you," put in George. "I took it for gospel 
 and started right off." 
 
 Hank snorted. "What else was a body to think. 
 It gets me. Say, people, what's wrong with this 
 cruise anyhow. Look at it." 
 
 The idea that his own frightful imagination 
 had not only launched the whole expedition, but 
 had dragged Tommie in, broken up a picture show 
 and wrecked a junk, to say nothing of the latter 
 business, never dawned on him or his companions, 
 nor the premonition that his imagination had not 
 done with them yet. 
 
 "Where's B. C.f" asked Tommie suddenly. 
 
 "Hunting away still," replied George. 
 
 "What's in that bundle?" 
 
 "Oh, the bundle why it's the boodle; the 
 greasers must have dug it up, for we found it in 
 the sack on the mule." 
 
 "The jewels!" 
 
 "Yep." 
 
 "My!" said Tommie, her eyes wide and the 
 colour coming to her cheeks. "Why didn't you 
 tell me?" She seized on it. 
 
 "I'll help," said Hank, "you'll dirty your 
 fingers with the string." 
 
 "Bother my fingers." 
 
 She had the string off and then, unwrapping 
 the oilskin cover, came on sack cloth. Opening 
 this unskilfully the whole contents shot out on her 
 knees and the sand. Diamond rings, ten silver
 
 THE RETURN OF CANDON 207 
 
 spoons, a diamond necklace, blazing, huge and 
 vulgar, a diamond hair ornament like a tiara, a 
 ring set with rubies, another with emeralds, a 
 woman's wrist watch set with diamonds, and a 
 silver pepper pot. Twenty or thirty thousand 
 dollars' worth of plunder, at least, and shouting 
 with individuality. One could see the fat woman 
 who once wore the necklace and tiara, almost; 
 no wonder that the pirates had determined to give 
 them a year to cool amidst the sands of the Bay 
 of Whales. 
 
 "My!" said Tommie again, her eyes glittering 
 as she gathered the things together carefully, 
 spread the sack cloth and put them out. 
 
 She brooded on*them without another word, 
 picking them up one by one, trying the rings on, 
 holding up the necklace for all to admire, even 
 the Chinks, who had drawn close and who seemed 
 to understand that these were the things for which 
 they had been digging. 
 
 Then she put the lot on for fun, the tiara that 
 nearly came over her ears, the necklace that 
 nearly came down to her waist, the rings that 
 hung loose on her fingers. Then, making a fan 
 out of an old piece of paper, she got up and 
 promenaded the sands, gathering up imaginary 
 skirts and looking disdain upon her recent friends, 
 till even the Chinks laughed. 
 
 Then, all at once, she quitted fooling, became 
 preternaturally grave and, sitting down again, 
 did the things up in the sack-cloth and oil skin.
 
 208 VANDERDECKEN 
 
 George thought that she heaved a sigh as she 
 tied the string. Hank noticed that she made a 
 reef knot with her capable fingers and the fact 
 gave him another little heart punch. 
 
 "They're worth a lot," said George. 
 
 " Thousands and thousands of dollars," said 
 Tommie. "Here, take them and hide them some- 
 where safe." 
 
 Hank took the bundle. " I 'm going to take them 
 right aboard," declared he, "and shove them in 
 the locker with the ship's money. I won't trust 
 them another minute on this beach." 
 
 "Why, don't be a fool," said George, "we'll all 
 be going aboard when Candon comes, we've done 
 our work here." 
 
 "It's just on sundown," said Hank, "and if 
 he's not here in another half hour, we'll have to 
 stick the night. Can't get all these tents moved 
 in the dark, and I'm not going to leave 'em. It's 
 ten to one we'll stick till morning, and I'm not 
 going to have those jewels stay the night with us. 
 Something would happen sure. Maybe those 
 greasers would come back with more men to help 
 them." 
 
 "Not they. They won't stop running till next 
 week. ' ' 
 
 "All the same these things have played us a 
 good many tricks and I want to stop their game." 
 
 "Are you superstitious?" asked Tommie. 
 
 "Not a bit, only I've got a hunch that they're 
 better on board."
 
 < I 
 
 THE RETURN OF CANDON 209 
 
 " Oh, then, take them, take them," said George, 
 
 if you must. And see here, you'd better bring 
 off those two automatics and some cartridges in 
 case we don't get off to-night and those scamps 
 make trouble." 
 
 "Sure," said Hank. 
 
 Off he started calling the Chinks to man the 
 boat, whilst George and Tommie set to and began 
 to build the fire. 
 
 Tommie, every now and then, took a glance 
 towards the cliffs as though the absence of Candon 
 were worrying her. When Hank came back he 
 found them seated by the fire with the supper 
 things spread, but no Candon. 
 
 "Hasn't B. C. come back!" asked Hank, 
 sitting down. 
 
 "No," replied George. 
 
 The thought that he was still hunting for 
 Tommie and that they had returned and were 
 seated comfortably beginning their supper, came 
 not only to the pair of them, but evidently, by her 
 manner, to Miss Coulthurst. They tried to explain 
 that they had come back not to give up the hunt, 
 but to get the Chinks to help to comb the place, 
 but the explanation seemed to fall rather flat. 
 
 "I hope to goodness nothing has happened to 
 him," said George, weakly. 
 
 "Maybe you'd better go and.see," suggested 
 Tommie. 
 
 Hank jumped to his feet. 
 
 "Come on," he cried. George was scrambling
 
 210 VANDERDECKEN 
 
 up also when a hail came from towards the cliffs 
 and they saw the figure of B. C. in the first of 
 the starlight, coming towards them across the 
 sands. 
 
 He spotted the figure of Tommie long before he 
 reached them, and concluded that the others had 
 found her and brought her back. 
 
 Walking like a man dead beat, he came up to 
 them and cast himself down to rest on the sand. 
 
 "Thank God," said he. 
 
 "Where you been?" asked George. 
 
 "Been! Half over Mexico, kicking greasers, 
 hunting giv's a drink. Say " to Tommie, 
 "where did they find you?" 
 
 Tommie 's only answer was a little squirt of 
 laughter. 
 
 "She'd never gone," said Hank. Then he told 
 the whole story. 
 
 Candon said nothing. Not one of them guessed 
 the revolution that had suddenly taken place in 
 his dead tired mind. Beyond the bald fact that 
 he had made a fool of himself hunting for hours 
 for something that was not there, stood the truth 
 that fate had worked things so that whenever he 
 moved towards a decent act he got a snub on the 
 nose from somewhere. His attempt to return 
 those jewels to their proper owners had brought 
 the whole McGinnis crowd on top of him and had 
 made him start on this mad expedition; his 
 attempts to rescue Tommie from the white slavers 
 had made him ridiculous, anyhow to himself;
 
 THE RETURN OF CANDON 211 
 
 this wild search of the last few hours had made 
 him ridiculous in the eyes of his companions. 
 
 One thing called up another till the hell broth 
 in his mind, the feeling of "damn, everything" 
 was almost complete. What completed it was 
 Tommie's spurt of laughter. That was fatal. 
 
 He said nothing but began eating his supper 
 with the rest. Then Hank, suddenly remembering 
 the jewels, broke out, "Say ! I forgot, we've got a 
 surprise for you. I'll give you a hundred guesses 
 and I'll bet you won't tell what it is." 
 
 "It's the boodle," cut in George. 
 
 Then they told. 
 
 Candon showed neither pleasure nor surprise, 
 he went on eating. 
 
 "Well, where is it?" said he at last. 
 
 "On the yacht," said Hank. "I rowed over 
 and stowed it away, just before you came." 
 
 "You rowed over and stowed it away. What 
 did you do that for?" 
 
 "Safety." 
 
 "Safety did you expect I was going to steal 
 it?" 
 
 "Lord! B. C.," said Hank, "what's getting at 
 you?" 
 
 "Nothing," said Candon, suddenly blazing out: 
 "Well, as you have taken the stuff on board, you 
 can take it back to 'Frisco without me. The 
 expedition's ended. You start off back to-morrow, 
 I stay here. I Ve fulfilled my part of the contract. 
 I've brought Vanderdecken on board your ship
 
 212 VANDERDECKEN 
 
 and I've brought you to the stuff and you've got 
 it. In the contract I was to receive so much money 
 down. I don't want it. I can hoof it down to 
 Mazatlan and get work among the Mexicans. You 
 can leave me one of the automatics and some 
 cartridges, that 's all I want. ' ' 
 
 George sat aghast; so did Hank. 
 
 It was as if B. C. had turned inside out before 
 their eyes. 
 
 "Look here," said George at last, "that's 
 nonsense. We are all good friends. Vander- 
 decken has nothing to do with us or that boodle. 
 Good Lord! What's come to you?" 
 
 "It's come to me that I'm sick of the show,'* 
 said B. C. "I've done my part, the expedition is 
 over as far as I'm concerned and I stay here. 
 You'll be leaving early in the morning?" 
 
 "Sun-up," said Hank. 
 
 "Well, you can leave a couple of days' grub 
 for me and one of the automatics in case I have 
 any trouble with these fellows. That's all, but I'll 
 see you in the morning before you start." 
 
 They saw he was in earnest and in no temper 
 for discussion, neither of them spoke. 
 
 Then Candon, having finished, got up and 
 walked down to the beach. 
 
 Tornmie had not said a word. 
 
 George was the first to speak. 
 
 "What ails him, what in the nation's got into 
 his head?" 
 
 "Search me," said Hank, in a dreary voice,
 
 THE RETURN OF CANDON 213 
 
 "unless it's this expedition. I was saying before 
 he came back there was something wrong with it, 
 has been from the start. I dunno well, here we 
 are, and how are we to leave him without money 
 or anything? Why, I've got as fond of that lad 
 as if he was my own brother and he turns like 
 that on us." 
 
 "Maybe he's tired," said Tommie, "and if you 
 talk to him in the morning, you'll find him 
 different. ' ' 
 
 "I don't believe it," said George, "he means 
 what he says. Question is, what's turned him 
 on us?" 
 
 "Turned him on us? Why, my taking those 
 rotten diamonds off to the ship what else? I 
 didn't know he'd take it like that, how could I?" 
 
 "Then go and explain," said George, "go and 
 tell him you're sorry." 
 
 "Me! what's there to be sorry for?" 
 
 "Well, it was a fool's game, anyhow." 
 
 "Which?" 
 
 "Carting that stuff off on board." 
 
 "We ain't all as clever as you, I know," said 
 Hank. "S'pose those Mexicans come dow T n to- 
 night on us, you'll see if it was a fool's game get- 
 ting the valuables off first. I tell you we ought to 
 have cleared off this evening, it's plain not safe 
 sticking here the night. We would have cleared 
 only for B. C., fooling about." 
 
 "Pie was looking for me," quietly put in 
 Tommie.
 
 214 VANDERDECKEN 
 
 Hank, squashed for the moment, was silent, 
 then he said: "Well, maybe, but there we are, in 
 about as dangerous a fix as people could be, and 
 you talk of fools' games." 
 
 "By the way," said George, "have you brought 
 off those automatics?" 
 
 "Those which automatics Lord, no I for- 
 got, clean. How's a chap to be remembering 
 things, running backwards and forwards from 
 that damned ship? Clean 
 
 "Well, it's not the first thing you've forgotten, 
 and if you're so anxious about the Mexicans, 
 you'd better go and fetch them." 
 
 "Me! I ain't going to fetch and carry any 
 more. Go yourself." 
 
 "Pistols aren't any use," said Tommie, sud- 
 denly as if awaking from a reverie. "If those 
 people come, there'll be so many of them it won't 
 be any use firing at them and if any of them were 
 shot, we might get into trouble." 
 
 "Seems to me we're mighty near it." 
 
 "Mighty near which?" asked a voice. 
 
 Candon had returned and was standing just 
 outside the fire zone. He seemed in a slightly 
 better temper. 
 
 "Why, Hank here has forgot to bring off the 
 automatics," said George, "and he's afraid of 
 those Mexicans coming down on us in the night." 
 
 "Lord, I hadn't thought of that," said B. C. 
 almost in his old voice. "Well, I'll go off and
 
 THE RETURN OF CANDON 21 r, 
 
 fetch them. I've got to fetch a couple of things 
 I've left in my locker anyway." He turned. 
 
 1 ' Fetch the ammunition if you're going," said 
 George. 
 
 "Sure." 
 
 They heard him calling the Chinks, then the 
 boat put off. 
 
 "Seems he's still bent on quitting," said Hank. 
 
 George yawned. 
 
 If the air of the Bay of Whales could be con- 
 densed and bottled, morphia would be a drug in 
 the drug market. It had the two men now firmly 
 in its grip. They determined to turn in without 
 waiting for B. C., and Tommie, retiring to her 
 tent, seemed as heavy with sleep as the others. 
 She was not. She did not undress but just lay 
 down on a blanket, her chin in the palms of her 
 hands and .gazing out on the starlit beach as 
 though hypnotized. 
 
 She was gazing at Candon. 
 
 He was the only man she had ever thought 
 twice about, he was different from the others, she 
 could not tell how. The fact that he was Vander- 
 decken did not make this difference, nor the fact 
 that he had picked her up and literally run away 
 with her, nor the fact that he had beautiful blue 
 eyes. He was just different and she felt that she 
 would never meet anyone like him again. 
 
 Yet he was going to leave them. Instinctively 
 she knew why. That outburst when they found 
 the cache sanded over gave her some knowledge
 
 216 VANDERDECKEN 
 
 of his temperament; and the fact that he had 
 almost killed himself hunting for her gave her 
 some hint of his care for her. And she had 
 laughed at him. 
 
 She remembered how he had said: "Thank 
 God!" on finding her safe. 
 
 She rose and came out of the tent on to the 
 sands. She had come to the determination that 
 if he stayed behind here on the morrow, it would 
 not be her fault, and, coming down to the sea 
 edge, she sat down on the beach to wait for the 
 returning boat. 
 
 The sound of the waves on the long beach came 
 mixed with the breath of the sea. The reefs spoke 
 sometimes and the wind, blowing from the north- 
 west, stirred the sand with a silken whispering 
 sound that would die off to nothing and then 
 return. 
 
 Sometimes she fancied that she could hear the 
 creak of oars, and, rising, strained her eyes to 
 catch a glimpse of the coming boat. Nothing. 
 She could not see the anchor light of the Wear 
 Jack owing to the faint sea haze, and taking her 
 seat again on the sands, she resumed her watch 
 whilst the time passed and the stars moved and 
 the tide went further out. 
 
 Then she rose. Candon was evidently remain- 
 ing for the night on the Wear Jack; there was no 
 use in waiting longer. Still she waited, standing 
 and looking out to sea. 
 
 At last, she turned and came back to the tents.
 
 THE RETURN OF CANDON 217 
 
 She would see him in the morning, but the 
 others would be there. It would be quite different 
 then. The moment had passed and gone, and 
 would not return. 
 
 Arrived at her tent, she undressed and got 
 into her pyjamas and crawled under a blanket 
 which she pulled over her head. Then, safely 
 hidden, and with her face in the crook of her arm, 
 she sniveled and sobbed, remembered she had not 
 said her prayers and said them, sniffed some more 
 and fell asleep. Poor Tommie. She did not know 
 what she wanted but she knew she wanted it. She 
 felt she had lost something but she did not know 
 it was her heart.
 
 CHAPTER XXXIII 
 
 GONE! 
 
 THE sun got up and struck the hills of Sin- 
 aloa, the plains of sagebrush, rock and 
 sand, the sea. 
 
 The Bay of Whales, lit from end to end and 
 shouting with gulls, faced an ocean destitute of 
 sign of ship or sail. 
 
 George awoke in the tent and gazed for a 
 moment lazily at the honey-coloured patch on the 
 sail cloth above his head, where the sun was lay- 
 ing a finger. He heard the waves on the beach 
 and the crying of the gulls, the wind through the 
 tent-opening came fresh and pure, and he knew it 
 was good to be alive. Alive in a clean world 
 where the wind was a person and the sun the chief 
 character after God's earth and sea. Then Candon 
 came blowing into his mind and he remembered 
 the incidents of the night before and how B. C. 
 had gone off the handle over something, he could 
 not guess what, and how he had planned to leave 
 them that day. All this he remembered in the first 
 few seconds of waking and then he recognised 
 that Candon was not in the tent and that his blan-
 
 GONE! 219 
 
 kets were carefully rolled up and stowed for the 
 day. He must have got up early and gone out; 
 probably he was building the fire. 
 
 He gave the sleeping Hank a dig, and woke 
 him up. 
 
 "Plank," said George. 
 
 "Yep?" 
 
 "I've been thinking of B. C." 
 
 "What's the matter with B. C.?" 
 
 "Wake up, you old mud turtle. He's leaving 
 us to-day and we've just got not to let him go." 
 
 "Oh, ay," said Hank, remembering things. 
 Then he yawned frightfully, blinked and looked 
 around. 
 
 "Where's he gone?" 
 
 "He's got up early outside somewhere. Say, 
 we've got to keep him have a straight talk with 
 him. He's one of the best for all his queer ways." 
 
 "Sure," said Hank. 
 
 Fully awake now, he rose and slipped into his 
 clothes, George following suit. Hank was the first 
 out. He stepped on to the sand, looked round for 
 Candon and then looked out to sea. 
 
 "Jumping Moses!" 
 
 "What's wrong?" cried George, coming out. 
 "What are you Good gosh!" He had fol- 
 lowed the pointing of Hank's finger. The Wear 
 Jack was gone. 
 
 Almost at the same moment came Tommie's 
 voice from her tent door. "Why, where 's the 
 ship?"
 
 220 VANDERDECKEN 
 
 "Gone," said Hank. "Drifted sunk but 
 what in the nation could have sunk her? How 
 could she have drifted? Oh, hell ! It can't be that 
 B. C. has bolted with her say Bud 
 
 "It is," said George, "bolted with her and the 
 boodle. We've been stung that's all." 
 
 "I don't believe it," said Tommie. Her little 
 face looked like a piece of chalk and she was 
 holding on to the tent flap. 
 
 "There you are," said Hank. "Nor I. B. C. 
 couldn't do it, that's all. He couldn't do it." 
 
 "He's done it," said George. "He was sore 
 about your taking the stuff off to the ship because 
 he intended bunking with it himself can't you 
 see?" 
 
 "Maybe those Chinks have taken the ship," 
 said Hank. 
 
 George shook his head. "We'd have heard him 
 shout with the wind blowing that way. Besides, 
 they couldn't. Not one of them has any notion of 
 navigating her. Can't you see? He's got the 
 boodle. He's meant to do this all along when the 
 stuff turned up and he's done it." 
 
 "I tell you that chap's a white man," began 
 Hank, furiously. 
 
 "In spots," said George, "or in streaks as 
 he said himself. He runs straight for a while, 
 wants to run straight and then goes off the other 
 way about. He's a socialist, grand ideas and a 
 slung shot in his pocket." 
 
 "Socialist, so'm I."
 
 GONE! 221 
 
 "No you're not, you're Hank Fisher." 
 
 Hank went off a few yards and sat down on 
 the sand and folded his arms and brooded. His 
 good soul had been hit and hit hard. Even while 
 defending Candon, he recognised the logic of the 
 situation, pointing to the almost unbelievable fact 
 that Candon, yielding to his worst nature, had 
 bolted. Bolted, leaving them stranded on that 
 beach. 
 
 He could not but recognise that for a man in 
 Candon 's position, leaving morality aside, the 
 move was a good one. His return to San Fran- 
 cisco was impossible, McGinnis would merely turn 
 evidence against him. Leaving the Vanderdecken 
 business aside, there was the wrecking of the junk; 
 the Wear Jack herself was attainted. All sorts 
 of new ideas began to turn somersaults in Hank's 
 mind as this fact burst fully for the first time on 
 his intelligence. 
 
 "Bud," he shouted, "come here and sit. 
 Where's T. C.? Caliber. Sit down." 
 
 They came and sat down. 
 
 "Folks," said Hank, "here's a new tangle. 
 Hasn't it ever struck into you that the old Jack's 
 n' more use to us than an opera hat to a bull. 
 Those movie men don't know her name, but they 
 know her make and that she went south, see! 
 And every yacht coming up from the south any- 
 think like her will be overhauled by the coast- 
 guard, see? Well, suppose we'd put back in her, 
 getting along for the Islands, the coastguard
 
 222 VANDERDECKEN 
 
 would have been sure to board us, they'd have 
 found T. C. aboard and we'd have been dished, 
 straight. ' ' 
 
 "I hadn't thought it out like that before," said 
 George. ' ' I thought we could have slipped up to 
 'Frisco and then told some yarn." 
 
 Tommie said nothing. The colour had almost 
 returned to her face, but she seemed like a person 
 slightly dazed. No wonder. Despite, or maybe 
 partly because of his confession to her, partly 
 because of his evident care for her and partly 
 because of her newborn affection for him, she 
 would have trusted B. C. with anything, her life, 
 her money, anything this man who had betrayed 
 her, betrayed Bud and Hank, taken their ship and 
 left them stranded on a hostile beach. 
 
 1 'Well, we couldn't," said Hank. "The fact is 
 the Wear Jack was no use to us and maybe it was 
 Providence that made B. C. let us down." 
 
 "Maybe," said Tommie, catching at straws, 
 "she drifted away." 
 
 "That's what I thought first," said George, 
 "but she couldn't. She was anchored fast. If 
 she had, why she could have put back. What's 
 the good of supposing, when the thing's clear as 
 paint. He was boss of the ship, the Chinks always 
 looked to him for orders, they'd do whatever he 
 told them, and when he went aboard last night 
 and told them to knock off the shackles and drop 
 the anchor chain, they wouldn't grumble. If they 
 thought anything, they'd think it was part of
 
 GONE! 223 
 
 some move in the game and we were in it. We've 
 made several big mistakes, but the biggest was 
 letting that guy be boss." 
 
 "Well, he was boss, anyhow," said the ingenu- 
 ous Hank. "He was the best man of us three 
 in the practical business and I'm not saying he 
 wasn't the best in brains. He couldn't run 
 straight, that's all; if he could he might have 
 been President by this." 
 
 They all sat silent for a minute, then George 
 sprang to his feet. 
 
 "Breakfast," said George. 
 
 Not another word was spoken of Candon. It 
 was as though he had been expelled from their 
 minds as from their society. 
 
 But they could not expel the situation he had 
 created. Though the Wear Jack was no use for 
 taking them back to San Francisco, it could have 
 taken them somewhere anywhere from that 
 beach where the fume of the sea and the sun and 
 the silence and desolation and the blinding sands 
 and mournful cliffs had already begun to tell upon 
 them now that the place was a prison. Then there 
 were the Mexicans to be thought of. If those men 
 whom they had kicked and man-handled and 
 robbed of their booty were to return with a dozen 
 others, what would happen? How could two men 
 and a girl put up any sort of fight? And the 
 dreadful thing was Tommie. Tommie, who had 
 stuck to them because she was a brick, who, to 
 save them from a ridicule almost as bad as dis-
 
 224 VANDERDECKEN 
 
 grace, had insisted on going on. If she had turned 
 back, she might have been safe at Los Angeles 
 now instead of here. This thought hit Bud almost 
 as badly as Hank. 
 
 It did not seem to hit Tommie at all. There 
 were moments during the preparation of break- 
 fast when the throat muscles of the redoubtable 
 T. C. made movements as though she were 
 swallowing down the recollection of Candon, but, 
 the meal once begun, she seemed herself again. 
 
 As they ate, they discussed the situation in all 
 its bearings. They had provisions enough for 
 three weeks, according to Hank's calculations. He 
 suggested that they should hang on just there for 
 a day or two, and then, if nothing turned up in 
 the way of a ship, that they should ''hike" down 
 the coast towards the town "that fellow" had 
 spoken of. 
 
 "What was the name of it?" asked George. 
 
 "Search me," replied Hank, "but it don't 
 matter, the name, it's a town anyhow." 
 
 "And suppose, while we're hanging on here, 
 those Mexicans come at us!" asked George. 
 
 Hank had forgotten the Mexicans. 
 
 "If they do," said he, "we'll have to fight them, 
 that's all. We've got the spades, and two Amer- 
 icans are a match for a dozen greasers, and 
 there's not likely to be that number." 
 
 George got up and walked off down to the sea 
 edge. He seemed to be thinking things over. 
 
 Hank found himself alone with Tommie.
 
 GONE! 225 
 
 "You meant three Americans," said she. 
 
 "Sure," said Hank, "you'd put up as good a 
 fight as any of us, I believe." 
 
 Hank had never dealt much with women-kind, 
 except maybe in that horrible business liason of 
 his with Mrs. Driscoll, and though he had read 
 the "Poems of Passion" by Ella Wheeler Wilcox 
 he had no language at all to garb his sentiments 
 with, if you can dignify with the title of sentiment 
 a desire to eat Tommie. 
 
 He heaved a deep sigh and began tracing pat- 
 terns on the sand with his finger. The rat trap 
 inventor was at fault, his ingenuity could not 
 assist him, the civilized man who believed in the 
 sanctity of womanhood and the primitive man 
 who wanted to make a meal of T. C. were at war, 
 but the primitive man was the stronger and was 
 preparing to speak and make a fool of himself 
 when a yell came from George. 
 
 "Ship!" 
 
 They sprang to their feet and came running 
 to the water's edge. They could see nothing; 
 then, following his pointing, away on the sea line, 
 they saw what looked like the wing of a fly. 
 
 "It's the Wear Jack/' said Hank, "no, it 
 ain't her canvas wouldn't show as dark as 
 that." 
 
 "How's she bearing?" asked George. 
 
 "Coming right in, I believe. She's got the 
 wind with her; that's her fore canvas. There 'd 
 be more spread if she was sideways to us or
 
 226 VANDERDECKEN 
 
 tacking against the wind. Yes, she's coming 
 right for us." 
 
 "Good," said George. 
 
 There was silence for a moment, a silence 
 more indicative than any words could be of the 
 relief that had come to their minds. It was sud- 
 denly shattered by Hank. 
 
 "She's the Heart of Ireland.'' 
 
 "What you say?" cried George. 
 
 "She's the Heart of Ireland." 
 
 "How do you know!" 
 
 "Lord! how do I know? I know. I feel it. 
 What else can she be? Why she's due. She's 
 just had time to mend herself and put out. 
 What other boat would be putting into this God- 
 forsaken place! And she seems about the size 
 of the Heart. We'll soon see. I've got the 
 specification down in my head, that fellow gave 
 it to me two topmast, fifty-ton schooner, broad 
 beam and dirty as Hades. Those are her beauty 
 marks we'll soon see." 
 
 "But she'd have passed the Wear Jack/' said 
 George. 
 
 "Not if the Jack went south. And anyhow 
 they'd have passed in the night; wouldn't have 
 seen each other." 
 
 "What are we to do?" asked Tommie. 
 
 "I'm thinking," said Hank. He looked round, 
 brooded for a moment, and then stood looking 
 out to sea. His ingenuity was at work. Then he 
 spoke.
 
 GONE! 227 
 
 "There are no caves in these cliffs or we might 
 hide there. No use scattering inland. First of 
 all, if these chaps find nothing but the tents 
 they'll think us gone and they'll go off with the 
 tents and grub and everything. Then where would 
 we be? We've got to hide and watch for 
 chances." 
 
 "Where?" asked George. 
 
 Hank pointed to the big rock before-mentioned, 
 shaped like a pulpit, that stood close to them by 
 the sea edge. 
 
 "There, standing close up to it, we can dodge 
 them when they're coming ashore. Then when 
 they land we can shift round to the north side of 
 it, see?" 
 
 "I see," said George, "but where 's the use? 
 Suppose we manage to hide entirely from them, 
 where's the use? They'll take the tents and 
 stores as you said and where will we be?" 
 
 "Now see here," said the rat trap man. "It's 
 ten to one the whole crowd will come ashore, 
 leaving only a couple of guys to look after the 
 ship. They'll beach the boat, leaving a man to 
 look after her and scatter up to the tents, see?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "Well, there's a chance that we may be able to 
 make a dash for the boat, knock the chap on the 
 head, push her off and get to the schooner." 
 
 "Good!" cried Tommie. 
 
 "And suppose there's a lot of fellows on the 
 schooner?" asked George.
 
 228 VANDERDECKEN 
 
 "Oh, suppose anything. What do you think 
 this show is? If I know anything of that crowd, 
 it's our lives we are playing for and the chances 
 are a hundred to one against us. It all depends 
 where they beach the boat. Come along, it's time 
 to get to eastward of that rock." 
 
 Hank, picking up a water breaker and a cup, 
 they moved off to the rock and put it between 
 them and the sea. 
 
 Before taking shelter, Hank shaded his eyes 
 and looked out to sea. 
 
 "It'll take them near an hour to get in," said 
 he. 
 
 Half an hour passed and then the thirst began. 
 Used as they were to the sun, they had never 
 before experienced the ordeal of sitting still with 
 the sun's rays beating on them. Fortunately they 
 wore panamas and the wind from the sea licked 
 round the rock every little while, bringing a trace 
 of coolness. Hank poured out the water and they 
 drank in turn every now and then. He insisted 
 on wetting Tommie's head occasionally. They 
 talked in whispers and scarcely at all, listening 
 listening listening. Time passed, bringing 
 gulls' voices, the beat of the little waves on the 
 beach, the silky whisper of the sand, then sud- 
 denly far away 
 
 Rumble-tumble-tum-tum-tum. 
 
 The sound of an anchor chain running through 
 a hawse pipe. 
 
 Thev looked at one another.
 
 GONE ! 229 
 
 11 That's the killick," murmured Hank. "It's 
 them right enough, they've come right in know- 
 ing the ground, they wouldn't have been in so 
 quick if they hadn't been used to the place. 
 Listen ! " He had no need to tell them to listen. 
 
 Time passed and the beach talked but no sound 
 came from the sea but the sound of the small 
 waves. 
 
 Tommie suddenly nudged Hank. She nodded 
 towards the cliffs. On the sky edge of the cliffs 
 something black showed, then it withdrew. 
 
 "Men," whispered Tommie. 
 
 "Mexicans," murmured Hank. The eerie 
 feeling came to him that behind those cliffs, in 
 the gullies, men were swarming: that Sinaloa 
 had beaten up its bandits and desperadoes, just 
 as he had expected it would, and that the call of 
 the diamonds like the call of a corpse in the desert 
 was bringing the vultures. They would connect 
 this new crowd just about to land with the 
 treasure business. If they showed themselves too 
 soon, then McGinnis and his men would be fright- 
 ened off. McGinnis was bad, but the Mexicans 
 were worse. Hank did not often say his prayers, 
 but he prayed just then that cunning might be 
 granted to the greasers not to shout before the 
 game was corralled. 
 
 He needn't. 
 
 There came far away voices from the sea and 
 the creak of oars nearer. 
 
 "Get your hind legs ready," whispered Hank.
 
 230 VANDERDECKEN 
 
 Crash! the oars were in. Then came a burst 
 of yells as though a pack of demons had suddenly 
 been unleashed and unmuzzled. 
 
 Hank sprang to his feet. Leading the others, 
 he dodged round the north side to the seaward 
 side of the rock. A hundred and fifty yards away 
 to the south a big boat had been beached. It lay 
 unattended. Like a pack of hounds on a hot 
 scent the McGinnis crowd were racing up towards 
 the tents. You could have covered them with a 
 blanket. Blind to everything but loot and ven- 
 geance, a trumpet would not have turned them. 
 
 Hank seized Tommie by the hand and started. 
 
 It was a hundred and fifty yards from the rock 
 to the boat, the going good over a strip of hard 
 sand uncovered by the ebbing tide. 
 
 From the boat to the nearest tent was about a 
 hundred yards, the going bad over soft friable 
 sand. 
 
 They had made fifty yards unnoticed, when 
 Tommie tripped and fell. Hank picked her up 
 and flung her on his shoulder. 
 
 The ruffians, racing from tent to tent hunting, 
 cursing, rooting about, saw nothing till Pat 
 McGinnis himself, turning from Tommie 's tent 
 empty like the rest, saw the whole of Hank's 
 cards on the table so to speak. 
 
 All but the ace of trumps. 
 
 He whipped it from his belt, aimed, took a long 
 shot on chance, and, leading the others, raced 
 back for the sea edge.
 
 CHAPTER XXXIV 
 
 JAKE 
 
 HANK had dropped Tommie into the boat 
 and was striving with George to push off, 
 when the crack of the revolver came fol- 
 lowed by the bizz of the bullet, yards out. 
 
 ''Shove her shove her," cried Hank. The 
 huge brute of a scow had settled herself com- 
 fortably in the sand as if she meant to take up 
 her residence there. Tommie, tumbling out of 
 the boat nearly as quickly as she had been thrown 
 in, put her shoulder to the stem ; Hank and George 
 at either gunnel clutched hard. Hank gave the 
 word and they all heaved together. Next mo- 
 ment they were on board her and she was water- 
 borne. 
 
 Hank seized one of the ash sweeps and using it 
 as a pole drove her half a dozen yards, she slued 
 round sideways, but George in the bow had a 
 sweep out now and with a stroke pulled her nose 
 round whilst Hank took his seat. 
 
 As they got away on her, McGinnis, leading the 
 hunt, was only twenty yards from the sea. He 
 was holding his fire, as were the others, till they 
 
 231
 
 232 VANDERDECKEN 
 
 reached the water's edge, when the bang of an 
 old musket that might have landed with Padre 
 Junipero made the echoes jump alive. 
 
 The attackers wheeled. 
 
 Down through the two defiles and fanning out 
 on the sands, poring like ants, came the country- 
 side for all it was worth, half a hundred beggars 
 and landed proprietors, zambos and terzerons, 
 yellow men and men who were almost black, armed 
 with anything and everything and led by the 
 ' ' Dredging Machine. ' ' A fellow who had tumbled 
 in his hurry was picking himself up. It was his 
 musket that had gone off by accident. 
 
 "Pull!" shouted Hank. 
 
 They were saved. The McGinnis crowd, like 
 a pack of wild dogs chased by wolves, were racing 
 along the water edge towards the south horn of 
 the bay; the Mexicans, faced by the facts of the 
 sand and a proposition in Euclid, had paused for 
 half a moment. The direct line towards the south 
 horn of the bay was hard going over the soft sand, 
 but it was shorter than making direct for the hard 
 beach. Two sides of a triangle being longer than 
 the third, they took the shorter way. 
 
 The rowers as they rowed watched the race, and 
 saw plainly that McGinnis and his merry men 
 were making good. Then they turned their atten- 
 tion to the ship ahead. She was swinging to the 
 current broadside on to them, a frowsy looking 
 two-topmast schooner, the Heart of Ireland sure 
 enough.
 
 JAKE 233 
 
 " Wonder how many chaps are on board," said 
 George. 
 
 "We'll soon see," replied Hank. 
 
 As they drew closer they saw a man leaning on 
 the rail and watching them through a pair of 
 binoculars. He seemed the only person on the 
 ship. 
 
 Closer now, the old schooner began to speak of 
 her disreputability. The paint, in Hank's words, 
 was less paint than blisters, the canvas, hurriedly 
 stowed, was discoloured and patched old stuff 
 re-done by the hand of McGay, that stand-by of 
 small ship owners in these days when a new main- 
 sail for a small boat costs anything from two 
 hundred dollars. Built in 1882 as a trading 
 schooner, she had been built a bit too small, but 
 she had looked honest when the fitters and riggers 
 had done with her; honest, clean and homely, in 
 those first days one might have compared her to 
 a country girl starting for market with a basket 
 a bit too small. 
 
 In two years this simple trader had changed 
 her vocation; in thirty-five years she had done 
 pretty much everything that a ship ought not to 
 do, run guns, run gin and opium, fished in prohib- 
 ited waters, and in some extraordinary way she 
 bore the stamp of it all. If some ship lover had 
 seen the Mary Burton that was her first name 
 and the Heart of Ireland, which was her last, he 
 might have been excused, if a moral man, for 
 weeping.
 
 234 VANDERDECKEN 
 
 "Ahoy!" cried Hank, as the boat came along- 
 side grinding the blisters off her. * ' Fling's a rope 
 there why! Good Lord! It's Jake." 
 
 It was. Jake, looking just the same as when 
 Hank had fired him off the Wear Jack, only now, 
 instead of a fur cap, he was wearing a dingy 
 white Stetson with the brim turned down. He had 
 come along with the McGinnis crowd, partly 
 because he wanted a job and partly because he 
 wanted to see the downfall of Hank. As a matter 
 of fact he had seen the triumph of Hank, if you 
 can call it a triumph, for he had been watching 
 the whole of the proceedings from start to finish. 
 Recognising the inevitable he made no bones but 
 flung the rope. 
 
 "Well, you scoundrel," said Hank, as he came 
 on deck, "what you doing here?" 
 
 "What you doin' yourself?" said Jake. 
 
 "I'll jolly soon show you," said Hank, who had 
 no time to waste in verbal explanations. Seizing 
 the scamp by the shoulders, he turned him round 
 in some extraordinary way and giving him a shove 
 that sent him running forward two yards. "Get 
 the gaskets off the jib and look slippy about it 
 quick now or I'll be after you. Bud, I'm going to 
 leave the boat. There's a dinghy aboard and 
 that scow would clutter up the decks too much. 
 Cut her adrift and come on. Clap on to the throat 
 an' peak halyards, now then, all together, yeo ho !" 
 
 Mainsail and foresail took the wind at last. 
 And what a mainsail it was, after the canvas of
 
 JAKE 235 
 
 the Wear Jack, dirty as a dishcloth and patched 
 where a pilot mark had once been. And what 
 sticks after the spars of the Jack, from the main 
 boom, that had seen better days, to the gaff, with 
 its wooden jaws bound to creak like a four-post 
 bedstead ! 
 
 "Now the winch," cried Hank. "Clap on to 
 the winch and roust her out." 
 
 He took the wheel, whilst Jake, Tommie and 
 Bud clapped on to the winch, and, as he stood 
 listening to the music of the chain coming in, he 
 cast his eyes away towards the south horn of the 
 bay where the McGinnis crew could be seen mov- 
 ing slowly now towards the bay beyond, followed 
 by the Mexicans, evidently half-beaten, but still 
 doggedly in pursuit. 
 
 "She's out of the mud!" cried George. 
 
 Hank turned the spokes of the wheel, and the 
 Heart, with all her canvas thrashing, took the 
 wind, got steerage way on her, and, as the anchor 
 came home, lay over on the starboard tack. 
 
 She had been anchored to north of the break in 
 the reefs and this course would take her diagon- 
 ally through the break. 
 
 Hank, who had bitten off a piece of plug tobacco, 
 stood, working his lantern jaws as he steered. 
 Gulls raced them as they went and the breeze 
 strengthened up, whilst block, spar and cordage 
 creaked to the boost of the waves and the slap of 
 the bow wash. They passed the horn of the 
 northern reef by a short ten yards, the out-going
 
 236 VANDERDECKEN 
 
 tide and the south-running current foaming round 
 the rocks like destruction gnashing at them. Then, 
 lifting her bowsprit, the Heart took the great sea, 
 dipping and rising again to the steadily marching 
 swell. 
 
 Hank held on. The wind was breezing up 
 strong from the southwest and he was keeping 
 her close hauled. A few miles out, with Mexico 
 a cloud on the sea line and the reefs a memory, 
 he spun the wheel and laid her on a due westerly 
 course. 
 
 He called Jake. 
 
 "You can steer?" 
 
 "Sure," said Jake. 
 
 "Then catch hold and keep her as she is." He 
 stood watching whilst Jake steered. 
 
 That individual, despite the shove he had 
 received, seemed to bear no malice. Absolutely 
 unperturbed he stood with his hands on the 
 spokes, chewing, his eye wandering from the bin- 
 nacle to the luff of the mainsail. 
 
 "Whar's the Jack?" he suddenly asked, turn- 
 ing to spit into the starboard scupper. 
 
 "What were you doing with that gang?" 
 countered Hank. 
 
 ' ' Me ! Them guys ? Why, you saw what I was 
 doin,' keepin' ship, \vhiles they went ashore. 
 What were you doin' with them!" 
 
 "Mean to tell me you don't know why they went 
 ashore?" 
 
 "Me! nuthin'. I'm only a foremast hand,
 
 JAKE 237 
 
 signed on 'cause I was out of a job. I saw you all 
 scutterin' about on shore, then you comes off and 
 takes the ship that's all I know." 
 
 "Look here," said Hank. "D'you mean to tell 
 me you didn't put the McGinnis crowd on to us 
 before we left 'Frisco? D'you mean to say you 
 weren't on the wharf that night when Black 
 Mullins dropped aboard and peeked through the 
 skylight and saw Mr. Candon?" 
 
 "Me. Which? Me! N' more than Adam. 
 You're talkin' French." 
 
 "Don't bother with him," said George. "Come 
 on down below and let's see what it's like." 
 
 They left the deck to Jake, still chewing, and 
 came down the companion way to the cabin, 
 where McGinnis and his afterguard had dwelt. 
 
 Bunks with tossed blankets appeared on either 
 side; aft lay the captain's cabin, door open and 
 an oilskin swinging like a corpse from a nail; 
 above, and through the atmosphere of must and 
 bad tobacco, came the smell of the Heart, a per- 
 fume of shark oil, ineradicable, faint, but unfor- 
 gettable, once smelt. 
 
 George opened the portholes and Tommie took 
 her seat on a bunk edge, looking round her but 
 saying nothing. 
 
 A cheap brass lamp swung from the beam 
 above the table, the table was covered with white 
 marbled oilcloth, stained and stamped with in- 
 numerable ring marks from the bottoms of coffee 
 cups ; about the whole place was that atmosphere
 
 238 VANDERDECKEN 
 
 of sordidness and misery that man alone can 
 create. 
 
 Tommie sat absorbing it, whilst Hank and 
 George explored lockers and investigated McGiii- 
 nis' cabin. Then she rose and took off her coat. 
 
 She stripped the oilcloth from the table, said, 
 "Faugh!" rolled it up and flung it on the floor. 
 
 "Say!" cried she, "isn't there any soap in this 
 hooker?" 
 
 "Soap!" cried Hank, appearing from McGin- 
 nis' cabin, carrying the log book and a tin box. 
 "I dunno. Jake will know." 
 
 "Go up and send him down. You can take the 
 wheel for a minute whilst I get this place clean 
 Goodness!" 
 
 "You wait," said Hank. 
 
 He went on deck, followed by George, and next 
 minute Jake appeared. 
 
 Despite Tommie 's get-up, he had spotted her 
 for a girl when she came on board. Not being a 
 haunter of the pictures he had not recognised 
 her; what she was, or where she had come from, 
 he could not imagine or what she wanted of 
 him. He was soon to learn. 
 
 "Take off your hat," said Tommie. "Now, 
 then, get me some soap and a scrubbing brush, if 
 there is such a thing on this dirty ship." 
 
 "Soap!" said Jake. 
 
 "Yes, soap." 
 
 He turned and went on deck and came back in 
 a minute or so with a tin of soft soap and a mop.
 
 JAKE 239 
 
 "I said scrubbing brush." 
 
 "Ain't none." 
 
 "Well, we'll have to make the mop do. Now 
 go and fetch a bucket of water. ' ' 
 
 "Ain't enough on board for swillin'." 
 
 "There's enough in the sea. We must make it 
 do. Go on and don't stand there scratching your 
 head." 
 
 Hank, leaving George at the wheel and coming 
 down half an hour later to see what was going on, 
 returned jubilant. 
 
 "She's working that gink like a house maid, 
 he's washed the table an's scrubbing the floor 
 and she's stripping the blankets off the bunks. 
 She's going to make him wash them. She's a 
 peach." 
 
 The tin box with the ship's money, some thou- 
 sand dollars, and the log lay on the deck. He 
 placed them on one side and then stood erect and 
 walked to the rail. He gazed aft at the far-away 
 shore as if visualising something there. 
 
 "Bud." 
 
 "Yep?" 
 
 "Nothing's ever got me like she has, right by 
 the neck. I reckon it's a punishment on me for 
 having invented rat traps." 
 
 "Oh, don't be an ass." 
 
 "Easy to say that." 
 
 "Have you told her?" 
 
 "Lord, no."
 
 240 VANDERDECKEN 
 
 "Well, go down and tell her and get it over, 
 same as sea sickness." 
 
 "Bud, I could no more tell her than I could 
 walk into a blazing fiery furnace like those chaps 
 in the Scriptures." 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 "Because, Bud well, there's two reasons. 
 First of all she'd laugh at me, maybe." 
 
 "She would, sure." 
 
 "And then there's a girl " 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "A girl another girl." 
 
 "Mrs. Driscoll?" 
 
 "Oh. Lord, no, she ain't a girl. This one I'm 
 telling you of is running a little store of her own 
 in Cable Street, kind of fancy work business 
 I've known her a year. O'Brien is her name, 
 Zillah O'Brien. She's running a fancy work " 
 
 "I know, you've told me; are you engaged to 
 her!" 
 
 "Well, we've been keeping company," said 
 Hank, "and it amounts to that." 
 
 "You mean you are then you've no right to 
 bother about Tommie." 
 
 "It's she that's bothering me." 
 
 "Well, you may make your mind easy. So far 
 as I can see she's harpooned that fellow har- 
 pooned her." 
 
 "B. C.?" 
 
 "Yep, remember her face when he ran away? 
 And ever since she hasn't been the same "
 
 JAKE 241 
 
 Hank was silent for a moment. 
 
 "But, Bud, she couldn't care for him after the 
 way he's landed us?" 
 
 "No, but she cared for him before, and maybe 
 she cares for him still, Lord only knows women 
 are funny things. Anyhow, you've no right to 
 think of her with that other girl in tow. Why, 
 Hank, you've always been going on about women 
 being saints and all that and now, you old double- 
 dealing " 
 
 "It isn't me," said Hank. "I guess it's human 
 nature. But I'll bite on the bullet after all it's 
 not so much as a girl I care for her, but just for 
 herself." 
 
 "Well, bite on what's her name as well 
 Beliah " 
 
 "Zillah." 
 
 "All the same, keep thinking of her and catch 
 hold of the wheel. I want a quiet smoke." 
 
 Half an hour later Jake wandered on deck with 
 the mop and the bucket. He look subdued, and a 
 few minutes later Tommie's head and shoulders 
 appeared. 
 
 "The place is pretty clean now," said T. C. 
 "Maybe some of you will get at where the food's 
 stowed and find out what we can have to eat. I'm 
 going along to the galley to get the fire on."
 
 CHAPTER XXXV 
 
 SANTANDER ROCK 
 
 THE wind held steady all that day and half 
 the following night, then it died to a tepid 
 breeze just sufficient to keep steerage way 
 on the schooner. 
 
 Hank was the first up in the morning, relieving 
 George at the wheel. 
 
 After supper, on the night before, they had 
 made a plan, based on the fact that there were 
 provisions on board enough for a three months' 
 cruise for four people. This plan was simple 
 enough. They would put out far to avoid the 
 Islands and any bother of complications. Hank's 
 idea was to strike a course nor 'west to a point 
 midway between Honolulu and San Francisco, 
 and then make directly for the city of the Golden 
 Gate. They would tell Tyrebuck the truth, but it 
 would be no sin to delude the gaping public with 
 a Hank constructed yarn, sure that McGinnis or 
 his relations would never dispute it. The only 
 bother was that Tyrebuck would want his ten 
 thousand dollars. If the Wear Jack had been 
 wrecked, all would have been well, for the insur- 
 
 242
 
 SANTANDER ROCK 243 
 
 ance people would have paid, but they had just 
 lost her, as a person might lose a horse or a motor 
 car. 
 
 "Of course," said Hank, "there was no agree- 
 ment with him. Who'd have ever imagined such 
 a thing as our losing her like that? All the same, 
 I've got to pay old man Tyrebuck, it's a debt of 
 honour. I'll have to mortgage the trap that's 
 all." 
 
 "I'll go half," said George. 
 
 "No, you won't. I was the borrower, this ex- 
 pedition was mine. If I'd got the twenty-five 
 thousand reward, I'd have stuck to it." 
 
 "Say," said George. 
 
 "Yep." 
 
 "You told me you'd written a story once." 
 
 "What about it?" 
 
 "Well, write the whole of this expedition up 
 and sell it to a magazine, if you want money. ' ' 
 
 " B ' gosh ! " said Hank, ' ' that 's not a bad idea- 
 only it would give the show away." 
 
 "Not a bit, pretend it's fiction." 
 
 "It sounds like fiction," said Tommie. "I 
 don't mind. You can stick me in as much as you 
 like." 
 
 "I'll do it, maybe," said Hank. 
 
 But there was another point. Wallack's and 
 their wrecked junk, arid Tommie and her story. 
 The public would want to know the particulars 
 of her abduction and Wallack's would want com- 
 pensation. Althusen and Moscovitch and Mrs.
 
 244, VANDERDECKEN 
 
 Raphael would not be behindhand in their wants, 
 either. 
 
 "Leave it to me," said Miss Coulthurst. 
 "When we get to San Francisco, just let me slip 
 on shore, and I'll take the first train to Los 
 Angeles and I'll fix it. I'll tell old Wallack the 
 whole truth. He won't want compensation. I 
 guess the advertisement he's had will be enough 
 for him, and the film wasn't damaged; the reel 
 was safe in one of those tents." 
 
 They left it at that, ignorant of the new 
 development impending. 
 
 Hank took the wheel and George snuffed out 
 the binnacle lights. It was day, though the sun 
 had not yet broken the morning bank on the east- 
 ern horizon. 
 
 "There's a big rock on the port bow," said 
 George, "away over there. It's the Santander, 
 I believe remember? It's on the chart." 
 
 "Where's Jake?" 
 
 "Eight," said Hank. "Where's Jake? I let 
 him turn in ten minutes ago, he's in the focs'le." 
 
 "Well, I'll go and make some coffee," said 
 George. "Keep her as she goes." 
 
 He disappeared, and Hank, left alone, stood at 
 the wheel, the warm wind gently lifting his hair 
 and his hawk eyes wandering from the binnacle 
 to the far off rock and from the rock to the sea 
 line. 
 
 Ten minutes passed and then George appeared, 
 a cup of coffee in his hand.
 
 SANTANDER ROCK 245 
 
 "Shove her on the deck for a minute," said 
 Hank, "and have a look with those binoculars. 
 Something funny about that rock, seems to me." 
 
 George placed the cup on the deck, fetched the 
 old binoculars Jake had been using the day before, 
 and leveled them at the rock. 
 
 "Ship piled on the north side," said George. "I 
 can see the masts; some sort of small hooker or 
 another. It's the Santander rock, can't be any- 
 thing else, there's nothing else of any size marked 
 down just here but the Tres Marias Island, and 
 they are to the south." 
 
 "Well, we'll have a look at her," said Hank. 
 "There's maybe some poor devils on board. She's 
 flying no signals, is she!" 
 
 "No, she's signal enough in herself." 
 
 Just then Tommie came on deck. 
 
 She had a look through the binoculars and then 
 went off to the galley with George to see about 
 breakfast. There were plenty of provisions on 
 the Heart; McGinnis and his crew had evidently 
 plenty of cash or credit, to judge by the condition 
 of the lazarette and store room, and when Tom- 
 mie and George had satisfied their wants, Hank, 
 giving them the deck, came down. 
 
 When he returned on deck, the schooner was 
 closing up with the rock and the wreck was 
 plainly visible to the naked eye, with the gulls 
 shouting around her. 
 
 The Santander rock, shaped and spired like a 
 cathedral, runs north and south, three hundred
 
 246 VANDERDECKEN 
 
 yards long, two hundred feet high, caved here and 
 there by the sea and worn by wind and rain into 
 ledges and depressions where the gulls roost 
 where they have roosted for ten thousand years. 
 
 It is the top of a big submarine mountain that 
 rises gradually from the depth of a mile. Quite in 
 shore, on the northern side, the lead gives a depth 
 of only twenty fathoms, gradually deepening, as 
 you put away, by five fathoms to the hundred 
 yards, till suddenly the lead finds nothing. There 
 must be a sheer, unimaginable cliff just there, 
 some three quarters of a mile high ! 
 
 It was on the north side of this great rock, 
 which is at once a monstrous and a tragic figure, 
 that the wreck was skewered, listing to starboard, 
 her sticks still standing but her canvas unstowed. 
 The crew had evidently piled her there, perhaps 
 in the dark. 
 
 Now, drawing close to her, that stern seemed 
 familiar, and the fact that she was a yacht became 
 apparent. It was Hank who voiced the growing 
 conviction in their minds. 
 
 "Boys!" cried Hank, "she's the Wear Jack!" 
 
 George and Tommie were the only boys on that 
 deck beside himself, but Tommie did not laugh. 
 She heaved a deep breath and stood with her 
 hands on the rail and her eyes fixed on the wreck. 
 
 "She is," said George. "Look at her paint. 
 Lord, this is lovely, that fellow has piled her." 
 
 "And got off in the boat," said Hank. "The
 
 SANTANDER ROCK 247 
 
 boat's gone. They'd have easy lowered her over 
 the starboard side." 
 
 "What are you going to do?" asked the other. 
 "Shall we board her?" 
 
 "Sure," said Hank. "Roust out Jake and get 
 ready to drop the hook if we can find anchorage. 
 Get the lead ready." 
 
 George ran to the foc'sle and rousted out Jake 
 who came on deck rubbing his eyes. 
 
 "Why there's the old Jack," cried he. 
 * ' Piled ! ' ' He clapped his hand on his thigh, then 
 fetched the lead at the order of Hank and hove it. 
 
 Forty fathoms rocky bottom, was the result. 
 Then, as they came slowly up, the depth shoaled. 
 
 "Get ready with the anchor," cried Hank. He 
 brought the Heart along till they were almost 
 abreast of the wreck, and at a safe distance, then, 
 in thirty fathoms, the anchor was dropped and the 
 Heart slowly swung to her moorings. 
 
 The dinghy was lowered and Hank and George 
 got in. 
 
 Yes, it was the Wear Jack right enough, lying 
 there like a stricken thing, the gentle list bringing 
 her starboard rail to within a few feet of the blue 
 lapping swell. Gaffs brought down on the booms, 
 booms unsupported by the topping lifts, boat 
 gone, she made a picture of desolation and 
 abandonment unforgettable, seen there against the 
 grim gray background of the rock. 
 
 "Well, he's made a masterpiece of it," said
 
 248 VANDERDECKEN 
 
 Hank as they tied on and scrambled on board. 
 "He sure has." 
 
 They were turning aft along the slanting deck 
 when up through the cabin hatch came the head 
 and shoulders of a man, a man rubbing sleep from 
 his eyes. It was Candon.
 
 CHAPTER XXXVI 
 
 "CANDON" 
 
 CANDON deserted by the Chinks just as he 
 had deserted his companions on the beach. 
 4 'It's him the scoundrel," cried Hank. 
 
 Candon, as startled as themselves, wild-eyed 
 and just roused from profound sleep, standing 
 now on deck staring at Hank, took the insult right 
 in his teeth. 
 
 He drew back a bit, glanced over, saw the 
 Heart and turned to George. 
 
 "What's this?" said Candon. "Where the 
 hell have you come from?" 
 
 "Where you left us stranded on that beach," 
 replied George. "Where you left us when you 
 beat it with the ship and the boodle." 
 
 Candon 's face blazed up for a second. Then he 
 got a clutch on himself and seemed to bottle his 
 pride and his anger. He folded his arms and 
 stared at the deck planking without speaking. He 
 rocked slightly as he stood, as though unsure of 
 his balance. He seemed to have no sense of 
 shame. Caught and confronted with his deed, he 
 did not seem even to be searching for excuses. 
 
 249
 
 250 VANDERDECKEN 
 
 There was a frown on his brow and his lips were 
 compressed. 
 
 Suddenly he spoke. 
 
 "Well," said Candon, "you've given me a 
 name, what more have you to say?" 
 
 "Nothing," said George. 
 
 Candon turned, spat viciously over the rail and 
 laughed, an odious sneering laugh that raised the 
 bristles on Hank. 
 
 "It's easy to laugh," said Hank, "but it's no 
 laughing matter to us. We've lost the Wear Jack, 
 we've lost the boodle, we've lost our time, and 
 we've been played a damn dirty trick, about as 
 dirty as the trick the Chinks seem to have played 
 on you." 
 
 Candon was not laughing now. He had turned 
 to the starboard rail and was standing looking at 
 the Heart. Tommie on the deck was clearly visi- 
 ble. She was looking at the Wear Jack; then she 
 turned away and went below, as though to escape 
 from the sight of him. 
 
 Candon gripped the rail tighter and heaved a 
 deep breath. He turned to the others. 
 
 "So I've played you a dirty trick," said Can- 
 don. "Well, if I hadn't you'd have suspected me 
 all the same, you'd never have said to yourselves 
 maybe he didn't, let's ask him " 
 
 "Ask him," said Hank. "What's the use, but I 
 ask you now Did you take that boat and go off 
 to the Wear Jack for those automatics, leaving us
 
 "CANDON" 251 
 
 there on that beach without pistols or means of 
 fighting if .the Mexicans came ? ' ' 
 
 "I did," said Candon, a curious light in his 
 blue eyes. 
 
 "Did you sail off and leave us there?" 
 
 "I did." 
 
 "Well then, there's no use talking." 
 
 "Not a bit," said George. 
 
 "You finished?" asked Candon. 
 
 "Yep." 
 
 "Well then, that's Pat McGinnis' boat, he's 
 been down to the bay, must have been or you 
 wouldn't have collared it. What've you done 
 with him?" 
 
 "That's nothing to you," said Hank. 
 
 "A minute," said George. "We've left him 
 and his men there and we collared his boat, but 
 we played the game he forced on us, and we 
 played it straight." 
 
 "So you say," said Candon. "How'm I to 
 know?" 
 
 "You suspect us !" fired Hank. 
 
 "And why not? You suspected me, the whole 
 three of you jumped on me like this directly you 
 came on board, never asked a question, not you, 
 because you weren't true friends, hadn't the 
 makin's of friendship in you, never asked for 
 reasons. ' ' 
 
 Hank flushed. "Good Lord!" said he, "you 
 mean to say you had a reason for leaving us like 
 that?"
 
 262 VANDERDECKEN 
 
 "No, I hadn't/' replied the other, "but that's 
 nothing. It's nothing if I'm the biggest black- 
 guard on earth, as I intend to be. What's the 
 good of being honest when you're written down a 
 rogue out of hand the first traverse that seems 
 suspicious even if you are a rogue. Why, God 
 bless my soul, them diamonds, you wouldn't trust 
 them on the beach with me> you must take and 
 shove them aboard the Jack." 
 
 "I never thought of you," said Hank. "I was 
 thinking of the Mexicans coming down on us." 
 
 "Maybe," said Candon. "So you say, but 
 how'm I to know." He spoke with extraordinary 
 bitterness. To George the whole thing was beyond 
 words, the evidence of a mentality bordering on 
 the insane. Here was a man guilty of the betrayal 
 of his companions, guilty of leaving them 
 marooned on a hostile beach, yet not only un- 
 ashamed but highly indignant that they should 
 have suspected him and declared him guilty off- 
 hand. It was true there was something in what 
 he said ; they had taken his action as the action of 
 a rogue almost from the first, but they could not 
 have done otherwise. 
 
 He was determined to put this point right. 
 "Look here," he said, "we might have thought 
 you put off for some reason other than making 
 away with that boodle, if you hadn't said you 
 were going to leave us." 
 
 * ' I said I was going to stick in Mexico, ' ' replied 
 Candon. "But there's no use in talking any more.
 
 "CANDON" 253 
 
 Question is, what to do now. I can't stick here 
 and I don't want to go on the Heart, unless I 
 berth forward and help to work the ship. You 
 can put me ashore somewhere." 
 
 "You'll have to berth with Jake," said Hank. 
 "He's the fellow that was on the quay that night 
 we put off and gave the show away to McGinnis. ' ' 
 
 "He'll do," said Candon, "I reckon he's good 
 enough for me. ' ' 
 
 "Well, you'd better get your things then," 
 said George. 
 
 They went down into the cabin one after the 
 other, Candon leading. 
 
 The first things that struck Hank's eyes, were 
 the automatic pistols lying on the tray shelf 
 where he had seen them last. 
 
 Hank went to his bunk where he had hid the 
 diamonds. The parcel was gone. 
 
 "I suppose the Chinks took the boodle as well 
 as the boat," said he. 
 
 "That's so," replied Candon. 
 
 "Seems to me you didn't make much of a fight, 
 seeing you had those pistols." 
 
 "I didn't make any fight at all." 
 
 Hank sniffed. George said nothing. They 
 were busy now collecting their property. The 
 Chinks had touched nothing but the diamonds. 
 Hadn't time, most likely, to think of anything 
 but escape from the wreck, and the chance of 
 being found by some ship on the vessel they had 
 helped Candon to run away with.
 
 254 VANDERDECKEN 
 
 "What made you show them the diamonds?" 
 asked Hank, as he stuffed Tommie's possessions 
 into a bag. 
 
 "I didn't," said Candon. 
 
 "Then who told them?" 
 
 "The man who brought them on board." 
 
 "That was me. I said nothing." 
 
 He remembered how Tommie had put the 
 things on and how the two Chinks had seen her. 
 They had rowed him off with the package and 
 might have given the news to the others. How- 
 ever, it didn't matter much and he was inclined 
 for no more talk with B. C. He felt he had low- 
 ered himself already by speaking of the matter at 
 all to the fellow. 
 
 Then they put the dunnage on deck and 
 transshipped it in two journeys to the Heart. 
 Tommie was on deck again when Candon came on 
 board. She just nodded to him, and then turned 
 to help getting the things down to the cabin. 
 Candon 's lot went into the foc'sle. Then he, Jake 
 and George set to on the windlass, getting the 
 anchor chain in. 
 
 It was the queerest and weirdest business, for 
 B. C. showed neither shame nor irritation nor 
 anger. A tremendous placidity seemed to have 
 fallen upon him, almost a mild cheerfulness. He 
 worked away and spoke to no one, he might have 
 been an absolute stranger, a new hand just signed 
 on. 
 
 When the Heart was under way, Hank and
 
 "CANDON" 255 
 
 George picked watches. Hank had first call and 
 picked Jake. George said nothing. Candon had 
 fallen to him automatically. 
 
 Then Candon went down into the foc'sle to 
 arrange his things and see after his bunk and 
 with Hank at the wheel, the schooner lay again on 
 her old course, the far-off crying of the gulls 
 round Santander rock following them like the 
 voice of mockery.
 
 CHAPTER XXXVII 
 
 JAKE IS FIBED AGAIN 
 
 THEY had left Cancer far behind, they had 
 rejected Hank's first idea of steering out 
 towards Honolulu and then making aboard 
 for 'Frisco, they were taking the shortest way 
 possible home, shaving the Channel Islands and 
 almost careless about being stopped. They wanted 
 to finish the voyage as quickly as possible. Candon 
 there in the foc'sle made his presence felt right 
 through the ship. It was as though he had died 
 and his ghost were haunting them. He never 
 spoke unless in reply to orders. He seemed living 
 in a world of his own, a silent secretive world 
 where emotions were not. They began to appreci- 
 ate the fact that they had shipped in San Fran- 
 cisco, not an ordinary sailor man with blue eyes, 
 but a personality absolutely outside the ambit of 
 ordinary experience. 
 
 ''It's getting on my spine," said Hank one day, 
 as he sat in the fusty cabin smoking with George. 
 * ' The man seems gone dead, no shame or nothing, 
 just as if he'd never seen us before ; unless he gets 
 an order, and then he jumps to it.'* 
 
 256
 
 JAKE IS FIRED AGAIN 257 
 
 "It's got on T. C.'s spine, too," said George. 
 4 'Damn him, she's not the same. I see her staring 
 in front of her sometimes as if she was looking at 
 ghosts. She never laughs and she 's off her feed. ' ' 
 
 "He's worse than a cargo of skeletons," said 
 Hank, "and I've noticed T. C. I'm not thinking 
 any more of her, Bud, in that way, but it gets me 
 to see her crumpled. What are women made of, 
 anyhow? Seems to me if they once get gone on a 
 man they go clean mushy for good and such a 
 man! Why, I heard Jake joshing him in the 
 foc'sle only yesterday Jake and he took it like 
 a lamb. Gets me." 
 
 He got up and took some little photographs 
 from a locker. They had salved George's kodak 
 and developer from the Wear Jack, and Hank, 
 just before starting, had taken half a dozen snaps 
 of the Jack lying piled on the rocks. He had done 
 this for no sentimental reasons, but as evidence 
 whereby Tyrebuck could collect his insurance 
 money. He looked at them now with glowing 
 satisfaction. They were the only bright spots in 
 this new business. 
 
 "Well," said he, "there's one thing. I won't 
 have to pay Tyrebuck his ten thousand. Luck|s 
 been playing pretty dirty tricks on us, but she's 
 let up for once, unless she piles us same as she 
 did the Jack." 
 
 Keeping as they were, well to outward of the 
 longitude of Guadeloupe, there was little fear of 
 them hitting anything except a, derelict. They,
 
 258 VANDERDECKEN 
 
 passed and were passed by vessels, tanks and 
 great four-masters, battered by Cape Horn or 
 making south to meet him. The traffic has in- 
 creased now-a-days in the waters between Pan- 
 ama and San Francisco; it has decreased between 
 Panama and the Horn, and is decreasing. The 
 Horn, that frightful criminal standing there fac- 
 ing the ceaseless march of the mountainous 
 waves, and countered by the canal, has come to 
 recognise the hatred of man. Day by day the 
 ships that pass him grow fewer, till a day may 
 come when they cease, leaving him in loneliness 
 forever. 
 
 On the day that they passed the latitude of 
 Santa Catalina Island out of sight far to star- 
 board, an incident occurred. 
 
 Hank had already noticed the attitude of Jake 
 towards Candon. Jake had evidently been put- 
 ting two and two together, and arriving at con- 
 clusions not far wrong. The attitude of the after- 
 guard towards B. C. completed the matter. 
 
 On this day, Hank, coming up to relieve George 
 at the wheel, found Tommie talking to George; 
 at the same moment Jake rose from the foc'sle 
 hatch to relieve Candon. Candon 's back was 
 turned to Jake who wished to pass him. 
 
 "Now then, you big stiff," cried Jake, "shift 
 yourself, will you ? ' ' 
 
 Then the explosion came. 
 
 Candon wheeled. Next moment Jake, caught by 
 the waistband, went flying over the port rail,
 
 JAKE IS FIRED AGAIN 259 
 
 tossed away like a rag doll ; the next, Candon was 
 after him; the next, the Heart of Ireland, answer- 
 ing to the helm, was turning and coming up into 
 the wind with all her canvas thrashing. 
 
 "Over with the dinghy," cried George, giving 
 the wheel to Tommie, and letting go the halyards. 
 
 Tommie, without a word, watched, as the two 
 men got the dinghy afloat. Then she was alone. 
 
 She ran to the rail for a moment and saw away 
 on the lifting swell, the heads of Candon and Jake 
 close together, Candon evidently supporting the 
 other and the boat making straight for them. 
 
 Ten minutes later the boat was back and Jake, 
 half drowned, was being hauled on board, Candon 
 helping. Then Candon took him down to the 
 foc'sle to revive him. The Heart was put on her 
 course again and the incident was closed. 
 
 Next day, Jake, subdued, went on with his work 
 and Candon with his, absolutely as though noth- 
 ing had happened. 
 
 The day after that, with the American coast 
 showing to starboard and San Francisco not far 
 ahead, Candon spoke to Hank. 
 
 "May I ask for the loan of your stylographic 
 pen?" said Candon. 
 
 "Sure," said Hank. "Do you want some 
 paper?" 
 
 "I was going to ask for some," said the other. 
 
 Hank went below and fetched up a wad of note 
 paper, some envelopes and the pen. 
 
 "Thanks," said Candon, and went off to the 
 foc'sle. It was his watch below.
 
 CHAPTER XXXVIII 
 
 THE ANCHOR TAKES THE MUD 
 
 SOME days later towards noon, the Heart of 
 Ireland, with the north-west wind and a 
 flooding tide, was making to enter the 
 Golden Gate. 
 
 It was a perfect day. Tamalpais, on the port 
 bow, show r ed clear against a diamond-bright blue 
 sky ; astern lay the sea of adventure and romance, 
 blue as when first sighted by Balboa. 
 
 .Hank was at the wheel and feeling pretty 
 nervous of the bar, when Candon, who had just 
 come on deck, came aft. 
 
 1 'I'll take you in," said Candon. He took the 
 spokes, and Hank, walking to the starboard rail, 
 stood close to George watching the land. 
 
 Then they moved a bit more forward to talk. 
 
 ''What's T. C. doing?" asked Hank. 
 
 "Down below," said George, "getting things 
 together. She's not likely to come up till he's 
 off." 
 
 "You've fixed things up with him?" 
 
 "Yep. We'll drop anchor off Tiburon, I'll row 
 him ashore in the dinghy. Wouldn't take money.
 
 THE ANCHOR TAKES THE MUD 261 
 
 says he's got twenty dollars and it's all he wants. 
 Lord, Hank! I'd give twenty hundred dollars if 
 this hadn't happened, twenty thousand, for I liked 
 him. I did. What is it makes men run crooked 
 who were built to run straight?" 
 
 "Search me," said Hank. 
 
 The Heart began to take the tumble of the bar. 
 They thrashed through and then came the old 
 familiar places, Line Point, the Presidio, the Bay, 
 breezed up and showing the same old ships and 
 traffic, the ferry boats running like pond insects, 
 the junks, the steamers with rust-red funnels, the 
 pleasure yachts, the oyster boats. 
 
 As they drew on to Tiburon, a white steam 
 yacht passing in the distance sent the music 
 of a band along the breeze. It was playing 
 "Suwanee." Closer in now, Hank went below. 
 Hank, for all his leathery old face, was far more 
 emotional than George, and kis mind, for all his 
 will power, would keep jumping over the barrier 
 of B. C.'s atrocious act to the old days when he 
 had loved B. C. as a man and brother. 
 
 Tommie was in the after cabin and invisible, 
 and Hank, alone, sat down at the table and leaned 
 his arms on it, staring at the grains in the wood 
 and listening. Leaning like this, suddenly a tear 
 that seemed in an awful hurry raced down his 
 right cheek; he did not know it. He was talking 
 to himself, repeating the same words over and 
 over again.
 
 262 VANDERDECKEN 
 
 "Damn scoundrel. Damn scoundrel. Damn 
 scoundrel." 
 
 Then, suddenly, the way fell off, a voice on deck 
 gave an order, and the sound of the anchor chain 
 rasped through the ship. The anchor was down. 
 
 Other sounds came that told him what was 
 going on, then silence. 
 
 He came up. There was no one on deck but 
 Jake chewing and spitting over-side. Away on 
 the water, making for the wharf, was the dinghy, 
 George rowing, Candon in the stern. Hank stood 
 watching for a moment, calling up in his mind the 
 day when, talking to George in the cabin of the 
 Wear Jack, Candon first came on board. He could 
 see him plainly as he stood in the doorway, huge, 
 friendly looking, with those eyes, the clear, blue, 
 truthful eyes of a child. He called up all those 
 discussions of an evening when George was ashore 
 and Candon hiding from McGinnis and his men, 
 those long talks covering the world and men and 
 women including Ella Wheeler Wilcox. The 
 thing made him feel frightened as though the solid 
 deck beneath his feet were threatened to dissolve. 
 B. C. had been in earnest during those conversa- 
 tions, dead earnest, yet look what he had done. 
 If that were so, how was he, Hank, to make sure 
 he wasn't as bad as B. C.? Good one moment, 
 bad the next? He tried to recall all the mean 
 things he had ever done, going right back to his 
 childhood. He couldn't remember anything in 
 particular except nicking some apples off a stall.
 
 THE ANCHOR TAKES THE MUD 263 
 
 Then he gave up thinking, and came below, where 
 he found Tommie who had finished putting things 
 straight. She looked pale and pretty miserable 
 and Hank's heart went out to her, so that he might 
 have revealed what was in it only for his recollec- 
 tion of Zillah backed by Candon. Providence also 
 helped, for at that moment, through the open 
 ports, he heard a quick running launch checking 
 her speed and coming washing alongside. A voice 
 hailed Jake. 
 
 "It's the Port man," said Hank. He darted 
 up to the companion way, looking over and saw 
 the Port Authority man. It was old Captain 
 Scudder, a friend. 
 
 "Hullo, Hank!" cried Scudder. "Lord bless 
 my soul, where have you sprung from? Where's 
 the old Wear Jack?" 
 
 "Come on board," said Hank, helping him up. 
 "Come along down this is better 'n beans. 
 Thought it might be some chap I didn't know." 
 
 "Got the Dutchman I" asked Scudder as he 
 came down the companion way. 
 
 "Well, you might almost say I have," replied 
 Hank, "but I'll tell you the yarn." 
 
 Tommie had retired into the after cabin and 
 they sat down whilst Hank, knowing the man he 
 was speaking to, gave his story, with big cuts but 
 all essentials. 
 
 "So you see," finished Hank, "McGinnis is 
 down and out, can't come back to 'Frisco with the 
 fear of us on top of him. He was Vanderdecken
 
 264. VANDERDECKEN 
 
 practically speaking. But I've got some of his 
 money and this old schooner to hand over to his 
 wife if he's got one." 
 
 "Well, if you ask me he's got a widow, if I know 
 anything of those Mexicans," replied Scudder. 
 "Yes, he had a wife, she lives in Lincoln Street, 
 and we'll fix it with her. Listen, there's a boat 
 come alongside." 
 
 It was George returned. He came down and 
 took a hand whilst they debated matters with 
 Scudder. 
 
 "Take my advice," said the captain, "and keep 
 your heads shut. You piled and lost the Wear Jack 
 and came home in a schooner that happened along. 
 Tell that to your friends. I'll smother the yarn 
 as far as my side lies and I'll look after Jake. 
 There is no use in stirring up trouble. Why, it 
 might mean a dust-up with Mexico. Don't bother 
 about being kidded at not bringing Vanderdecken 
 home. He's half forgot, there's an election on 
 you know 'Frisco. As for that movie company 
 and the show of theirs you bust up Wallack and 
 Jackson it was there was a big story about it 
 in the papers but Wallack and Jackson is bust 
 themselves. A week ago they went, with half a 
 dozen others." 
 
 "Well, that's a comfort," said Hank, forget- 
 ting Tommie, and her means of livelihood. 
 
 Then Scudder heaved himself up and took his 
 leave, and Tommie came out of the after cabin. 
 
 "Say," Baid Hank, suddenly remembering the
 
 THE ANCHOR TAKES THE MUD 265 
 
 importance of Scudder's news and recognising the 
 gravity of it to her, "Old Scudder, the Port man 
 has been here and we've fixed everything up all 
 right, but he's brought bad news. Your show has 
 bust." 
 
 "Which?" asked Tommie. 
 
 "Jackson and what's-his-name." 
 
 "I don't wonder," said Tommie, "it has been 
 going a long time. Well, it doesn't matter to me, 
 I've been careful and put by. I've thirty thousand 
 dollars laid by with Aunt Coulthurst. She lives in 
 Montgomery Street and I'm tired of the movies 
 anyway. I want real life and I'm going to get it. " 
 
 "How?" asked Hank. 
 
 "Kanch." 
 
 "Where?" 
 
 "Where I was born. Texas. There's air there, 
 and life." 
 
 "Sure, "said Hank. 
 
 "I'll buy a ranch and run it. It's a better life 
 than being thrown out of windows for fools to 
 look at or dropping from aeroplanes." 
 
 "Sure," said Hank. 
 
 "Well," said Tommie, taking her seat for a 
 moment on a bunk side and speaking as if in a 
 reverie, "I suppose this is the end of our trip. It's 
 been queer, and we've had tight shaves but I 
 wouldn't have missed it for earths. It's taught 
 me more than I ever knew and it's made me have 
 no fear in striking out for myself in life. I was 
 never afraid of things, but I used to be frightened
 
 266 VANDERDECKEN 
 
 of life and what was to come the day after next, 
 and I guess that's clean gone." 
 
 "What are you going to do now, when you get 
 ashore?" asked George. 
 
 "I'm going to Aunt Coulthurst; 16, Montgom- 
 ery Street is her address, and don't you forget it, 
 and come and see us, won't you?" 
 
 "Sure," said Hank. 
 
 "Come Sunday. You'll love her and and " 
 finished Miss Coulthurst, with a catch in her voice, 
 "I want her to thank you, for you've both been 
 very very good to me." 
 
 Hank seemed swallowing something. 
 
 "We'll come with pleasure," said George. 
 
 There was a pause, during which George took 
 a letter from his pocket and gave it to Hank. It 
 was a letter Candon had given him at parting; it 
 had been written on the voyage with the stylo- 
 graph pen he had borrowed and it was addressed 
 to Hank Fisher. 
 
 " 'Scuse me," said Hank, and as Tommie rose 
 to get her hat before going, he opened the letter 
 and began to read. 
 
 He hadn't been reading long when his jaw 
 began to drop, he stopped dead and stared before 
 him, took up the letter again, then handed it to 
 George. 
 
 * ' That does me, ' ' said Hank. ' ' Read it read it 
 out read it. ' ' 
 
 Tommie stood by whilst George read out the 
 letter.
 
 THE ANCHOR TAKES THE MUD 267 
 
 This is a verbatim copy : 
 
 "You called me a scoundrel. I am, maybe, 
 but not the way you meant. Bight away from 
 the first you said to yourselves, the whole 
 three of you, that this fellow Candon had let 
 you down, gone off with the ship and boodle. 
 You asked me had I gone aboard for those 
 pistols, and I said I had. You asked me had 
 I sailed off and left you and I said I had. You 
 asked me had I any reason for going, mean- 
 ing, in your left-handed way, was I a black- 
 guard or not, and I said I hadn't. I hadn't. 
 I was took. 
 
 "I'll tell you. When I left the beach that 
 night and got the Chinks to row me aboard 
 for those automatics, I found the cabin on 
 board lit, the bunk bedding all pulled about 
 and everything upside down and Charlie 
 down there putting things to rights. I said 
 to myself, that's Hank's work, the Chinks 
 have nosed the diamonds and been on the 
 search, and got them, to judge by the mess 
 they've made. I saw it was serious but said 
 nothing, went to the locker for the guns and 
 whilst my back was turned, Charlie slipped 
 on deck. The guns were there, the Chinks 
 had been too busy to hunt for them. I took 
 one of the automatics and saw it was loaded. 
 As I was handling it, I heard the door of the 
 cabin hatch shut and knew at once I was 
 bottled and cursed myself for being such a
 
 268 VAXDERDECKEN 
 
 fool and not getting on deck quicker. I re- 
 membered the galley hatch and made for it, 
 nearly killing myself against the foc'sle bulk- 
 head. The galley hatch was shut. I made 
 back for the cabin and tried to burst the door. 
 It was held like a rock by the bolts and some- 
 thing shoved against it. I thought of firing 
 an automatic out of one of the ports for help, 
 till I remembered you had no boat. If I'd 
 once dreamed that you'd have suspected me, 
 I'd have fired the lot, but I could not think 
 that and it never entered my mind." 
 
 George paused for a moment. 
 "That shows you what jumping at conclusions 
 too quickly, comes to. Here's the best fellow on 
 earth, seems to me, and we at least I did yes, I 
 did, I wrote him off as a scoundrel right from the 
 beginning almost. ' ' 
 
 ' ' We didn 't, " cried Tommie. ' ' I didn 't, I know 
 I felt there must be something that took him away. 
 I never gave up hope till I saw you all standing on 
 the deck of the Wear Jack and that you were 
 scarcely speaking to him, and that he didn't seem 
 to be explaining things I don't know if I even 
 quite gave up then oh, dear ! ' ' 
 
 Her agitation made Hank blaze up. 
 "Why in the nation," he cried, "couldn't he 
 have explained." 
 
 "You called him a scoundrel," said George. 
 "He saw we'd marked him down without trial, 
 and he was that sort."
 
 THE ANCHOR TAKES THE MUD 269 
 
 " Which sort?" 
 
 ' * The sort that will kill you if you hit its pride, 
 even if it has to kill itself. I expect that time in 
 the foc'sle with Jake was pure hell's delight to 
 him, feeling he was making us miserable and being 
 miserable himself. I expect he's gloating at this 
 present minute over us reading this letter and 
 being unable to get at him to make things up. 
 Gloating with pleasure, yet in hell all the time." 
 
 "Why, Bud," said Hank, "you're talking as if 
 you knew the man's mind inside out." 
 
 ' ' Maybe, I do, ' ' said Bud. * * Maybe I 'm not such 
 a fool as I look, but I take him as a discontented 
 man who's made a mess of his life, and nicking 
 on him and calling him names like that just at 
 that moment, finished the business." 
 
 Tommie nodded. All the same she guessed the 
 case to be a bit more complicated than that. 
 "Go on reading," she said. 
 George went on. 
 
 "I sat down on one of the couches thinking 
 what to do and I heard the Chinks pow-wow- 
 ing away on deck. Talking maybe of how to 
 get rid of me. Time went on and the clock 
 went round to twelve, that's two hours after 
 I boarded her, then Charlie came to the sky- 
 light and hailed me. He said they'd taken the 
 ship and had got the, stuff we were digging 
 for. He asked me would I navigate her if they 
 let me out. I told him to go to hell. He went 
 off and time went on and then I heard them
 
 270 VANDERDECKEN 
 
 handling the halyards and getting in the hook. 
 They didn't shout at their work, went silent 
 as cats. Then I felt the ship under way. 
 
 "Morning came. I daren't sleep or they'd 
 have been down on me, but I had food from 
 the lazarette and there was water in the 
 swinging bottle. 
 
 "Charlie came again that day to know if I 
 would help work the ship. He said they meant 
 to beach her on the Panama coast at a place 
 they knew and offered me a share in the 
 boodle. I told him I'd fire the ship first and 
 he went away. 
 
 "That night, about three hours after dark 
 as far as I could guess, for the clock had run 
 down and I hadn't bothered to wind it; and 
 they'd taken the chronometer with the charts 
 on deck, a smash came and I knew the fools 
 had piled her. I heard them shouting and 
 pow-wowing. The sea was smooth and I knew 
 they could easy get away if they didn't foul 
 the boat in lowering her. They got her over 
 all right and I heard them putting their 
 dunnage in, grub and water, too, if they 
 weren't crazy. Then I heard nothing more. 
 They'd gone. 
 
 "The lamp was still alight. I'd put it out 
 in the day time and lit up before dark; all 
 the same, there wasn't much oil in her. So I 
 set to on the cabin hatch working with my 
 knife. I left off to get one of the automatics
 
 THE ANCHOR TAKES THE MUD 271 
 
 to see if I couldn't smash up the wood by 
 firing, when, just taking it, I felt a draught 
 of air blowing towards the skylight. I'd 
 thought of getting out by the skylight, but the 
 Chinks had thought of it too, and they'd over- 
 laid it with ropes, but that draught blowing 
 towards it gave me a jog and I made down 
 along to the galley. The galley hatch was 
 open. 
 
 "The Chinks must have opened it before 
 running away, reckoning that if anything 
 turned up and they were caught it would be 
 lighter for them if they hadn't killed me. 
 
 "I got out on deck, couldn't see the boat. 
 Then I opened the cabin hatch and let the 
 air in. 
 
 * * Then I had some grub and laid down and 
 went asleep. I dreamt I heard a boat coming 
 alongside. I tumbled out and came on deck 
 and found my pals. 
 "You know the rest. 
 
 "BoB CANDON."
 
 CHAPTER XXXIX 
 
 VANDEEDECKEN 
 
 CANDON with his bundle under his arm 
 walked from the stage where George had 
 landed him to the ferry wharf. He did not 
 intend staying at Tiburon, he wanted to lose 
 himself, put himself beyond possible reach of 
 Hank and George. He was waiting for the San 
 Francisco ferry. 
 
 He felt uplifted, light-headed, full and satisfied 
 with the knowledge that George Du Cane and the 
 others would be reading his letter by now. He 
 had revenged himself on himself, on society, and 
 on his companions. Right from his first joining in 
 with Hank and George, under everything had lain 
 the fact that he was an outlaw, coupled with the 
 fact that he had joined the Wear Jack through 
 subterfuge. His confession at San Nicolas had 
 seemingly cleared the slate, yet the fact remained ; 
 you cannot confess a fact away. He had been 
 forgiven by Hank and Bud, and Tommie had 
 declared her opinion that he would be all right 
 with the Almighty when he'd prayed himself out 
 of the hole he was in by hard work and the 
 
 272
 
 VANDERDECKEN 273 
 
 restoration of the jewels. Just so. Yet the fact 
 remained that he had run crooked. 
 
 It had been like a grit in the eye. Sometimes 
 he did not feel it, other times he did, but it had 
 been there all the time. 
 
 It was his sense of inferiority always fretting 
 his pride, his pride always fretful that had, 
 perhaps, brought about the end of everything. 
 
 A lesser man or a greater man might have 
 defended himself, explained or tried to explain. 
 
 He took his place in the ferry boat, crammed 
 with the usual crowd. At it drew off from the 
 wharf, he saw the Heart of Ireland as she lay at 
 anchor. There was a figure on deck, it was Jake, 
 the others were evidently down below. What were 
 they saying, what were they doing? He watched 
 the old schooner as she dimmed away into the 
 distance across the breezy water, then he turned 
 and looked at San Francisco standing before him 
 in a blaze of light, the Palace Hotel, the hills 
 veined with streets, the docks and shipping, all so 
 vast, so indifferent, brilliant, self-possessed and 
 cruel. 
 
 Nature in her worst moods has made nothing 
 more daunting than a city. Candon had never 
 felt this as he felt it now. The Wear Jack had 
 been a home and he and his companions almost 
 a family. In all the city he had not a friend. 
 That is the worst of a sailor's life; unless he 
 rises to the command of a ship and keeps it, the 
 end of each voyage often means a break-up and
 
 274 VANDERDECKEN 
 
 separation from the men he sails with and the best 
 friends part never to meet again. The sailor has 
 no time ashore to make friends and the friends he 
 makes at sea he loses. 
 
 Candon landed at the wharf and made for Essex 
 Street where he had put up before. No. 12 was 
 the house, an humble enough place, but clean and 
 respectable, kept by a widow whose husband had 
 been captain of one of the Oakland ferry boats. 
 
 He obtained a room, left his bundle and started 
 out making up town. He had no object in view. 
 In the old days he would most likely have drifted 
 into a tavern, met companions and maybe friends 
 under the freemasonry of drink; but those days 
 are done with. Drink he could have got, poison, 
 swallowed in a corner at five or ten times the 
 price of the old stuff, but, though several touts 
 spoke to him, recognising a man from the sea, he 
 turned them down. Passing from street to street 
 without caring where he went, the fact of his own 
 isolation was borne in on him by every sight and 
 sound. All these people had businesses, friends, 
 acquaintances. He had none. If he were to drop 
 dead not a soul would care. 
 
 He found himself amongst the sharp-faced 
 hustling crowd of Market Street and drifted with 
 it, scarcely seeing it, looking in at shop windows 
 but scarcely noticing the goods. He was not 
 walking alone now; the wraiths of Hank and 
 George and Tommie were with him, walking on 
 either side of him, and now in some extraordinary
 
 VANDERDECKEN 275 
 
 way his anger and enmity against them, against 
 himself and against circumstances had faded. It 
 was as though they were dead. 
 
 The loneliness of the great city, the very atmos- 
 phere of it had seized upon him, cut him off from 
 those past few brilliant weeks of adventure and 
 stress. He could no longer feel as he felt then. 
 He tried, remembering how they had pro-judged 
 him, to work up his feelings of only a few hours 
 ago, but the old anger would not come. He had 
 left it behind him on the Heart of Ireland or, 
 maybe, on the ferry boat. Anger would not come, 
 because the way was barred by a new-found sense 
 of reason that kept saying to him, "Well, suppose 
 they did ? Look at the facts they made a mistake 
 you were furious because you were innocent, 
 but were you made of glass so that they could see 
 your innocence ? Not you ; why you were Vander- 
 decken. You had already done a shady trick by 
 getting on board the Wear Jack under that con- 
 tract; you were no white lamb. Facts were 
 against you and you were too proud to explain 
 that's the truth and you had a grudge against 
 everything. Well there it is and no more to be 
 said." 
 
 He went into a picture house and sat for ten 
 minutes and came out again and had some food. 
 
 It was evening now and the lamps were spring- 
 ing alight. He wandered down towards the docks, 
 Hank, Bud and Tommie still clinging to him, and 
 Reason, refreshed with a porter-house steak,
 
 276 VANDERDECKEN 
 
 clearing her throat to say something. Then in 
 Tallis Street where the crimps abide, she said it. 
 
 "Swab!" Then she began to rub it in. "You 
 wrote that letter. Every line you wrote, down 
 there in the foc'sle of the Heart, was pure joy. 
 You said to yourself, 'When they read this they 
 will suffer.' That's what you said and what you 
 felt. You didn't write to explain, you wrote 
 to hit." 
 
 That was the truth. 
 
 They were the best people he had ever met and 
 he had wounded them all he could. Done all he 
 could to make them feel mean and small. 
 
 If they had not been the best people, the letter 
 would have had no effect ; if he had not loved them, 
 the odious pleasure of writing it would not have 
 been there. If he had not loved them, he would 
 not have struck them, struck them with the 
 feverish anger of the child that breaks and 
 destroys the thing it cares for. 
 
 He walked on, making towards the water side, 
 reviewing himself and his futilities. 
 
 Impulse and a volcanic nature had been his ruin 
 right along from the first and pride. And the 
 devil of it was his impulse had always been or 
 nearly always towards the good. Why, look 
 away back to the time when he commanded a ship 
 and had been fired for a volcanic letter to the 
 owners for supplying his crew with "grub that a 
 dog wouldn't eat." And he had chucked a good 
 chance to go and fight in a war that had nothing
 
 VANDERDECKEN 277 
 
 to do with him, just because the Lusitania had 
 been torpedoed. Look at the McGinnis business. 
 Look at everything. 
 
 A man rarely sees himself in the glass of mind. 
 When he does the image is rarely quite true. 
 Candon saw a reflection uglier than the reality. At 
 all events it was a good thing that he saw it. Then 
 
 he went home and tried to sleep and could not. 
 
 * * * 
 
 At ten o'clock next morning, he found himself 
 in Pacific Avenue, asking his way. At five minutes 
 past ten, he was coming up the steps of a residence 
 with Purbeckian marble pillars to the door-way. 
 
 He rang and Farintosh opened. Farintosh did 
 not know if Mr. du Cane were in; he would see. 
 He returned in a minute and ushered Candon into 
 a librar} 7 where Bud, in his shirt sleeves, was 
 re-arranging some books. Bud had a pipe in his 
 mouth. 
 
 Farintosh shut the door and the two men were 
 left alone. 
 
 "Sit down," said Bud. There was no warmth 
 in his tone. He seemed a different man from the 
 Bud of the Wear Jack, older, more serious. Old 
 Harley du Cane with his rose in his coat and his 
 air of a flaneur, could sometimes crystallize into 
 awful and icy seriousness, the man of pleasure 
 suddenly becoming the man of affairs, cold, logical 
 with something of the touch of the judge. 
 
 "I've come to say I haven't treated you people 
 well," said Candon. "I'll never see you again, so
 
 278 VANDERDECKEN 
 
 I wanted just to. say that. I couldn't sit down 
 under it any longer. Couldn't sleep to-night with- 
 out saying what I wanted to say. I shouldn't have 
 given up that letter." 
 
 ''You shouldn't," said Bud. He was standing 
 with his back to the fireplace now, with his pipe 
 in his mouth. "I'm not wanting to rub it in, but 
 you've crumpled Tommie up. Steady on, and let 
 me talk. I 'm the man you ought to have a grouch 
 against, for when the Wear Jack went off, I was 
 the first to say you'd taken your hook. I had to 
 kick Hank to make him believe. Hank's a good 
 sort, much better than me, much better than you, 
 much better than any of us. He believed in you, 
 so did Tommie. Well, now, see here, B. C., I'm 
 not going to apologise to you for being mistaken 
 and for writing you down worse than you were, 
 for the facts were all dead against you, and it was 
 no pleasure to me to think you'd hooked it. It cut 
 me bad. Let's forget it and come to the point. 
 I guess the Almighty sent you here to-night for 
 me to deal with and I'm going to deal with you 
 straight. One moment." 
 
 He left the room, and Candon heard him calling 
 for Farintosh and giving some directions, then he 
 returned, took his place on the hearth rug and 
 went on. 
 
 "Yes, I guess he did. "What are your plans T" 
 
 "Foc'sle." 
 
 "Yes, the foc'sle of some wind-jammer, fine 
 time and fine prospects. Well, I've made different
 
 VANDERDECKEN . 279 
 
 plans for you, made them long ago, dropped them 
 when that beastly business happened, but I've 
 picked them up again, right now." 
 
 "I reckon a dive into the harbour would be the 
 best plan for me," said Candon. He was seated 
 with his arms folded, wilted, miserable. He was 
 thinking of Tommie and what Bud had said about 
 her. 
 
 "It would," said Bud, "if you are an ass and 
 don't fall in with what I want to do." 
 
 "Yes?" 
 
 "You've got to take my money, work and pay 
 me back fruit farm or ranch. Quit the sea, the 
 sea's no use to you, B. C., and I tell you that 
 straight. ' ' 
 
 "It's good of you," said the other shaking his 
 head. "It's darn good of you, Bud du Cane you 
 said that before. It's not my pride. I reckon 
 I've no pride left, but where 's the good? I guess 
 I'm too far gone for any man to help me. I've 
 lost clutch of myself in the last two days. I tell 
 you it's as if I'd been boiled and my back-bone 
 taken out of me. I'm changed, that's a fact. All 
 my life I've never lost confidence in myself till 
 now. You remember how I took the Wear Jack 
 out of harbour that night? I could no more do 
 that now than I could fly I've lost confidence in 
 myself. 
 
 "And maybe a good thing, too," said George. 
 
 "I don't know," said Candon, "maybe it's good 
 or bad, but there's the fact. A while ago I was a
 
 280 VANDERDECKEN 
 
 man who could lead things, now I feel all I want 
 is to take orders." 
 
 "Good," said George, "and now you're talking 
 like a man. What do you think a man is, anyway! 
 Why, till he learns to take orders, he hasn't got 
 the makings of a man in him. And now I'm going 
 to give you your orders, B. C. You've got to 
 make a home for a girl that cares for you. She's 
 got money enough of her own, but you can't take 
 a woman's money, but you can take mine as a loan, 
 and if you don't make good, why you aren't the 
 man I think you are. ' ' 
 
 "Cares for me I" said Candon, as though he 
 were a bit deaf and not sure that he had caught 
 the other's words. 
 
 "Yes, unless I have no sense or judgment left. 
 But she'll tell you herself in a minute. I've sent 
 for her." 
 
 He left the room. 
 
 Candon got up and walked to and fro for a long 
 time, his hands behind his back. Then he lifted 
 up his chin and gazed before him with those clear 
 eyes trained to look over vast distances. 
 
 The manhood had come back to him with the call 
 to a greater adventure than any he had ever 
 undertaken. 
 
 He heard an automobile drawing up in the 
 street voices. Then the door opened and Tommie 
 
 stood before him. It closed, leaving them alone. 
 
 * * 
 
 That is the story of Vanderdecken as told to
 
 VANDERDECKEN 281 
 
 me by Hank Fisher. The story of a man of 
 temperament saved from himself by a woman. I 
 met George chi Cane at Pasadena a little while 
 ago and he corroborated the tale giving me a few 
 extra details left out by Hank. George said Tyre- 
 buck collected his insurance all right on the Wear 
 Jack, also that McGinnis and his crowd managed 
 to escape from the Mexicans, and, making down 
 the coast, were rescued by a tanker which had put 
 into Santa Clara Bay owing to a defect in her 
 machinery. They returned to San Francisco, but 
 made no trouble, or only with Mrs. McGinnis, who 
 had sold the Heart of Ireland and invested the 
 money in a laundry, thinking McGinnis dead. 
 
 Hank married his girl quite recently and 
 Candon and Tommie are happy, but the thing 
 uppermost in George's mind in connection with 
 this business was the treasure. 
 
 He took an old press cutting from his pocket 
 book and showed it to me. It gave news of a 
 boatful of dead Chinamen found and sunk by the 
 British cruiser Hesperia down by the Galapagos 
 Islands. 
 
 "They'd have sunk it maybe with a shell," said 
 George; "it would have given them fine target 
 practice for one of their small guns and they'd 
 never have overhauled it for jewelry. 
 
 "It's a hundred to one it was the boat of the 
 Wear Jack. The Wear Jack's whaler had no name 
 on it, and it's just the position they'd have been 
 in by drifting. You see the Kiro Shiwo would
 
 282 VANDERDECKEN 
 
 have brought them down past the line and then 
 they'd have met Humboldt's current; that would 
 have pushed them back, and there they'd have 
 been drifting and messing about when the Hes- 
 peria came along. Anyhow," finished George, 
 " whatever 's become of those jewels, they've 
 never been seen since, and it 's my opinion, they '11 
 never be seen again. ' ' 
 
 THE END.
 
 A 000124937 4