Barter (Rowland)/Part 4

by Henry C. Rowland

We Made a Good Enough Run Down the Coast; Ladies' Weather Except for a Bumpy Bit of Road Off Hatteras

XVII

WE MADE a good enough run down the coast; ladies' weather except for a bumpy bit of road off Hatteras. Arriving early at Jupiter Inlet, we ran in, and under Mrs. Fairchild's piloting fetched up off Sanders' store.

He appeared surprised to see us, and even more so to learn that we proposed to take up the option. This news cleared the rather sullen expression from his florid face.

“To tell the truth, folks,” he said, “I sorta come to the conclusion that part of it was jest a bluff.”

“Why?" Allaire asked.

“Well, some o' the know-alls hereabouts been tryin' to tell me I got trimmed bad on that there trade of ourn. Claimed that old stuff out yonder was probably worth a lot o' money. Said them old hangin's and carpets and furniture was sure to be bony-fide antiques, and that you people, bein' Northerners, was quick to git onto their value.”

“They were right, Mr. Sanders,” Allaire said in her coolest voice. “What's more, we were out looking for just that sort of trade, and we still are. Like oil scouts or anything else of that sort.”

Sanders' face darkened.

“Well, if I got stung, y'-all don't have to come back here and rub it in,” he growled.

Allaire fastened him with her tawny eyes.

“We did not come back here to rub it in, Mr. Sanders. Our intention has been to rub it out a little. But if you are going to get ugly about it, there will be nothing doing.”

He looked at the ground.

“Well, maybe I been a mite hasty, Miss Forsyth. These here busybodies got me right sore.”

“Yes, I can imagine that. There's always some kind neighbor to do that thing. But for the sake of your peace of mind I'll tell you this: If you hadn't made your trade with us you wouldn't have got anything at all. Before you had been gone an hour a rum runner who knew the value of that stuff as well as we did came in there to strip the place clean. Captain Stirling and Mr. Whitecliff beat off him and three of his men. They would have swooped down on you like sea eagles on a pelican before you had got half those things aboard your boat.”

Sanders stared.

“That crew that was there three or four months ago and left the licker for the old captain?”

“The same, Mr. Sanders. Captain Stirling fought the captain with swords, and Mr. Whitecliff beat his men all to pieces. You had a close shave, Mr. Sanders.” And she described briefly but graphically about what had happened.

Sanders' florid color faded.

“There now, and what d'ye know about that! A body ain't safe in these waters no more, what with them rum runners and pirates and sich. So you want to buy the island now, 'cordin' to the terms of the option?”

“That's what we've come here for, Mr. Sanders, and a little more. If you will help us to put the place in order, we will pay you a good price for your services and hand you a good fat bonus when we make the sale. I have every reason to think that deal is going through and that it will be good.”

This promise cheered Sanders up very obviously. It was, I think, what had been said to him that rankled most, so that to learn of how narrow an escape he had had not only from losing his goods but possibly his hide and hair made him feel better about it. He did not strike me as a valorous man.

“Well, I'm sorry I was hasty, Miss Forsyth. What d'you reckon to do first?”

“We've got to do it all at once, Mr. Sanders. Clean up the grounds and trim the trees and bushes and do some leveling and terracing and build a jetty and make the old house waterproof at least. We shall need a dozen negro laborers for a month. Three or four of them should understand carpentering.”

“Sounds like you figured to spend some money, Miss Forsyth.”

“We do. We figure to make some too. So can you. Here's the chance for you to throw a few cabbages back at the wise friends who guyed your act.”

“Well, that's good hearin', Miss Forsyth.”

“Then maybe this will talk even more convincingly, Mr. Sanders.” Allaire opened her bag and took out a certified check for five thousand dollars, made out to Sanders' order. “We will take up the option and get our deed from you today. Whatever you may not have made on this deal, the fact remains that the whole property cost you about four hundred dollars, and you have disposed of it for five thousand, plus that boatload of wares we traded you. In addition, you stand to make a profit in supplying our labor and material, and if our deal goes through, a bonus of, let us say, five per cent. See if your knowing friends can laugh that off.”

Sanders breathed heavily through his nose.

“Gee-whillikins, I reckon I been a plumb fool!”

“No, it looked tricky, I'll admit,” Allaire said. “But you see it's possible to drive a sharp trade and yet want to give the other fellow a square deal. If you found oil on another person's property, you might buy the land at a farm price. Then when you struck your oil, if you were decent you would do the right thing.”

“Some might,” Sanders agreed; “but most times they'd give a feller the merry ha-ha.”

“We don't do business that way. But if we are to put this through we've got no time to waste. When you've got a multimillionaire on the hook you can't play him for fun the way you might a sailfish. The sooner you get him alongside and give him the gaff the better. So if you feel like taking on this job we will pay you a thousand dollars on account for labor and material and get things going.”

And so things were got going, with a jump and a rush like starting a car in high, movie fashion. There was some quality about Allaire that seemed to have that effect on those with whom she made her contacts—to galvanize them into sudden violent activity, she herself remaining outwardly as calm as a highly charged storage battery.

Christmas was now only a week away, and our prospective client—or victim—Sayles planned to start on his Southern cruise soon after the New Year. His big sea-going houseboat, or deck-house cruiser, or whatever they call those new swift and able floating casinos, was to take him and his guests aboard at Charleston, thus to spare the tender skins of these sybarites the flick of piercing cold and their insides all derangement possible against other taxes that they might later be required to sustain. A very different breed of cattle to us seagoing mavericks aboard the Tinker.

We put in order our affairs with Sanders, then took gas and stores—for Allaire urgently desired that her considerable purchase be left undisturbed against a later need then put aboard a deckload of mixed building lumber and set out for Pelican Key. Arriving there, we found all as we had left it, Pompey evidently glad to see us, judging by his duckings and grimacings and crinklings of that weird inhuman visage that still would not have terrified a child because of some curious cosmic virtue in it, such as children are so quick to sense. To a youngster, this shriveled, puckered and uncannily agile creature would have beer clearly a denizen of the twixt-world, belonging to the class of elves and gnomes, but good ones, and as such not to be gauged by ordinary human measure.

Pompey's understanding appeared to be limited to brief orders, and he could not articulate at all. He had a tongue, but for some reason it seemed to be a mere impediment so far as speech was concerned, no frænum probably, and bound against the floor of his mouth.

Somehow the place looked better, now that we had made up our minds to redeem it. As good weather was now to be expected, we decided to take up our quarters in the house; and so proceeded to clean and put in some sort of camp order such rooms as we required, selecting those under parts of the roof that seemed in best repair.

That first evening Allaire stated the proposition with her usual calm directness. No doubt she felt that we, her business partners, had looked a bit askance at her high-handed proceedings whilst yet deterred from any criticism of them because of the enormous profit that up to this point they had shown.

“You three have been not only kind and long-suffering but tremendously complimentary to me,” she said, “because you have let me go ahead without a single word of protest, as if I were the controlling stock owner and empowered to do as I saw fit. You must have wondered why I took up the option and paid for this key before having any positive assurance that Sayles will buy it.”

“That point occurred to me, I'll admit,” I said.

“It must have occurred to Mrs. Fairchild and Cyril too. There were two reasons; and like all conditional affairs where there may be two reasons or twenty, one of them being the case, the rest can go glimmering.”

Cyril chuckled. Allaire was always a source of respectful delight to this Bermuda lad. Mrs. Fairchild regarded her with a perfectly ungrudging but puzzled admiration, as if freely admitting this girl's mental and physical distinction, but by no means sure that she possessed a soul; or if so, not the sort of soul that is supposed to invest the normal human being.

“The reason is,” said Allaire, “that though I am very sure of being able to sell this place to Sayles, if anything happens to prevent my doing so I would buy the key myself.”

We considered this statement in silence for a moment or two. Then I said:

“Tn that case, why didn't you buy it yourself to start with? You could have done that so far as concerned the rest of us. All this syndicate bought from Sanders was the house furniture and the option, the latter paid for by a radio set. Then if you sold the place to Sayles you would not have had to split the profit three ways.”

“Very true, Pom. But that did not strike me as being fair. As I see this business partnership of ours, it was understood that we were to pool not only what represented our capital but also our resources.”

Mrs. Fairchild looked a little bewildered. The pretty widow was not much of a business woman, I'm afraid, else she would never have got herself into such a commercial mess in an up-and-doing place like Beach City. Nevertheless, she now got the meat of this nut that Allaire had cracked.

“Then what you say amounts to this, Miss Forsyth: You offer to assume all the risk of this purchase and the cost of the work, paying it yourself if Mr. Sayles decides not to buy it. And if he does, then you expect us to share the profits of the sale.”

“Precisely,” Allaire murmured. “That's why I went ahead without consulting you others. I'm only telling you my intentions in the way of an apology.”

“Well, that's very nice of you, Allaire,” I said. “But speaking for myself, if I hadn't felt that it was purely a business speculation in which we were to share the risk and possible profit, I'd have put the kibosh on it. Personally, I don't care to have my shot assured by any member of this little syndicate of ours. So if Nick Sayles gets drunk and falls overboard or has a stroke or anything, I shall still consider myself to own my half of the one-third interest that Cyril and I share.”

Cyril leaned toward me, big eyes glowing, bony hands raised.

“Excuse me, Mr. Stirling, but I think you're a bit rough on Miss Forsyth. All she asks is that we should understand her motive in going ahead full-bore, as one might say. If it didn't sound so silly, I'd ask for a vote of confidence in Miss Forsyth.”

“Let's consider the motion duly made and unanimously passed,” I said, “and I'll follow it by making one that we adjourn.”

XVIII

SO WE adjourned, and when the others had gone to their rooms I went out on the front lawn, to the flat level patch of sandy turf in front of the old house, where I had fought that bizarre duel with Carstairs and he had so mysteriously made my cutlass point a present of his worthless lump of animated clay.

There was no moon on this night, but that peculiar radioactive mirror which is the sea gathered all the light in the multitude of brilliant low-hung stars and gave it back with interest, to diffuse a soft, lambent radiance over everything that was here. That sort of luminosity is soothing where moonlight may be exciting, even maddening—when supplemented by champagne and mockery.

It struck me then as I strolled about that I was by no means so happy as I had every right to be, nor as grateful to whatever sort of celestial subcommittee may administer the lives of individual atoms on such a grain of a planet as ours. Looking at the stars does this to one. Here quite recently I had escaped from a boiler factory and made a lot of money and got healthy and strong, and here I was still grousing—because a girl tormented me.

There was no sense in that, and even less dignity. If I had been in love with Allaire it would have been a different matter. Her attitude and treatment of me had gradually become belittling. She was never disagreeable, never sharp or critical or impatient, never dictatorial. Voice and manner were always smooth as cream. But it was her way of doing things that rankled, as if she were the head of the board and controlling stockholder, as she herself described it, and I the elderly stoop-shouldered head clerk that has finally been given a junior partnership.

At other times Allaire's manner toward me was of a sisterly sort, the patient and mildly affectionate elder sister who has long since despaired of her plodding, honest John of a brother showing any speed. A curious feature about our relations was that we could clash and I flare up and tell her how low she stood in my esteem, and the next time we met she would ignore the episode as though it never had occurred. Like a sister.

This does not sound like just cause for complaint, since I was not in love with Allaire, but on the contrary antagonistic toward her. I felt an enmity between us, under the surface. She would always belittle me, I thought, no matter what I did. As she saw it, though not thus voiced openly, our finding Pelican Key was a nautical blunder—true, but not a very bad one—and my disposal of Carstairs no great triumph for an expert fencer who was sober, opposed to a drunken bully unfamiliar with the sword. The caution that I showed habitually in most matters, shortening sail at night, and the like, irritated Allaire. She considered me utterly without dash.

I tacitly and at most times politely reciprocated her sentiments for me by telling myself that she was a clever, cold-blooded feline who cut her pattern of honesty to fit her needs; the sort of feminine commercial opportunist who would always be motivated by personal feelings in a matter of business rather than by any. established principles.

What kept me in a ferment was the growing fascination for Allaire that I could not deny, and which I would not admit to be due to her physical personality. I was conscious of this seductive quality about her but held myself to be immune from that. But the tug was there. It was growing, so that a sudden glimpse of her was disturbing to me, and I found myself restless if she were long away.

It was now in this mood that I started for a solitary walk on the sandy beach. The key was of irregular shape and comprised perhaps two hundred acres, mostly wooded in Southern pine and semitropic trees, these largely planted or set out many years ago, I thought. Its value to any purchaser would be in the made ground and park of live oaks and cedars, these trees now of splendid size, and in the old house of which we had discovered the frame, sills, joist, rooftree, floor beams, and the like, to be huge timbers in perfect preservation. The floors themselves were beautiful, as were the fittings, those of a ship with a deal of teak and oak and mahogany. Yet in that remote place and with the present cost of labor, I doubted that the building would be worth the wrecking, when even old town houses of fitted stone are scarcely that.

No, the actual value was, as Sanders had said, impossible to compute, because it must depend not on any established real estate or material price but one which some person who happened to take a fancy to it might be willing to pay to indulge his desire for ownership. If it failed to please Nick Sayles, then it looked to me as if we might consider our speculation a loss. It would be difficult enough to get anybody out there to look at it, let alone to buy it. I decided that Allaire had taken too much upon herself, and that we had been silly to let her go ahead with it. The price she set on it would make no difference. If Sayles happened to like it, he would not care what he paid. If it did not strike him precisely right, he would not take it as a gift. But there was this in our favor: That Sayles was a man who liked to entertain lavishly and to fill the flowing bowl until it doth run over. And I had heard it said that he was one of the few rich wasters who flatly refused to gratify his hospitable habits at the cost of his self-respect in the matter of strict good citizenship. He was known to pride himself on that, and Allaire said that he had told her that when his prewar supply of alcoholics ran out, which promised to be soon, he would either cease to entertain or do so in some other country.

Turning these things in my mind, I started to retrace my steps, having walked down the beach about a quarter of a mile from the house and being hidden from it by a curve of the shore. The three others had gone to bed, I thought. It was a warm night and clear, the heavens shot with myriad stars in every sector right down to the horizon, so that even accustomed as I was to the nocturnal heavens at sea it struck me with fresh wonder that there should be such an infinity of visible celestial bodies.

My stroll and trend of thought had heated me, so I decided for a dip in the perfectly tempered waters between the shore and the reef. There is no danger from sharks in the Bahamas, whatever one may hear to the contrary. Barracuda and whip rays or sting rays have to be considered in some localities, but I had heard Allaire question Sanders' Bahama boatman, McIntosh, about bathing out here and he assured her that it could be done in perfect safety.

“No heavy fish, no stingaree here, miss,” he had said.

So I stripped to sleeveless shirt and knee pants, to rinse them, too, while at it, and slid into the delicious water, swimming slowly down toward the inlet, only a couple of hundred yards away. Anybody could swim indefinitely in such mildly fresh and buoyant water, I thought, and rolled over on my back to stare up at the stars, paddling gently.

Perhaps these bright low points of brilliance may have had a hypnotizing action on my optic nerves, or perhaps there was some more purposeful destiny behind it, because I seemed to fall into a sort of somnambulistic state. I could not say how long I drifted, sculling gently with a rotary movement of my hands. At any rate, when finally roused out of this pleasant lethargy and deciding that it was time to paddle in and go to bed, I rolled over to discover with a shock that the beach was merely a faint pale band far in the distance, and above it the dark broken line of the trees.

It was easy enough to guess what had happened. The tide was ebbing and the water from the lagoon pouring out through the inlet which opened funnel-shaped to the sea. Sculling lazily along I had been caught in an eddy, drifted into the swift silent current running rapidly offshore. A silly trick for a sailorman, but nothing very serious, I thought, as I could swim across the current to where, as usually occurs in such conditions, there would be a back drift toward the beach.

Then, as I started to put this plan in practice, something white flashed up out of the water farther out. I thought it was a leaping fish, then discovered that it was moving rhythmically. It was another swimmer, working as I was to get out of the current and with a long overhand stroke. Filling my lungs, I let out a lusty hail.

“Hello!” I called.

The movement ceased. Then Allaire's voice called back a little tremulously, “Hello! Is that you, Pom?”

“Yes,” I called, and swam to intercept her.

So here was Allaire caught in the same trap, moved by the same impulse as myself to refresh herself before going to bed, and drifted out as I had been. We converged and came together.

“Nice mess, Pom,” said Allaire, composedly enough. “Why didn't you get a boat?”

“Didn't know that you were out here. I was taking a bath myself and floating on my back, stargazing. When I woke up I found I'd gone to sea.”

“Same here. We are a nice pair of Sunday picnickers. Oughtn't to bathe without a life-saver somewhere round.”

“Keep on swimming to the east and we'll get out of it,” I said.

“'Fraid not, Pom. I've been doing that for nearly ten minutes, I should say, and losing steadily.”

This was not so good. I had failed to notice any westward trend along the beach, but there might be one out here. Looking back at the dim shore I could now see that we were drifting westward from Pelican. But there was another smaller key west of it, and a chance that the fringe of the current might whip round back of that. I explained this to Allaire.

“My idea,” she said. “Since we can't stem it, we might as well try for the other island. Are you a good long-distance swimmer, Pom?”

“Yes, in this sort of water. How about yourself?”

“I'm good for another hour, if we take it easy. Maybe more. Can't sink in this water. We're a nice pair of lubbers.”

“Yes, I went to sleep—or something. However, since you did the same, I'm glad I'm here. Don't waste your strength, but bear over to the west. What have you got on?”

Allaire's laugh gurgled through the brine swirling round her mouth as she swam on her left side.

“Don't get inquisitive, Pom, because there's nothing much to get inquisitive about.” She gave another gurgle. “I left my peignoir at the water's edge.”

XIX

WELL, it really did not matter much, I thought, as I looked back over my shoulder and saw how our lointain island paradise was getting more and more that way. Naked we had come into this world, and naked one of us was apt to go out of it; or regally garmented, perhaps, in the purple mantle of the sea.

Allaire said presently, “I thought you had all gone to bed.”

“So did I. Why didn't you sing out when you found yourself way offshore?”

“I was already out of hail, so I thought I might as well save my breath to buck the current. When does the tide turn?”

“Not for another four hours, I should say.”

“Looks a little chancy, Pom.”

“Oh, we will make it, if you don't exhaust yourself. Better not talk. Paddle after me, and if you get tired put your hand on my shoulder.”

For half an hour perhaps we swam steadily to the westward. Little Pelican, as we called the smaller key, dissolved in the murk, though we could still distinguish the darker streak of it. On such a moonless night one sees plainly objects close at hand, but a little distance quickly masks them, destroying all perspective and augmenting falsely their distance.

Then, at the end of another lapse that might have been a quarter of an hour, or twice that, I looked back and saw to my intense relief that the southern end of Little Pelican was looming darker. The broken lines of sand dunes seemed moving toward us. I reported this to Allaire.

“We're in the back swirl of the eddy,” I said, “and we must be careful to keep in it. If we overreach we may have to hold on for Palm Beach.”

Allaire gave another liquid laugh. Whatever else I might find to criticize in this girl, lack of courage was certainly not listed with her faults. No fear of becoming exhausted to drown, no dread of anthropohagic monsters of the deep, and no terror of landing on a bare, naked sand key.

I began to think of this contingency as we found ourselves eddying in to a beach that was rapidly becoming more distinct.

“The next time you decide for a solitary midnight swim you had better wear a bathing suit,” I said. “Even on desert islands there are conventions to observe.”

Again that provocative laugh. “That's the least of my cares, Pom. Besides, you're a safe old thing, you know; like the family watchdog, or a grouchy big brother. Then there's that signet ring of yours, that you explained the meaning of, and what it meant to you.”

There being nothing much to say to this, I swam. Allaire, like a sea otter in the water, put on a little burst of speed as we neared the beach and passed me. Never having learned any fancy racing strokes, I could not keep pace with her. She slipped through the water like a Whitehead torpedo. My foot struck something, a chunk of brain coral perhaps, and I stopped swimming and stood up. Allaire, several yards ahead of me, stood up also. Thus revealed in the soft, luminous murk, I discovered that even in the stress of our uncertain situation out there in that strong offshore tideway, she had seen fit to try to make a fool of me. She had on some sort of a silk wisp of a thing, “step-in” I believe the lingerie advertisements describe them. Not much, in all conscience, but still something.

“Well, here we are, Pom, safely ashore from another hazardous voyage. Now all we have to do is to walk across this sand bank, then swim off to the boat.”

That actually was all we had to do. The Tinker was at anchor about half a mile from this key, and a third of this distance we were able to wade about waist deep. The current was still running out, but not strongly until it came to the narrowed part, so we had no difficulty in fetching the boat. I climbed into the dory that was tailing out astern, then lifted Allaire aboard and sculled to the jetty.

“If I'm the family watchdog,” I said, as we walked up to the house, “you've got to hand it to me that I'm at least a good retriever.”

“You are, Pom. I was getting pretty lonely out there when you came paddling alongside. Will you bring in my peignoir when you go after your clothes? I think I can sleep now. This has ironed out the nervous crinkles. Sometimes, Pom, I get terribly strung up; especially when you talk to me like a very disagreeable big brother. Sisters can stand it better, because, you see, they're sisters.”

“Yes, I suppose so,” I answered wearily. “They don't shift their gaits from sister to maiden aunt, then back again to flapper daughter. Well, anyhow, good night.”

We had reached the foot of the steps up to the dilapidated old porch. I turned to go to the beach, to finish my retrieving act. First Allaire, then the clothes. Two of our hurricane lanterns were in the antechamber. But for some reason the old barrack looked more resuscitated now, as if its long suspended animation were starting to function again.

“Good night, Pom,” Allaire murmured. “Sister, maiden aunt or daughter, you are a good deal of a dear when you let yourself be. I'll kiss you good night for all three.”

Her cool arms slipped over my shoulders, round my neck, and not being entirely a dog, Newfoundland, retriever or Pom, I did not growl and back away. Then when she had flashed up the rickety steps and into the house, now very much ensouled, I went to get our things. But I reflected while doing so that Allaire's good-night kiss was neither that of sister, maiden aunt nor flapper daughter. It was one of those kisses that are designed to weld the shackles on a hitherto free man, and it should have warned me that something was shortly coming over from the enemy trenches. But in my ignorance of this sort of warfare, it caught me unprepared.

XX

SANDERS arrived at the island with a working gang of a dozen negroes. He had equipped with the tools required—picks and shovels and brush cutters and cane hooks and axes and the like. Also he brought ten days' rations—hog and hominy, rice, coffee, molasses and a cask of rum, which he said if judiciously served out would help to keep the men contented and on the job. Four of them had brought their wives, and the women, Sanders said, could do the cooking and other odd jobs.

He then dropped a bomb amongst us by saying that it would be impossible for him to remain himself. His wife had been taken ill—pellagra, the doctor feared. She did not want to go to the hospital and insisted that he should not absent himself.

“Anyhow, folks,” he said apologetically, “I been thinkin' it over and don't reckon my ability runs in the lines to fix up this here place like it ought to look to catch the eye of a millionaire. I've handled real estate enough to know that first impressions are mighty important, and when you come to look at some of these swell prop'ties ashore, with their pretty gardens and terraces and arbors and tennis courts and things, I jes' don't feel up to it. It needs somebody that's got taste and experience in them things.”

This was a blow to Cyril and to me. Mrs. Fairchild did not seem to care, and Allaire took the storekeeper's statement cheerfully.

“Mr. Sanders is right,” she said. “I'm sorry that his wife is ill, and of course he mustn't think of leaving her. But the more you look over this place, the more you see what a beauty spot it could be made. Something in the Italian Riviera style.”

“Yes,” I said bitterly, “San Remo or Alassio, for instance. Olive orchards terraced up that steep imaginary hill, with Lombardy poplars and cedars of Lebanon artistically poised on the low rocky bluffs that aren't here. A little waterfall leading down to the fountain and a sunken garden—down below sea level and the brine oozing up.”

“Oh, be as sarcastic as you like, Pom. But you are really the one who could do it.”

“Oh, am I? Having recently chucked a job as timekeeper and pay clerk in a boiler factory.”

“Well,” she retorted, “that shows that at least your uncle had trust in your honesty or you wouldn't have been both. But before that you loafed around the Côte d' Azur and made some very pretty sketches of Italian gardens. You would know instinctively what to do with all this. There's material enough to go on, and you've got the labor. Try your hand at landscape gardening.”

“This is all rot,” I said angrily. “It was understood that we were to go trading.”

“That was never understood by me, Pom,” Allaire said sweetly. “I was framed. Is that the word?”

“Let it pass. You were saved from a silly and dangerous and unlawful, dirty game that might have cost you dear, and you've made a big profit.”

“Not as big as I expect to make, if you will only give a month of your time to dolling up this place as nobody could do better than yourself.”

“A month!“” I cried, aghast.

“”It could scarcely be done in less. If you'll tackle it, I know that I can sell it to Nick Sayles.”

“With yourself thrown in, perhaps. Otherwise you stand to lose us all we spend on it.”

“Leave that to me. But I'd better see him first and tell him that I've got something up my sleeve.“”

“Yes, your beautiful round arm, and that's what will interest him.”

“Well, my arm then. He might get that, too, if all else fails.”

She gave me a wicked look that made me want to manhandle her, Allaire often made me feel that way.

“Listen, Pom,” she purled in that cool limpid voice she used when about to do or say something particularly raw. “This is a big bet, and we are going to win. But it's going to take a bit of doing. We've all got to play our hands close to our belts. Now what I propose is this: You lay out the grounds and let Cyril superintend the carpenters. Mrs. Fairchild can direct the interior. Nick is due over at the Beach pretty soon now, so I'll go over there with the schooner ——”

“With the what?”

“The schooner,” Allaire said composedly. “He knows I had poor Jack's boat, and I'll let him think I decided to use her as a yacht. Sanders can help me run her back and his son can take his sloop. You don't need her here, as you can live in the house. That will save me expense, because I don't want to be Nick's guest. Besides, you said we ought to have a deck house built on her for the galley and cook's room. Sanders can get that done.”

So here was a cool proposition. At first I would not listen to it. But Mrs. Fairchild and Cyril rather approved the idea. The former was getting a bit fed up on Allaire's ways, and a little jealous, I think, while Cyril had his eye on the long chance. Also, he had tremendous faith in Allaire's ability, and reasoned that if she could really manage to sell the place to a millionaire at the price that passes as legitimate for victimizing such, then our efforts would be more than paid.

And to tell the truth, I had a sneaking wish to see what I could really do with that tangle, to bring back the sort of sweet, picturesque charm that the setting of it promised. Allaire, the pussy cat, had guessed correctly at this weakness.

So I gave in as usual, half sore at the idea of her going over there to hobnob with the pampered Nick and his pampered crowd of guests, half glad to get rid for a while of this sweet brier in my flesh. We had the bulk of our cabin stores unloaded and carried up to the house, and the next morning Allaire wished us a cool au revoir and some few dulcet hopes for our good cheer during her absence, then set off for the mainland with Sanders as pilot and old Pompey as cook and personal equerry. A sweet, helpless society girl, bereft of fortune and at the mercy of a cold, ruthless world, was Allaire.

I said something of the sort that evening as we were sitting on the wide old rotting veranda watching the fading colors in sea and sky. The day had been spent in getting our labor crowd quartered in the outbuildings and kitchen wing, and mapping out the work ahead a little. They all seemed jolly and contented.

“She is wonderful,” Cyril said. “Blood will tell.”

“Especially when it's cold,” Mrs. Fairchild agreed. “I must say she's got courage.”

“What's her danger?” I asked. “Sanders is a respectable family man.”

“Oh, I wasn't thinking of him. But that old baboon of a Pompey would give me the creeps. Fancy sleeping aboard alone with that creature flitting round like a bat!”

“There's no harm in poor old Pompey. If there ever was—which I don't believe, because he's the faithful slave of a hundred years ago—it must have burned out before any of us were born. I'd give him over a century, at least.”

“That's what makes him so uncanny,” Cyril said; “like an old black banshee or afreet. This ain't so bad, though.” He stretched out his long legs and lighted a cigarette. “Listen to those boys laugh.”

“A tot of rum and 'lasses helps to start with,” I said. “Sanders knows his coast.”

“Sanders is something of a fraud,” Mrs. Fairchild said. “Didn't it strike you that there was some sort of understanding between him and Miss Forsyth, Mr. Stirling?”

“Why, no,” I answered, taken aback.

“Well, it did me. He said his little piece about his wife as if he'd got it all rehearsed. And why should she have got the hookworm, or whatever it is, all of a sudden like that? She looked well enough when I saw her three days ago, except she was sort of peaked and putty-faced like women get down South if they don't quit the place and go North now and then.”

Here was a new idea. Now that I thought of it, there had been something shame-faced or self-conscious about the way that Sanders broke his news, as Mrs. Fairchild said. At the moment I had put it down to embarrassment at having welshed on us after agreeing to tackle the job himself. The keen-witted woman now followed up her theory.

“Not only was he all primed, but nervous too; afraid one of us might ask him why he had gone ahead and brought out these black hands and their stores since he couldn't take charge himself. I saw him steal a look at Miss Forsyth, and she was all set to help him out.”

Cyril's rich laugh pealed out. He struck his lean but muscular thigh.

“That's right. We've been had again. Miss Forsyth had it all rigged. She went back and had a little chin-chin with Sanders the other afternoon when she left us, saying that she wanted to do some shopping.”

“So that's the answer,” I said wrathfully. “I am a dumb-bell. Why didn't you put me wise, Mrs. Fairchild?”

She hitched up her shapely shoulders.

“I had no proof, Mr. Stirling. She was your friend. Besides, it struck me that she might as well carry out her plan. I will say for Miss Forsyth that she knows her little book. If she is so sure that she can stick this millionaire friend of hers with the place, then why not let her go ahead and do it? He can afford it and we shan't be the losers. We made sure that it was deeded all right.”

“But why couldn't she have told us her plan to begin with,” I demanded, “instead of working all this tricky stuff?”

“Well, if you ask me, Mr. Stirling, I'll say it was to force your hand into doing what she wanted. With the labor and stores and everything all here, you'd be more apt to let her have her way.”

“She would have got it anyhow,” I said. “Trust her.”

Mrs. Fairchild turned to me with a smile. It was not a disagreeable smile, but kind, and a little pitying, I thought. With that pale crimson light on her face she looked very pretty, and younger than her thirty-four or five. She was the type of woman who would still be pretty for a good many years to come.

“Yes, she would have got it anyhow, Mr. Stirling. But it was less trouble this way. She was afraid you might be jealous of her going over there to visit with her millionaire friends.”

“Jealous?” I echoed. “But why, for heaven's sake?”

Mrs. Fairchild shook her head.

“Maybe that's just an idea of mine.”

“What sort of idea?”

“Miss Forsyth thinks that you're in love with her,” said Mrs. Fairchild; and before I could ridicule this silly statement she added dryly, “And so do I.”

XXI

“WOMEN,” said I a little later to Cyril,who for some curious reason welcomed every opportunity for a chat with me, “are all alike in this one fatuity: They insist on some sort of love motive behind the endeavor of every man.”

“Well, perhaps they're right in most cases, sir,” Cyril suggested.

“Perhaps,” I admitted, “but not in all. For instance, Mrs. Fairchild's idea of my being in love with Miss Forsyth is so absurd as to be positively funny. Also, it's not highly complimentary to me. It implies that I must be one of those male door mats whose reason for being is to have some woman wipe her feet on them. I'd have given Mrs. Fairchild credit for more sense.”

Cyril appeared to reflect. I had got really very fond of Cyril, and liked to talk to him at most times. But whatever the time or my mood, pleasant or unpleasant, he seemed, as I have said, always eager to talk with me. Not precisely as an equal or as an inferior, but like a student to a teacher for whom he has affection and respect. He never tried to lead our conversations, nor on the other hand did he invariably agree with all my findings, these embittered by adversity. He merely listened, then said modestly but frankly what he thought. This was comforting to me, and flattering, though he made no attempt to flatter.

But now he said, with his boyish candor, “Mrs. Fairchild wouldn't have made such a personal remark, sir, if she hadn't thought it cut both ways.”

“What do you mean, both ways?”

Cyril got suddenly eager, threw out both his big, well-shaped hands in that age-old gesture, fingers spread and crooked a little.

“She only said the half of it. I know, because she's talked about it to me. Mrs. Fairchild has got a lot of sense, Mr. Stirling.”

“Yes, of course. But what's the other half?” I asked.

He smiled apologetically.

“That's not for me to say, sir. You better ask Mrs. Fairchild.” And then at my frown he added, with a sort of gusty confidence, “Miss Forsyth has never forgiven you for letting her think we were going in for rum running, Mr. Stirling. She's never forgiven any of us, but you're the only one that counts with her. And Mrs. Fairchild says you're the only man that ever will count with her.”

I considered this statement briefly.

“Well, I'll amend what I just said about women being all alike in looking for a love motive. With a certain sort of feminine nature, hate counts for quite as much, if not more.”

Cyril smiled and seemed about to say something, but thought better of it.

We entered then upon a pleasant epoch of reconstructive work that was interesting, and not for me, at least, laborious, though Cyril sawed and hammered away with his carpenters. The men were willing and docile. I drafted some plans for laying out the grounds according to the possibilities of the place and was daily more pleased with the result. Mrs. Fairchild recovered immediately her good cheer. It was a peaceful, happy time, the sort of thing I needed and would have thoroughly enjoyed if it had not been for a poignant discomfort I did not try to analyze, every time I thought of Allaire.

It would probably wind up by her marrying Nick Sayles, I thought, and coming to live with him a part of the winter season on the island. It irked me to think that all the studious care and such taste as I possessed were being devoted to the creation of a sort of paradis à deux for this pair. I had nothing against Sayles, and really could not blame Allaire for whatever she might do for her future, especially after the tacit deception we had permitted; but all the same, it hurt. I did not try to ask myself why.

Sanders came over with his boat to bring fresh stores and pay off the men. I had very little to say to him, at which he appeared to be relieved. When he attempted an awkward compliment on our progress I blocked it short by asking after the health of his wife.

“She's right smart better, sir, thank ye kindly.”

“Then it's not pellagra?”

“No, the doctor reckons it's just anæmia.” He changed the topic abruptly. “Miss Forsyth's left the schooner in my care and run down to Miami. This gentleman she aims to int'rest in the prop'ty is there. She told me to give you all her best and to say she's well and hopes you're all the same.”

“We manage to stagger round, thanks,” I said, and left him, very sore that Allaire could not at least have taken the trouble to write a few lines.

So far as I could see, this whole show was now Allaire's. She had set us our tasks and then romped off about her own like a colonial governor or something, and she was not even availing herself of the schooner as a domicile; probably a guest aboard Sayles' big floating palace of a yacht, though duly chaperoned, of course. The whole performance would have made us very sore if it had not been that we were so thoroughly enjoying ourselves.

None of our hands desiring to quit, we carried on as before. Nearly a month had passed now, and the place was getting to be really very beautiful, and with a sort of stately dignity that was precisely what its isolation and character seemed to require. it was lointain, but not sad, because of the many charming details of an intimate sort that I had worked out; and it needed only a cheerful company to make it gay. The color and sunshine were always there.

Then the day before Sanders was due to come again with pay and stores Cyril sang out from the roof of the house, “Sail-o!”

I went to the corner of the veranda and saw a small schooner yacht running up to the island with a fresh sou'westerly breeze. In size and type she so strongly resembled our own that I would have pronounced her such immediately but for certain yacht features that we had not—glistening, creamy hull and new and spotless, snowy sails. There was also a long deck house from which there came the sparkle of bright work, and she carried a fore as well as main topmast, and had a long cedar gig hoisted on amidship davits. She was in fact a very trim and pretty and well-kept schooner yacht of the fisherman type.

Cyril was the first to guess the identity. This Bermuda boy had an eye for boats.

He sang down to me, “My aunt, sir, just look what Miss Forsyth has gone and done to her!”

Even then I could scarcely believe it, and when obliged to, I could not get the sense of it. I thought perhaps Allaire had put through her deal, made the sale sight-unseen, then decided to retire from business, doll up the schooner and fall into the ranks of pleasure seekers.

Sanders and his mop-head son were aboard, and old Pompey. Allaire was at the wheel, She gave us a gay wave, which we returned, less gayly. Cyril was figuring what that new suit of white sails must have cost, and Mrs. Fairchild loath to change from this roomy freedom to the narrow confines of the schooner.

I went down to the new jetty Cyril had built, got into a skiff and rowed out alongside as the Tinker rounded up and anchored. Allaire was pretty as ever, and just as unruffled as of she had not spent a couple of thousand dollars of the syndicate's money, for we had drawn up a fresh agreement by which we now owned equal shares in the schooner.

“Hello, Pom, you look splendidly fit. I can see a good deal of what you've done from here. How are the others?”

“Well and happy, thanks. You look awfully well yourself. So does the schooner,” I could not help but add.

“Come aboard and have a look round,” she invited. “I'll tell you the why of it later.”

I did so, nodding to Sanders and his son, fellow conspirators evidently. Old Pompey scuttled out and bowed and grimaced. Allaire had converted our roughly finished little trader into a yacht that nobody need be ashamed of. Spars and decks and rail had been scraped bright, cordage new and glittering, two new handsome cedar boats with detachable motors, hull groomed slick and painted cream-white; and what had been a fishing deck originally had now a long white deck house with mahogany-framed skylights and brass rods. The boat had always been a pretty model of a staunch, able sort, so that now it might, as far as one could tell, have been built for a yacht. But when I went below I gave a gasp. There was a small, prettily furnished saloon with staterooms and pantry.

“Charming, Allaire,” I said; “but what's the idea?”

“I'll explain that later, Pom.”

I made no more comments and we went ashore. Mrs. Fairchild and Cyril had come down to the jetty and their greetings were friendly. Allaire went into raptures at what we had accomplished, and these continued with a ring of sincerity over the inside and outside of the house.

“It's ail so lovely,” she said, “that I'm broken-hearted to have sold it.”

“As quick as that?”

“It was easy. I showed Nick Sayles the location on the chart and described it in detail, and he said it was precisely what he'd always wanted. I took some photographs the day before I left and he was enchanted. He couldn't run up to see it right now because he was leaving for Havana with his crowd, but he's given me a five-thousand-dollar check for three months' option.”

Cyril stared.

“My eye, a five-thousand-dollar option! But how much are you asking for it, Miss Forayth?”

“Twenty-five thousand,” Allaire said calmly.

Cyril flourished his arms over his head.

“My sainted aunt! And think of the furniture and tapestries! About a hundred and fifty thousand for a boatload of junk you couldn't have sold for a hundred and fifty dollars. If Sanders learns of this he'll hang himself from the crosstrees.”

“Really, Allaire,” I said, “do you think it's honest?”

“It may not be honest, but it's art. Nick will never feel the difference and I know he's going to be crazy about it. But I do think we ought to give Sanders a bonus.”

“Where was the work on the schooner done?” I asked.

“Sanders took it to a yard at Miami. He hasn't lost anything. Isn't she pretty?”

“Too pretty for a trader,” I said. “And think of the elbow grease needed to keep her clean. There's nothing worse than a dirty yacht.”

“We may not have her long,” said Allaire. “I've got a good bid for her.”

“Some trader!” I said.

“That's just it, Pom. The idea is this: Cyril's idea seems to work out so well that now we're capitalized, why not go in on a bigger scale? Buy a three-master and load her up and make a real trading voyage on the same basis of barter.”

We looked at one another. Here was real business; scope and breadth of vision. Allaire was at last not only grasping our scheme with both her shapely hands but giving it a yank ahead.

“It struck me,” she said, “that we no longer need to piffle along with this little boat, standing watches and cooking and cleaning. But I think first we ought to make a cruise in the Tinker to find out more about trade conditions; what they want most in these places and what they've got to trade in return. Then we'll be in position to go back and load up. Your scheme of old-fashioned barter is right, but we ought to do it on a bigger scale. So far it's been sheer luck.”

This sounded like good sense.

“Where would you want to go first?” I asked.

“Down the Central American coast and follow it right round the Caribbean shore. We've got a nice little yacht with clean, comfy rooms and a good cook, and we can ship one or two of these boys for sailors. Let's combine pleasure with business.”

Here was certainly an attractive scheme, and after some deliberation we decided to act on it.

Allaire confessed then that she had installed a new and more compact powerful motor, and she had taken out yacht papers.

So from being a hand-to-mouth little trading venture running on a shoe string, and an old one at that, here we had suddenly blossomed into a yachting party. But the climax was reached when Allaire announced limpidly that Nick Sayles had made her a member of the Eastern Yacht Club and got cabled authority for her to fly the pennant of that classy squadron. She had devised a burgee and had it made, but had not flown either coming in for fear of giving us too great a shock.

Allaire was then in a feverish hurry to be off. Our preliminary work was practically finished, the grounds in order and the house in good enough repair, roofs mended, verandas replanked, windows weather-tight, the fine old woodwork of the interior cleaned and waxed.

Sanders said he could bring over a caretaker and his wife and a couple of gardeners to keep the place in trim until Sayles came to look it over and make his dispositions.

Cyril also approved the idea of a preliminary voyage of commercial reconnaissance.

“A couple of years ago I read in the Daily Mail of a busted English officer who did just this thing. He went first to the Russian shores of the Black Sea, Caucasia and the Ukraine. He found out what they had and what they wanted, then went back to England and managed to scrape together enough to load an auxiliary topsail schooner with hardware and stores—Dundee whaler, I think she was—and took her out. He cleaned up half a million pounds in the first three years. Got furs and ginseng mostly. None of them had any money, but they had the goods and got round the exchange.”

So we spent a few days longer to put the final touches on the place; then picking out the best all-round man for a sailor, set sail westward bound to rediscover the trade possibilities of the Caribbean.

XXII

SO FAR as I could discover without asking any leading questions, Allaire had put through her real-estate deal precisely on the same business principles as might have done an up-and-going real-estate broker who happened to be already on terms of social friendship with his proposed client, and thus knew his want.

Hers were the two principal assets for such a coup—three in fact. She knew the man and what he wanted, enjoyed his confidence and friendship and was in position to turn over the property. She had heard Sayles express a desire to own a Bahama island of this sort where he could entertain without lawbreaking, accessible, with good shelter and not too raw or barren. It seemed square enough, all things considered, and certainly in realty circles there was no lack of precedent for the deal.

I was a little puzzled, though, at her haste to get away. The deal was big enough to warrant our waiting there another month if necessary to conclude it; to continue the work of embellishment and point out personally to her client the attractions and advantages of the place, and to put in that final pressure, sometimes needed at the psychological moment of signing up. But when I suggested this her answer was reasonable:

“I know my man, Pom. For one thing, too much pressure might put him off. For another, Nick's the sort who likes to think he's taking something in the raw and making it over himself. If it was too spick-and-span he'd be far less interested. On the other hand, it was too dilapidated as we found it. It needed a strong sense of visualization to see it as you've made it. Besides, he thinks I came here on my yacht, so I'd rather he shouldn't know about you three.”

This was good psychology. Also, it had practically amounted to this: We had all felt for some time as if, though nominally partners, we were actually in Allaire's employ, under her orders. It was this that had put off Mrs. Fairchild, who had her share of Yankee independence.

Then the second day out Allaire tossed me another of her little hand grenades. We were jogging along on our course down to the Strait of Florida under sail alone, with alight quartering breeze. Allaire had shown signs of restlessness and presently asked me to start the motor.

“What's the good?” I said. “We'd run away from our breeze and only get a couple more knots out of her. Why burn money when the good Lord is supplying free motive power?”

“Well, you see, Pom, it's rather necessary that I should get off a place called Trujillo by the tenth. It's going to help our trade. When I was in Washington before we sailed ——”

“Doing your quartermaster's stores shopping?” I said as she paused.

“Why, yes. I met a Honduran named Gomez. He's a rich planter and sort of a commercial diplomatic scout. He could give us more useful information about trade than anybody I can imagine. I had this project in mind then and told him a little about it. He said that he would be in Trujillo on the tenth and be on the lookout for me.”

“Then we'll have to make directly for that point,” I said, “to keep your date with this man.”

“Yes, it wouldn't do to miss him. He was tremendously interested and said he would do everything in his power to be of service.”

“Married?”

Allaire smiled.

“Twice over, but a widower with eleven beautiful children.”

“I suppose he'd have no objections to adding to the collection. My word, but I'm beginning to feel more like a white slaver than a more or less honest trader! Still a bird like that could be a lot of use. It's a pity you swapped off all the trade stuff.”

“Well,” Allaire mused, “I didn't think there'd be much market for five-and-ten junk in a country where they're scrambling the eggs as they seem to doing down there just now. We've got something that's worth a lot more at this moment.”

Another stroke of business on Allaire's part; working some depot quartermaster for a bargain in army grub, and taking it to a country politically disturbed to swap for whatever might not be worth much to the people there just now and while still having its value elsewhere. Food is always food.

“That stuff you've got down below must be concentrated, all right,” I said, “or else this big cabin house you've clapped on weighs a lot more than it looks. We're as deep as if we had a of marine motors.”

“Well, you know the weight of canned goods. But don't you think you'd better start the motor?”

“Well, yes,” I agreed. “A bird like your Gomez friend might be a lot of use.”

Cruising in those waters was now. a delight, and our conditions as comfortable as one could ask. Each of us with a room provided with a skylight, a shriveled genius of a cook, a foremasthand to do the deck washing and bright work and a general air of comfort and well-being. Everybody was cheerful and happy. Cyril and I stood our night watches at the wheel and Mrs. Fairchild and Allaire took their tricks in the daytime. What a difference a little service makes, whether at home or even roughing it! More than that, for people of a certain class it seems indispensable for self-respect, particularly in the tropics. A party of youngsters can do for themselves, though even then there is usually some friction. But as one gets older this thing of cooking and cleaning and washing quid loses its charm, if ever having any.

The day before we sailed, Sanders had run over to the island to bring the caretaker with his wife and two children. The man had been a lighthouse keeper, but was lamed from a bad fracture of the leg, the result of a fall on the iron stairs. Sanders brought also the stores for our voyage, with fresh fruit and vegetables and ice, and a supply of fuel. Even with this, I wanted to call at Key West to fill up our fuel and water tanks, but Allaire strongly opposed the idea, for reasons that struck me as insufficient.

“They'll overhaul us from stem to stern and truck to gudgeon, Pom, and break into our stores and make no end of a mess and nuisance. So many yachts like this have been running rum and drugs and things.”

“Then let's put into Havana,” I said. “That's even more directly on our course to Trujillo.”

“No,” she objected, “Nick Sayles is there and I'd rather not fall foul of him. If he gets the idea that we're in cahoots it would be enough to block the whole deal. Sanders will keep his mouth shut, because I've promised to make it worth his while when the final check goes through.”

There was reason in this, also. Nick and I had been pretty well acquainted, and the knowledge that I was not only cruising round with Allaire but might also be putting her up to Bahaman real-estate deals and sharing in the profits of them would be apt to kill the business. Allaire then offered another reason for our making a non-stop run of nearly a thousand nautical miles.

“This new fifty-horse-power motor I installed seems pretty good, Pom, but you never can tell when they may start to sulk or break something. think it tremendously important to connect with Gomez. Going along easily with sail and power, we ought to make it in five days.”

Always plausible, Allaire. I told her then that I would time it as closely as I could, with economy of fuel, and that if we got in a day ahead no damage would be done. But, here came another objection, this time more serious:

“Well now, Pom, since you force me to it, I'll have to tell you something that I've been holding back. If you can manage to time it just right there's a chance that we might make a little money through Gomez; enough to pay for this voyage, and then a bit. He is due there the tenth, and it may be that he and his family will want to get out quickly and quietly that same night. He told me that if I could have my yacht off the mouth of the Romano River, twenty miles east of Trujillo, at midnight of the tenth, he might want to charter her to take either himself or his representatives to Santiago de Cuba, and that for that service he would pay me twenty-five hundred dollars.”

I stared at her with a mixture of admiration and disgust.

“So that's where the wind lies; an absconding minister of finance, or something of the sort. Don't you think you're a bit of a piker, Allaire? Look at the risk you run of losing the boat and everything. It seems to me that if Central American political grafters want to avail themselves of the protection offered by an American yacht that is flying the national ensign and the pennant of a representative yacht club, they ought to be made to bid up a little for that proud privilege—especially if they happen to be removing funds from the danger zone.”

“Nothing was said about removing treasure, Pom. If they want me to help them do that, of course I should expect a decent compensation for the risk.”

“'Risk' is right. We stand to have the boat grabbed and confiscated.”

“Not an American yacht, Pom, flying the pennant of a distinguished yacht club. But as a commercial vessel they'd have gathered us in.”

“So that's the reason you transformed her and got rid of the trade stuff. You must be pretty sure about this.”

“I'd have done that anyhow. We've outgrown this boat for that sort of thing. But she might still make a turnover in Caribbean politics. They've got plenty of money down here, but not much balance.”

“It would be a pity to lose the schooner,” I said, “and unfortunate to see you in the calaboose. But twenty-five hundred would just about pay our improvements on the island.”

“And it might come to more, if you are not too noble,” Allaire murmured; “or perhaps I'd better say too prudent.”

“Meaning that we might hijack the minister of finance if he brings his roll aboard?”

“Not quite so bad as that. But here's the point, Pom: I met this Señor Gomez in Washington at a formal dinner in the home of a cabinet officer. Later I met him again at the Chilean Embassy. He knows that I have position and powerful friends and a small schooner auxiliary yacht. He does not know what his reception may be down here. If successful, he is apt to spring something of his own soon after landing. If insufficiently supported, or suspected he may have to slip out in a hurry, with his own funds and those of his party.”

“And you provide a swell way for him to slip.”

“Yes, a classic way. And he knows I'm not doing it for the sake of his beautiful eyes. He made no mention of the funds, saying merely that his liberty and even life might be in danger.”

I nodded.

“The other's understood. These birds aren't sitting in the game for patriotism. They used up all that stuff when they threw off the Spanish yoke. But it's always a good ballyhoo for campaign purposes. Of course he would be quick to see the advantage of a yachtswoman who has the entrée to the houses of cabinet officers. 'Shoot if you will this young blond head, but spare your big neighbor's flag,' she said. It's a protection that comes high, though, wee as a side line for trading it's not so bad.”

“You're not angry?” Allaire asked.

“No; but I'd like it better if you had told us all a week ago. That's the trouble with you, Allaire. You make your plans, then spring them on us at the eleventh hour.”

“Who started it?” she retorted. “How did you get me to give you an order for the boat to begin with? You let me think that you were going rum running, and you never had the most remote intention of doing anything of the sort.”

“We saved you from a dirty business. What if your friends in Washington were to have learned that you were in that trade?”

“Most of them would have asked me to slip them a dozen cases. But the point is this: You kept me in the dark for what you thought to be our mutual benefit, and now you blame me for doing the same.”

There was not much of a comeback to this. I insisted, though, that Mrs. Fairchild and Cyril be told. So I gave the wheel to McIntosh, our black Bahama sailor, who had assured us that his family had always been Scotch, and laid the situation before our partners. Cyril thought well of it, provided we got our money first. But Mrs. Fairchild was opposed.

“If we're going to trade, let's trade,” she said. “This sort of shenanigan with Central American revolutions is too risky. We're likely to lose the boat and all get locked up in a filthy jail. That happened once to Captain Fairchild through no fault of his, and it cost me two hundred dollars and took me two months to get the cabin clean of bugs.”

“This is in the line of trade, Mrs. Fairchild,” Allaire said. “If Gomez's crowd gets in, he will give us a concession to swap off our cheap hardware for the products of the country—rubber and minerals and things.”

“When you've got such top-hole backing,” Cyril said, “it would seem downright wasteful to use it only for social purposes.”

“All right, have it your own way,” said Mrs. Fairchild resignedly. “I've never met any big bugs myself, except those that my poor husband brought aboard from that calaboose. You had to hold one by the back of his neck and rub his head in insect powder, then drop him on the deck and stamp on him. The human ones are about the same in these hot countries.”

(TO BE CONTINUED)