"Sure! The bank will take that check seriously, I promise you. And I
saw just the sloop I want for the trip ... had my eye on her for the
past month."

"But, Robert," began Ruth Allaire, "you don't mean to risk your life
on a foolish bet?"

Thorpe reached over to pat tenderly the hand that held his check. "I'm
glad if you care," he said, and there was an undertone of seriousness
beneath his raillery, "but save your sympathy for the Admiral. The U.
S. Navy can't bluff me." He rose more briskly from his chair.

"Thorpe...." said Admiral Struthers. He was thinking deeply, trying to
recollect. "Robert Thorpe.... I have a book by someone of that
name--travel and adventure and knocking about the world. Young man,
are you _the_ Robert Thorpe?"

"Why, yes, if you wish to put it that way," agreed the other. He waved
lightly to the girl as he moved away.

"I must be running along," he said, "and get that boat. See you all in
San Diego!"

* * * * *

The first rays of the sun touched with golden fingers the tops of the
lazy swells of the Pacific. Here and there a wave broke to spray under
the steady wind and became a shower of molten metal. And in the boat,
whose sails caught now and then the touch of morning, Robert Thorpe
stirred himself and rose sleepily to his feet.

Out of the snug cabin at this first hint of day, he looked first at
the compass and checked his course, then made sure of the lashing
about the helm. The steady trade-winds had borne him on through the
night, and he nodded with satisfaction as he prepared to lower his
lights. He was reaching for a line as the little craft hung for an
instant on the top of a wave. And in that instant his eyes caught a
marking of white on the dim waters ahead.

"Breakers!" he shouted aloud and leaped for the lashed wheel. He
swung off to leeward and eased a bit on the main-sheet, then lashed
the wheel again to hold on the new course.

Again from a wave-crest he stared from under a sheltering hand. The
breakers were there--the smooth swells were foaming--breaking in
mid-ocean where his chart, he knew, showed water a mile deep. Beyond
the white line was a three-master, her sails shivering in the breeze.

The big sailing ship swung off on a new tack as he watched. Was she
dodging those breakers? he wondered. Then he stared in amazement
through the growing light at the unbroken swells where the white line
had been.

* * *