ng out in Brazil."

The captain took his eyes from the face of the man and asked in
something of his natural tone of voice:

"Where is he now?"

The Swede put his hand in his inside pocket and took out a small
time-book tied around with a piece of faded tape. This he slowly
unwound, Tod's and the captain's eyes following every turn of his
fingers. Opening the book, he glanced over the leaves, found the one he
was looking for, tore it carefully from the book, and handed it to the
captain.

"That's his writing. If you want to see him send him a line to that
address. It'll reach him all right. If you don't want to see him he'll
go back with me to Rio. I don't want yer supper and I don't want yer
job. I done what I promised and that's all there is to it. Good-night,"
and he opened the door and disappeared in the darkness.

Captain Holt sat with his head on his chest looking at the floor in
front of him. The light of the banging lamp made dark shadows under his
eyebrows and under his chin whiskers. There was a firm set to his
clean-shaven lips, but the eyes burned with a gentle light; a certain
hope, positive now, seemed to be looming up in them.

Tod watched him for an instant, and said:

"What do ye think of it, cap'n?"

"I ain't made up my mind."

"Is he lyin'?"

"I don't know. Seems too good to be true. He's got some things right;
some things he ain't. Keep your mouth shut till I tell ye to open
it--to Cobden, mind ye, and everybody else. Better help Green overhaul
that line. That'll do, Fogarty."

Tod dipped his head--his sign of courteous assent--and backed out of
the room. The captain continued motionless, his eyes fixed on space.
Once he turned, picked up the paper, scrutinized the handwriting word
for word, and tossed it back on the desk. Then he rose from his seat
and began pacing the floor, stopping to gaze at a chart on the wall, at
the top of the stove, at the pendulum of the clock, surveying them
leisurely. Once he looked out of the window at the flare of light from
his swinging lamp, stencilled on the white sand and the gray line of
the dunes beyond. At each of these resting-places his face assumed a
different expression; hope, fear, and anger again swept across it as
his judgment struggled with his heart. In one of his turns up and down
the small room he laid his hand on a brick lying on the
window-sill--one that had been sent by the builders of the Station as a
sample. This he turned over care