e was in a dense grove, and his
first thought was to hurl himself headlong into the bush in the frenzied
hope of overtaking the men who had left him there. His foot struck a
hard object, and he looked down. There was his automatic pistol, intact,
but the precaution had been taken of slipping out the cartridge clip. He
picked both up, reloaded the weapon, and pondered.

"Sure thing they don't want me around there!" was the whimsical thought
foremost in his mind. "Don't want to damage me, either. But they leave
me in a blind alley of the jungle to dig my own way out!"

As he cooled off, his senses resumed their normal alertness, and the
ripple of running water regaled his ears. He tore through the jungle in
that direction and burst out upon the river bank. Looking up and down
stream, he stifled an exclamation of surprise; for, not a hundred yards
away, down stream, stood the rickety old wharf, and alongside lay his
ship, while at his feet a dugout canoe squatted nose-up on the muddy
foreshore of the river. Just astern of his own ship the _Padang_ had
hauled in, and a knot of excited men, white and native, were milling
about the _Barang's_ gangway.

"Time you got aboard, Barry!" he muttered and shoved the canoe off.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Barry reached the wharf, tied his canoe to a pile, and arrived at his
own gangway to find Leyden at bay. Rolfe's sturdy figure barred the
ladder; Bill Blunt grinned happily over the rail, tapping the wood
playfully with the biggest iron belaying pin the ship afforded; while
natives on deck and on the wharf looked on full of curiosity
considerably tempered with apprehension.

Leyden's face was deathly white with rage, and his right hand had gone
to a hip pocket; but it remained there under the persuasion of a little
round hole in the end of a cold blue tube displayed carelessly by the
mate. Leyden caught sight of Barry as he came up and started violently,
then forced a smile.

"Why, are you Captain Barry?" he stammered. Whatever his knowledge of
Houten's plans might be, it apparently had not included the association
of the _Barang's_ skipper with the rude sailor who had upset him on the
hotel veranda in Surabaya. If he harbored resentment for that affair, he
concealed it now and tried to assume an expression of relief.

"I'm glad you've come," he explained, with a sour smile that was meant
to be pleasant. "Your mate is oversuspicious. He refuses to allow me on
board."

"Quite r