ashore, before another anchor could be cleared and put
over.

In little over half an hour he climbed out of the slip again, dripping
sweat, minus the skin of all his knuckles, and blistered as to palms and
knees, but with a cheerful grin that spoke of a satisfied soul. He
confidently depended upon the darkness, now absolute, and native
unthoroughness, for his work to remain undetected until the sea came up
and concealed it.

After a bath at the hotel he sought Little and reported his
achievement.

"Good work!" chuckled his friend. Then Little whispered: "And who d 'ye
suppose Leyden is, after all?"

"Search me," said Barry, his eyes on a group of men along the veranda.
"Who?"

"Your coolie kicker of Solo!"

A flash of joy lighted Barry's bronzed face, to be shaded in a moment.

"That's the best news in months, Little. But Gosh! If I'd known, I could
just as easily have ripped out another ten fathom of caulking!"

As he spoke, Barry leaned forward suddenly. The group of men along the
veranda had drawn his attention by their noisy laughter and greetings,
and now he saw his man of Solo appear in their midst. Leyden was flushed
and in high good humor; that he was hail fellow well met was obvious. He
flung himself into a long cane chair and plunged into a recital that
induced a gale of merriment in his listeners. Barry's eyes glittered
like points of flame and bored into Leyden's back as if to force notice.

"Go easy, Jack," warned Little, sensing trouble. "Don't start a fuss."

"Shut up!" growled Barry, holding his gaze. "I won't start anything.
I'll make him start something though; then I'll sail into him like a rat
up a pump!"

Leyden had finished his story, and the class of it was patent from the
guffawed comments it excited. Another of the group capped it with
another, grosser yet, and the party burst into an uproarious hilarity.
Then a flabby-jowled, paunchy fellow urged in throaty gutturals:

"Come, Leyden, tell us about the new flame. It's too good to keep to
yourself. She's a good girl, isn't she--as yet?"

No attempt was made to keep the conversation private. The whole party
oozed a blatant superiority over any possible audience, easily traceable
to the copious flow of schnapps at their table. Leyden alone, Barry
noticed, drank nothing. A roar greeted the last speaker's shrewd hint at
Leyden's reputation as a ladies' man, which he replied to by taking a
fat wallet from his breast pocket. This he op