ble. But he forgot
to say so, in so many words, and the trustees did not go beyond the deed.
Now, Dodge is married; Fry of Trinity is a married don; Rustler (I happen
to know) is an engaged man, who can't afford to marry a charming girl in
Detroit, Michigan; and Professor Potter has buried one wife, and wedded
another. If Rustler is loyal to his plighted word, you have nobody
against you but Wilkinson and old Jenkins of All Souls--a tough customer,
I admit, though what a Stinks man like him has to do at All Souls I don't
know.'

'I say, this is hard on the other sportsmen! What ought I to do? Should
I tell them?'

'You can't: you have no official knowledge of their existence. You only
know through Miss McCabe. You have just to sit tight.'

'It seems beastly unsportsmanlike,' said Bude.

'Wills are often most carelessly drafted,' answered Merton, 'and the
usual consequences follow.'

'It is not cricket,' said Bude, and really he seemed much more depressed
than elated by the reduction of the odds against him from 6 to 1 to 2 to
1.

This is the magnificent type of character produced by our British system
of athletic sports, though it is not to be doubted that the spirit of
Science, in the American gentlemen, would have been equally productive of
the sense of fair play.

* * * * * *

A year, by the terms of McCabe's will, was allotted to the quest.
Candidates were to keep the trustees informed as to their whereabouts.
Six weeks before the end of the period the competitors would be
instructed as to the port of rendezvous, where an ocean liner, chartered
by the trustees, was to await them. Bude, as Jones Harvey, had obtained
leave to sail his own steam yacht of 800 tons.

The earl's preparations were simple. He carried his usual stock of
scientific implements, his usual armament, including two Maxim guns, and
a package of considerable size and weight, which was stored in the hold.
As to the preparations of the others he knew nothing, but Miss McCabe
became aware that Rustler had not left the American continent. Concerning
Jenkins, and the probable aim of his enterprise, the object of his quest,
she gleaned information from a junior Fellow of All Souls, who was her
slave, was indiscreet, and did not know how deeply concerned she was in
the expeditions. But she never whispered a word of what she knew to her
lover, not even in the hour of parting.

It was in an unnamed creek of the New Zealand coast, six w