rifles and ammunition, shipping them down to Barlow in San Diego. And
upon him fell the duty and delight of provisioning for the cruise. As
Barlow had put it, the Lord alone knew how long they would be gone, and
Jim Kendric meant to take no unnecessary chances. No doubt they could
get fish and some game in that land toward which their imaginings
already had set full sail, but ham by the stack and bacon by the yard
and countless tins of fruit and vegetables made a fair ballast.
Kendric spent lavishly and at the end was highly satisfied with the
result.

As the _New Moon_ staggered out to sea under an offshore blow, he and
Twisty Barlow foregathered in the cabin over the solitary luckily
smuggled bottle of champagne.

"The day is auspicious," said Kendric, his rumpled hair on end, his
eyes as bright as the dancing water slapping against their hull. "With
a hold full of the best in the land, treasure ahead of our bow, humdrum
lost in our wake and a seven-foot nigger hanging on to the wheel, what
more could a man ask?"

"It's a cinch," agreed Barlow. But, drinking more slowly, he was
altogether more thoughtful. "If we get there on time," was his one
worry. "If we'd had that ten thousand of yours we'd never have sailed
in this antedeluvian raft with a list to starboard like the tower of
Pisa."

"Don't growl at the hand that feeds you or the bottom that floats you,"
grinned Kendric. "It's bad luck."

Nor was Barlow the man to find fault, regret fleetingly though he did.
He was in luck to get his hands on any craft and he knew it. The _New
Moon_ was an unlovely affair with a bad name among seamen who knew her
and no speed or up-to-date engines to brag about; but Barlow himself
had leased her and had no doubts of her seaworthiness. She was one of
those floating relics of another epoch in shipbuilding which had
lingered on until today, undergoing infrequent alterations under many
hands. While once she had depended entirely for her headway on her two
poles, fore sail set flying, now she lurched ahead answering to the
drive of her antiquated internal combustion motor. An essential part
of her were Nigger Ben and Philippine Charlie; they knew her and her
freakish ways; they were as much a portion of her lop-sided anatomy as
were propeller and wheel.

Barlow chuckled as he explained the unwritten terms of his lease.

"Hank Sparley owns her," he said, "and the day Hank paid real money for
her is the first day the