ng his shaggy gray
head. "He weren't made to finish hugger-mugger in no such hell hole. I'm
backing the luck of Jim Albro, that always had his way."

"Like as not," said Peters, and span the cylinder of his big Webley
revolver and chuckled a little; "like as not we'll find him sittin' on a
stump all so lofty with the niggers squatted round in rows, addressin'
of the congregation."

You will note--and a queer thing too--that this happened before we had
learned the first sure detail of the affair at Barange Bay.

* * * * *

It was now the 20th of April. On the 2nd of November preceding, the
pearling schooner _Timothy S._ had cleared from Cooktown on her lawful
occasions for Joannet Harbor in the Louisiades. She had never reached
Joannet. A month later she had been spoken by a Sydney steamer up among
the Bismarck Group, where she had no ostensible business to be. And
early in March some cannibal gossip of the West Coast, friendly or only
boastful, had passed word to some missionary of a British schooner cut
off at Barange. That was strictly all. It remained for certain friends
and backers at Cooktown, with or without lawful occasion, to link up the
vaguely rumored outrage with the actual and private destination of the
_Timothy S._, and to send our search party go-look-see.

But Jeckol snorted.... You could hardly blame him, at that. Among the
five of us he was the only man who had never crossed Jim Albro at one
point or another in the career of that eccentric luminary. And, besides,
it was Jeckol's business to snort. You must have read his clever bits in
the "Bulletin"--those little running paragraphs that snap and fume like
a pack of Chinese crackers? He had been loafing about Bananaland on
vacation just before we started, and of course he got wind and wished
himself along. Trust a pressman to know the necessary people and a
chance for copy.

"I've heard a deal of talk of this Albro since we weighed anchor," he
said. "What's all about him? He wasn't commanding the _Timothy S._?"

"No," drawled Peters. "No--he didn't command. Mullhall was skipper."

"Did he launch the scheme then? Was he the discoverer of this wonderful
virgin shell bed they were going to strip?"

"No," returned Peters. "No--you couldn't say he had any regular standin'
in the expedition.... He shipped as a sort of supercargo--didn't he,
Cap'n Bartlet?"

"Cabin boy, more likely," said Bartlet in his slow way. "Or bo