e
plant; we've got the connection; we can afford to go higher than any
outsider: there's two million dollars in the ring; and we stick at
nothing. Or suppose anybody did buy over our head--I tell you, Loudon,
he would think this town gone crazy; he could no more get business
through on the city front than I can dance; schooners, divers, men--all
he wanted--the prices would fly right up and strike him."

"But how did you get in?" I asked. "You were once an outsider like your
neighbours, I suppose?"

"I took hold of that thing, Loudon, and just studied it up," he replied.
"It took my fancy; it was so romantic, and then I saw there was boodle
in the thing; and I figured on the business till no man alive could give
me points. Nobody knew I had an eye on wrecks till one fine morning I
dropped in upon Douglas B. Longhurst in his den, gave him all the facts
and figures, and put it to him straight: 'Do you want me in this ring?
or shall I start another?' He took half an hour, and when I came back,
'Pink,' says he, 'I've put your name on.' The first time I came to the
top it was that _Moody_ racket; now it's the _Flying Scud_."

Whereupon Pinkerton, looking at his watch, uttered an exclamation, made
a hasty appointment with myself for the doors of the Merchants'
Exchange, and fled to examine manifests and interview the skipper. I
finished my cigarette with the deliberation of a man at the end of many
picnics; reflecting to myself that of all forms of the dollar-hunt, this
wrecking had by far the most address to my imagination. Even as I went
down town, in the brisk bustle and chill of the familiar San Francisco
thoroughfares, I was haunted by a vision of the wreck, baking so far
away in the strong sun, under a cloud of sea-birds; and even then, and
for no better reason, my heart inclined towards the adventure. If not
myself, something that was mine, some one at least in my employment,
should voyage to that ocean-bounded pin-point, and descend to that
deserted cabin.

Pinkerton met me at the appointed moment, pinched of lip, and more than
usually erect of bearing, like one conscious of great resolves.

"Well?" I asked.

"Well," said he, "it might be better, and it might be worse. This
Captain Trent is a remarkably honest fellow--one out of a thousand. As
soon as he knew I was in the market, he owned up about the rice in so
many words. By his calculation, if there's thirty mats of it saved, it's
an outside figure. However,