to mark out a
course now and stick to it. While you've been dreamin' of yer
lady-love--which is right an' proper--I've been thinkin' on how we can
git her an' the other thing too. Here's the pint I hed reached when
you interrupted me: first and foremost, ye can't git th' girl until ye
gits suthin' to git her with. Sorez ain't a-goin' to listen to you
until ye can show him he's wrong. He ain't goneter b'lieve he's wrong
until ye can show him th' treasure. Secondly, the Priest gent ain't
goneter sleep till he finds out what fer we are wanderin' 'round here.
Thirdly, when he does find out, it ain't goneter be comfortable, as ye
might say, to be seen in this here harbor. Fourthly, it ain't goneter
be easy to git away with what we does find with a couple of hundred
natives at our heels, which they will be mighty soon. So, says I, we'd
better quit dreamin' an' begin fishin' right erway."

He paused to see what effect this had. Wilson nodded for him to go
on.

"Then we'll take another p'int; this here map starts from the hut
where the heathen image lived. Wherefore we've got ter find thet hut
afore we can start. We've gotter lay our course from thet. So, says I,
there's jus' one thing ter do--hunt fer it lively."

"On the other hand," broke in Wilson, "if Sorez is in danger, the girl
is in danger. The treasure is going to be here for a while longer, but
maybe the girl won't. If we could combine forces with Sorez----"

"Well, I'm damned!" growled Stubbs. "See here, m' boy, the only thing
that will do is to bring the Priest down on _us._ If Sorez wasn't
crazy, he wouldn't have come in here with thet idol with less than a
regiment back of him. But he has, an' what we wanter do is ter keep
outer the squall he's in."

"You don't understand the man. He is absolutely fearless. He knows the
place--he knows the natives--he knows the Priest. He won't be caught
napping."

"Maybe so. Then he don't need us."

Wilson sprang to his feet. He was half ashamed of an obsession which
shut out thought of everything else but the girl.

"See here, Stubbs," he blurted out, "you're right and I'm a sickly
sentimentalist. I've been thinking so much of her that I'm not fit for
an expedition of this sort. But from now on I'm under your orders.
We'll get this heathen treasure--and we'll take it down and show it to
Sorez--and we'll take the girl and fight our way out if we have to. As
you say, we haven't much time and we've got to work hard. We k