t scratch the paint!" he shouted to the _patron_ of the tug.
"Mind what ye're at!"

"Paint!" laughed Locke. "Couldn't hurt that paint with a crowbar."

"Glad to see ye in good time, Mr. Locke," called Jarrow, and then
stepped back to escape the smoke from the tug's funnel, calling to
Peth to see that the ladder was put over.

After a deal of fussing and bawling on the part of the tug's crew,
she was nestled alongside the schooner, and Jarrow was at the rail
to assist them over the side.

"I told ye I'd go," said Dinshaw, proudly, taking off his cap to
Marjorie as she jumped down to the deck. "This lady knows, and she
wanted to go to my island. Thank ye, ma'am! Good mornin'."

"Indeed I do want to go," laughed Marjorie. "And I hope we'll find
your island, too, captain."

"Thank ye, ma'am. We'll find it right enough," and with a hasty bow
he waddled forward importantly, to oversee the getting of the
anchor and the passing of the towing hawser.

But the tug remained alongside after Locke and Trask had climbed
over into the waist and the baggage was transferred by Doc Bird.

"Oh," said Jarrow, as the _patron_ mounted the ladder and grinned
at them, hat in hand, "this boy wants his towage."

"How much?" asked Locke, taking out a large roll of yellow American
bills.

"I'd give him a check," advised Jarrow, "if you've got your book."

"All right," said Locke, and he followed Jarrow into the cabin
while Trask and Marjorie went to the poop-deck. The _Nuestra_
looked clean as a pin and fresh as a maker's model. Her decks had
been scrubbed until the caulking in the seams looked like lines of
black paint on old ivory. Her standing rigging had been newly
tarred, her bright work polished, and the water casks lashed in the
waist had their hoops painted a bright yellow, not yet dry. New
hemp hung in the belaying pins. The roof of the cabin, covered by a
tarpaulin, gleamed with oil and yellow paint. She had been scrubbed
and freshened until she had quite the aspect of a yacht.

"This beats waiting around Hong Kong," said Marjorie, as they stood
looking forward. She looked quite nautical in a suit of white duck
and a yachting cap pinned to her flaxen hair. Trask thought she
appeared entrancingly healthy and "out of doors."

"It's going to be a jolly fine trip," said Trask. "I hope you'll
enjoy it one hundredth as much as I do."

"But gold-mine hunting is no novelty to you," she said.

"It's the first time I've actually