“This _Treasure Belle_ look poorly,” Sam said. “But she is Bahama built, sar, and she’s sturdy, and seaworthy.”

“She looks like a tub with a sail,” said Tom.

“Yes, sar, but she has very light draught,” Sam urged. “She can go in channels between the cays, and if she get aground her hull is strong and not easy to break. That _Libertad_ is very thin hulled, and draws eight inches more water.”

“Well, we can’t have her, anyway,” Nicky decided. “We’ll have to make the best of this one and let the name make up for the drawbacks.”

“My cousin own her,” Sam stated. “I have not told him why we charter her, and for the cruise to get relics that I say we use her for, he let her go very cheap, sar.”

They made the necessary arrangements with Sam’s cousin and work was started on the sloop. She was close to thirty-two feet in length, wide in her beam and squatty looking, but her engine, though a heavy duty make and not very fast, was in perfect trim. Her canvas was also neat and complete.

While the paint was scrubbed and the dirty interior of the cabin made presentable and as comfortable as possible, Sam, who was a good sailor and knew the sloop well, gave Nicky, Tom and Cliff many lessons in rope splicing, handling the sails, and, without actual practice in steering he explained the method of holding a small craft on her course. Sam was the only addition to the party, as, with Mr. Neale, who was sufficiently good at navigation to handle a small boat on the comparatively landlocked course they would take, it was felt that the boys would make a sufficient crew, standing watch-and-watch.

Few supplies were put aboard. They did not want people to suppose they were going to be on a desolate series of coral reefs for their cruise; to buy much food would arouse curiosity, because they could get fresh supplies on any of the islands of the Bahamas or the Virgin Islands they were hinting that they would visit.

On a bright, clear morning Cliff bade goodbye to his father, the others shook hands with Mr. Gray, and with the _Treasure Belle’s_ engine thudding away without a skip, they maneuvered the sloop out of the small basin and laid a course for Cuba, steering for the Eastern end of the island rather than to their true course toward the Western end, so as to make it seem that they were bound toward the Eastern group of islands, after touching on the large island for some work Mr. Neale pretended must be done there to 

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