long as a man’s there and will put up a fight and we have the fun of catching him. Now then, Hank F., what are your plans? Spit them out.”

“Well,” said Hank, “my plans are simple18 enough. I’m going to drop down to the Islands and do some fishing and water-lily around picking up information where I can. There’s all sorts of boats down south of the Islands, doing shark fishing and going after the sulphur-bottom whales; and at Avalon and San Clemente and places there’s lots of fellows I can pick up information from. A police boat or a destroyer would find nothing but shut heads, but a man that knows how to go about it can tap the wires. Why, you wouldn’t believe how news goes about along the coast, and the long-shoremen are pirates by instinct. There’s not one of them isn’t backing old man Vanderdecken. Pirates by instinct, only they haven’t the pluck of their opinions.

18

“Well, when I’ve got this bird’s fishing waters, I’m going to lay in them and cruise round in them and whistle ‘Chase me Charlie’ till he pounces, or maybe I’ll be able to put my finger on the creek or bay or wherever it is he makes his port of call, and pounce myself—no knowing.”

“I see,” said George.

“I’m blessed if I do,” said Hank. “It’s mighty problematical, but I’ve got the feeling in my toes that I’m going to collar him.”

“Well,” said George, “we’ve got so far. Now about the boat.”

“What boat?”

“Well, you don’t propose to swim after the Dutchman, do you?”

“Well,” said Hank, “if one cog goes wrong in19 this business, we may both be swimming after him, begging to be took aboard and him using us for target practice—but I’m not going in a boat.”

19

“Then what the devil are you going in?”

“A yacht. Y. A. C. H. T. Sixty ton schooner, auxiliary engine, white-painted boat, turning a bit cream with wear, cabin upholstered in red plush, bird’s-eye maple panels let in with pictures of flowers—everything up-to-date, seemingly. She jumped into my head at the Club as I was talking about old Vanderdecken, that’s how things come to me. No sooner had I left the ’phone and began talking to you fellows than the whole of this expedition and how to do it hit me on the head like an orange.”

“Well, let’s get 

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