Ship."

"Ah! So it is. I remember. _You_ remember, too, Joe. Little schooner,
the _Tropic Bird_--sixty days out from Callao--five hundred cases of
whisky aboard--sunk in squall. It was thirty years ago. Think of five
hundred cases of thirty-year-old whisky! There's money in that if I can
lay my hands on the schooner. Suppose you try that, you boys--on a
twenty per cent. basis. Come now, what do you say?"

"Not for _five_ per cent.," declared Hardenberg. "How'd we raise her?
How'd we know how deep she lies? Not for Joe. What's the matter with
landing arms down here in Central America for Bocas and his gang?"

"I'm out o' that, Joe. Too much competition."

"What's doing here in Tahiti--No. 88? It ain't lettered."

Once more the President consulted his books.

"Ah!--88. Here we are. Cache o' illicit pearls. I had it looked up.
Nothing in it."

"Say, Cap'n!"--Hardenberg's eye had traveled to the upper edge of the
map--"whatever did you strike up here in Alaska? At Point Barrow, s'elp
me Bob! It's 48 B."

The President stirred uneasily in his place. "Well, I ain't quite worked
that scheme out, Joe. But I smell the deal. There's a Russian post along
there some'eres. Where they catch sea-otters. And the skins o'
sea-otters are selling this very day for seventy dollars at any port in