and
square-shaped, and the other's the same color, only swallow-tail in
shape?"

"That's H. B., meanin: 'I am in need of assistance.'"

"Well, where's the crew? I don't see anybody on board."

"Oh, they're there right enough."

"Then they're pretty well concealed about the premises," turned Wilbur,
as he passed the glass to the Captain.

"She does seem kinda empty," said the Captain in a moment, with a sudden
show of interest that Wilbur failed to understand.

"An' where's her boats?" continued Kitchell. "I don't just quite make
out any boats at all." There was a long silence.

"Seems to be a sort of haze over her," observed Wilbur.

"I noticed that, air kinda quivers oily-like. No boats, no boats--an'
I can't see anybody aboard." Suddenly Kitchell lowered the glass and
turned to Wilbur. He was a different man. There was a new shine in
his eyes, a wicked line appeared over the nose, the jaw grew salient,
prognathous.

"Son," he exclaimed, gimleting Wilbur with his contracted eyes; "I have
reemarked as how you had brains. I kin fool the coolies, but I can't
fool you. It looks to me as if that bark yonder was a derelict; an' do
you know what that means to us? Chaw on it a turn."

"A derelict?"

"If there's a crew on board they're concealed from the public gaze--an'
where are the boats then? I figger she's an abandoned derelict. Do you
know what that means for us--for you and I? It means," and gripping
Wilbur by the shoulders, he spoke the word into his face with a savage
intensity. "It means salvage, do you savvy?--salvage, salvage. Do you
figger what salvage on a seven-hundred-tonner would come to? Well, just
lemmee drop it into your think tank, an' lay to what I say. It's all the
ways from fifty to seventy thousand dollars, whatever her cargo is; call
it sixty thousand--thirty thou' apiece. Oh, I don't know!" he exclaimed,
lapsing to landman's slang. "Wha'd I say about a million to one on the
unexpected at sea?"

"Thirty thousand!" exclaimed Wilbur, without thought as yet.

"Now y'r singin' songs," cried the Captain. "Listen to me, son," he went
on, rapidly shutting up the glass and thrusting it back in the case;
"my name's Kitchell, and I'm hog right through." He emphasized the words
with a leveled forefinger, his eyes flashing. "H--O--G spells very truly
yours, Alvinza Kitchell--ninety-nine swine an' me make a hundred swine.
I'm a shoat with both feet in the trough, first, last, an' always.
If that b