he commodore and be transferred to the deck department if
necessary. Mr Gibney approved the measure and it went into
effect. Only on entering or leaving a port, or in case of chase
by an enemy, were the engines to be used, and McGuffey was warned
to be extremely saving of his distillate.

CHAPTER XXI

Mr. Gibney had made a splendid job of changing the vessel's name,
and as she chugged lazily out of Panama Bay and lifted to the
long ground-swell of the Pacific, it is doubtful if even her late
Mexican commander would have recognized her. She was indeed a
beautiful craft, and Commodore Gibney's heart swelled with pride
as he stood aft, conning the man at the wheel, and looked her
over. It seemed like a sacrilege now, when he reflected how he
had trained the gun of the old _Maggie_ on her that day off the
Coronados, and it seemed to him now even a greater sacrilege to
have brazenly planned to enter her as a privateer in the
struggles of the republic of Colombia. The past tense is used
advisedly, for that project was now entirely off, much to the
secret delight of Captain Scraggs, who, if the hero of one naval
engagement, was not anxious to take part in another. In Panama
the freebooters of the _Maggie II_ learned that during Mr.
Gibney's absence on his filibustering trip the Colombian
revolutionists had risen and struck their blow. After the fashion
of a hot-headed and impetuous people, they had entered the
contest absolutely untrained. As a result, the war had lasted
just two weeks, the leaders had been incontinently shot, and the
white-winged dove of peace had once more spread her pinions along
the borders of the Gold Coast.

Commodore Gibney was disgusted beyond measure, and at a special
meeting of the syndicate, called in the cabin of the _Maggie II_
that same evening, it was finally decided that they should embark
on an indefinite trading cruise in the South Seas, or until such
time as it seemed their services must be required to free a
downtrodden people from a tyrant's yoke.

Captain Scraggs and McGuffey had never been in the South Seas,
but they had heard that a fair margin of profit was to be wrung
from trade in copra, shell, cocoanuts, and kindred tropical
products. They so expressed themselves. To this suggestion,
however, Commodore Gibney waved a deprecating paw.

"Legitimate tradin', boys," he said, "is a nice, sane, healthy
business, but the profits is slow. What we want is quick profits,
and