fust, and, barrin' accidents, I reckon it's goin' to be a neck-and-neck
one, for the _Kingfisher's_ the smartest schooner sailin' out o'
Nantucket; and although Abner Slocum's such a downright `bad man' I'll
say this for him--there ain't a better seaman sailin' under `Old Glory'
than what he is.

"Now, gents, this here is my idee. I'm agoin' to carry on, night and
day, to get to that there spot in the Pacific where them pearls be; and
when I gets there I'm goin' to scrape up as many oysters as ever I can
lay hands on. And when I've got 'em, and have realised upon 'em, I
shall look upon half of the proceeds as belongin' to Abe, or--he bein'
dead--his heirs. But I mean to take partic'ler care that, let the heirs
be who they may, that skunk Abner don't touch a penny of the money. If
it turns out that Abner's children is the heirs, then I'm goin' to
app'int trustees to look a'ter the money for 'em until a'ter Abner's
dead, and then they can have it."

"Bravo, Captain!" exclaimed Cunningham, patting the skipper approvingly
on the back. "A most wise and honourable decision to have arrived at, I
call it; and, so far as I am concerned, I'll do all I can to help you to
carry it out. By the way, how do you propose to obtain the oysters when
you arrive at the spot where, according to your friend Abe, they are to
be found?"

"How do I intend to get 'em?" repeated the skipper. "Why, with a trawl,
of course. I've got some specially strong trawlin' gear aboard, made o'
purpose for the job."

"I see," commented Cunningham. "It did not occur to you to get any
diving gear, I suppose?"

"Well--no, it didn't, and that's a fact," answered the skipper. "But I
guess we'll find that the trawl'll work all right," he added cheerfully.

"Yes, no doubt," agreed Cunningham. "But of course," he added, "the
diving system would have worked very much more rapidly, because, you
see, if you had happened to possess a set of diving gear you could have
anchored the schooner right over the bed, sent your diver down with two
large sacks, or nets, and while he filled one you could have hauled up
the other and emptied it into the bins or barrels ranged round the decks
in readiness to be conveyed ashore and emptied after the day's work on
the bed was over. In that manner you could have secured several
thousands of oysters daily."

"Ay, I reckon we could. But I guess we'll have to be content to work
with the trawl, seein' that we've neither d