t might be for this reason that he was too ready to
mistake normal things as evidences of a menace which did not exist.
He wondered if this fact might not well account for the formless
fears he had felt about Peth and the crew. Like a person who wakes
in the night, to find the windows where they shouldn't be, his
judgment, too, might be at fault, and affairs far better than he
thought them.

Trask had no worries for himself. The pursuit of gold in
untrammelled parts of the world was his business, and at times
danger was but the thrill which went with the game. He knew that if
he were the only passenger in the schooner he would very likely be
in his bunk asleep instead of hunting trouble.

But he felt a responsibility. This wild project of taking a young
woman in a schooner, with a crew of men who had all the outer
aspects of rascals, and a mild madman, to hunt an island, was
largely his own fault and Trask now realized it.

Locke was far too credulous, or rather incredulous. Like most
Americans who have lived quiet lives and attended to their own
business, he lacked imagination for dangerous possibilities in the
motives of others. Such adventures as he had had were out of books,
and he had taken it for granted that what he read was always
improbable and impossible. Such people never believe in danger
until they have a revolver thrust into their faces. And Locke had
come aboard the schooner with a roll of yellow-backed bills so big
that he could hold in his hand more wealth than all the ship's
company together could earn in a year of honest labour.

Trask almost wished he had declined to go in with Locke on the
trip to the island. He had been quite too easy-going about it all
himself, neglecting to take precautions about Jarrow and the crew
because he had been reluctant to forego the pleasure of Miss
Marjorie's company. Trask had been exiled so long in far corners of
the globe that he was strongly averse to giving up a single hour to
business details which he might have with the American girl.

Then he knew that to tell Locke he did not care to go to the island
and later to go by himself would have been sneakingly selfish. Now
that they were embarked on the venture, he felt that he must do all
he possibly could for the protection of his companions. He wished
that he had demanded an investigation when he found his pistol
missing. He moved forward with careful steps, knowing that there
must be a man sitting on the f