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Three large and powerful

Ethiopian slaves seized upon the Schoolmaster, and marched him out

ing, "To think that a Yale graduate should become no more than a common bandit!"

"Now if your Royal Highness has found the word-" the Green Goblin said.

"But I can't find it," said the Princess. "I thought it was fair to use the dictionary, for unless you know how to spell the word you can't find it in the dictionary! So the book is no use to me at all. See if you can find it," and she handed the book to the Squire.

He took it and after a while said, "I have looked all through the S's-and 'psychical' is n't there."

"I can spell it," the Genie announced, "for I am a reformed speller. S-i, sigh; k-i-c, kick; u-l, ul. That is my way of spelling it. And it's better than the old way, I think."

"Not at all," the Schoolmaster insisted. "It is derived from Psyche, the soul. Now Psyche was Greek, and she "

"I did n't come here to hear lectures," observed the Sultan, and he clapped his hands thrice.

Whereupon three large and powerful Ethiopian slaves armed with simitars entered, seized upon the Schoolmaster, and marched

proceeded to give the following spellings: simitar, scimitar, cimitar, cimeter, cymiter, cimiterre, cymeter, scymitar, scimiter, scimeter, scymeter, scymetar, semitar, semitary, smiter, smyter, smeeter.

"That is truly remarkable," was the comment of the Green Goblin. "How in the world did you happen to know all those spellings and which of them is right?"

"Alas!" exclaimed the Dancing Teacher, his voice choked with emotion, "the Yale graduate who became a bandit is not the only unhappy guest at this party. I am the man who wrote the Dictionary! And, owing to misfortunes and bad spells of weather, I have had to teach dancing for a living, and, I blush to confess it-I am a very poor teacher of dancing. I will tell you the experiences of my life. I was the son of poor but humble-" "Enough!" cried the Witch, "now you may all disappear!" And she waved her crutch in the air and pronounced a magic spell.

It was the correct spell-and everybody and everything vanished at once.

The poor Will-o'-the-Wisp is still wandering about looking for them.

By KENNETH PAYSON KEMPTON

SYNOPSIS OF PREVIOUS INSTALMENTS

To escape the dock authorities, who take him for a thief, Rick Hartley ships aboard the schooner Laughing Lass as cook when his own vessel, the Arrowdale, leaves him stranded. Many incidents aboard the schooner, supposedly on a fishing-trip, arouse Rick's suspicions. After two weeks at sea, she stops at some unknown port, and her skipper, M'Guire, goes ashore. Upon his return soon after, the little vessel puts to sea again. This procedure is repeated several times, while M'Guire's motives remain a mystery. At length, Rick discovers a newspaper lying in the after cabin with a small hole cut from the middle of one of its pages. He realizes that here is a possible purpose for the trips ashore; that if he can lay hands on the clipping cut from that paper he will solve the mystery of the schooner's mission. He sees M'Guire place this clipping in a leather wallet, which the skipper pockets. On a hot day the skipper inadvertently leaves his coat in the cabin, being called suddenly to the deck to inspect passing shipping,-in which he has lately taken a curious interest, and Rick finds the clipping within his grasp.

CHAPTER XIII

THE CLIPPING

THE thing was the purest luck-Rick was sure of that and told himself so. He might have waited months, as things stood, without a chance at that shabby coat and what it contained-waited until it was too late. Yet here was that shabby coat hanging over a chair in the after cabin, and there were M'Guire's long legs disappearing up the companion stairs. It was just luck.

Two steps brought him to the chair, and his hand shot into the breast pocket of that coat. When it reappeared, the big leather wallet came too.

Rick laid the thing on the table and bent over it. His breath came in jerky gusts; there was a tightening in his throat. The room was so still you could have heard the ticking of a brass clock made fast to the forward bulkhead.

Rick opened the wallet.

One side was jammed with bank-notes, yellow bills laid together lengthwise the pile perhaps a quarter of an inch thick. Rick paid no heed to them, but turned to the pocket on the other side.

The boy's long fingers drew out a mass of letters and stray bits of paper. On top lay a clipping, three inches square. Rick read:

$10,000,000 IN BRITISH GOLD FOR LOCAL BANKERS

SKIPPER UNDISMAYED AT MIDAS HOARD

LIVERPOOL, July 28. The steamship Glendale (Br), Baldwin, cleared this port to-day with a shipment of gold bullion valued at $10,000,000. Her cargo is contained in wooden cases and is consigned to local banks for purposes of supporting foreign exchange. Captain Baldwin remarked upon sailing that he had often carried more valuable freight. The ship is due off the light-ship on August 10.

The

Twice Rick read the clipping, staring at it unbelievingly. He drew the half sheet of newspaper from his pocket and laid the little slip of paper into the hole in its surface. puzzle was a puzzle no longer. The last piece fitted into its fabric without crack or flaw.

But this thing was utterly preposterous! Was M'Guire mad? Rick's father had told him thrilling adventures of the Barbary coast, bloody fights with Malay pirates in the China Sea. But to-day-with lean gray destroyers whipping through the high seas, with revenue cutters and coast-patrols, with charts and lights and wireless? To-daypiracy?

M'Guire

Rick shivered at the ugly word. must be mad. No man in his senses would attempt to pursue an ocean liner with an old fishing-schooner, five men in her crew, and a paltry rack of half a dozen rifles stowed away below.

A heavy footstep made the boy look up from the little scrap of paper in his hand, through the open doorway and out into the corridor beyond. The legs of the walrus man were shuffling slowly down the stairs!

The boy's mind worked like lightning. In possibly one second the long mustache and the little narrow eyes would swing down into sight, commanding the corridor and the after cabin before their owner was off the steps. Was there time to return that jumbled mass of papers to the pocket-replace the wallet in the skipper's coat?

Rick looked up again-suspenders and a section of blue shirt. He shut the wallet softly on the mass of papers and swept it into the open throat of his shirt. It lay flat and cool against his skin. The loose cloth hid it.

When M'Guire entered the after cabin he saw only his ragged cabin-boy piling up

plates on the table. He hardly looked at Rick. Placing his sea-glasses on the table, he sat down in the chair that held his coat and finished his meal in silence.

With a pile of dishes pressed tightly over that terrifying lump against his chest, Rick somehow got out of the cabin and climbed the stairs. Turning, he saw a big tanker plainly visible off the schooner's starboard bow. So he pattered up the hot deck in his bare feet, passed Hamlin and Dutchy on the hatch coaming, wondered if they could not hear the wild stampede of his heart, see the lump against which it pounded like a donkey-engine

-came at last to the forecastle hatch, and crawled down the ladder to the welcome gloom below.

Ban gazed long and hungrily at the wad of bank-notes. Then, in the little galley of the Laughing Lass, he raised his eyes to Rick's. They stood there silent, motionless, staring at each other unseeingly, the leather wallet between them. And finally Ban Hoag spoke -wrenching his words from a dry throat, parched lips:

"Ricky, kid, ye 've spilled the beans.

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"A HEAVY FOOTSTEP MADE THE BOY LOOK UP FROM THE SCRAP OF PAPER"

Ban Hoag was there at the table, a cup of tea half raised to his mouth. At the look on Rick's face, Hoag paused stared-set down his cup untasted, a question in his blue eyes. Rick's voice was husky; the words seemed to stick in his throat. "Come on-intothe galley," he whispered.

The other boy followed him without a word. Rick set down his dishes on the shelf beside the sink. He turned back and shut the galley door, shooting the bolt home softly. Then he stared blankly at his friend, Ban Hoag. One hand crept down inside his shirt.

"So 'elp us, Ban," he said slowly. "I 've got it."

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We're in fur it now, Rick-we 're-in-furit-now!"

CHAPTER XIV

DESPERATE COURAGE

RICK found a small measure of solace in the plural pronoun. To him, this situation into which he had been thrown by circumstances apparently beyond his control seemed absolutely hopeless. With M'Guire's wallet and the money it contained in his possession, he had forfeited what slight protection the captain of the schooner had hitherto afforded him. M'Guire was sure to note the loss very soon-had, perhaps, discovered it already. His suspicions would center naturally around the only member of the crew who had access to the after quarters. The theft -it was nothing else would be traced to him inevitably, and small mercy could be expected from the walrus man. Yet there was some comfort in that plural pronoun. At least he was not alone. Ban had said "we": "we 're in fur it now."

And truly, it seemed that in the creation of this strangely attractive personality, this boy who had known no parents but the rough

frequenters of sea, docks, open country-it seemed that in Ban Hoag the capability of discouragement, at whatever odds, had been omitted. One could imagine, looking into his deep-blue, world-wise eyes as he considered this new development, that he had found himself before in corners as tight as this. It was he, now, who slapped Rick hearteningly on the back, who took over possession of the wallet, replacing the clipping carefully in its pocket. It was Ban who whistled a merry little tuneless rhythm while he glanced around the galley rather absent-mindedly, as if looking for something, he did n't know just what, and turned at last to Rick, still standing there, saying, "Cheero! as you limies says. Cheero, kid. Leave us time to think a mite, Ricky. Who knows? Why ain't they a way outen this? I says, leave us think."

Ban said this defiantly. There was little defiance left in Rick. The ringing note of battle cheered him. It was good to have a friend!

Hoag started to speak again. But they heard some one coming down the ladder to the forecastle, and quickly unbolted the door and stepped out of the galley, lest they be discovered in this suspicious conference.

It was only Dutchy; but he hung about and finally settled down to mend a great rent in a pair of oilskins. They thought it best, even in view of the pressing need for haste, to wait until they should be sure of secrecy. The money in that wallet complicated matters astonishingly. Ban doubted if he could convince either Hamlin or little Dutchy that Rick had not stolen the skipper's purse for the money it contained.

So they sat there and talked about other things as unconcernedly as possible, and Hoag took the opportunity, when Dutchy's head was turned, to tuck the wallet beneath the mattress of his bunk. Whereupon he lay on it, seemingly indolent-in reality, thinking harder and faster than he had ever thought before.

The two boys found a chance for privacy that afternoon. Rick brought word forward that when he had cleared away the dinner things he had seen M'Guire in his room, almost buried in charts, his instruments and books. And Manuel was across the passage on his bunk, reading and half asleep. The bos'n's snores filled the forecastle to suffocation-he had the wheel at midnight and was turned in until then. Dutchy was aft, trying to find steerageway in the breathless air.

They told the little gray man to call them if they should be wanted-said they were going forward to look for fish, or some such nonsense. Dutchy drank it in, however, and turned back anxiously to his wheel.

So they left him with his worries-they had their own and went forward, climbing out over the schooner's bow until they perched on her wire stays, just above the water's edge.

It was surprisingly cool here. The curve of her bows made a little shadow over their heads, and what light air there was fanned them pleasantly. They fell to eager talk, hardly noticing the great mystery of the ocean lying there so close to them.

"D' you think the man 's in 'is senses?" began Rick.

The gentle rippling of little waves against sheathing was at first his only answer. Then Ban said:

"Cripes, boy, I dunno. Seems a crazy thing t' do. They 's always a cutter on icepatrol around the Banks in early summer. Of course, this Glendale 's got wireless; an' we must be square in the westbound track, seein' the shippin' we 've met. It sure does seem a durn fool proceedin'. But it don't make no difference- -to us-whether he 's half-witted or not. We 're in it, anyhow."

"But why can't us get away now, Ban? Why can't us leave the wallet-I can leave it in skipper's room when 'e 's not there-an' get away? Sure there be enough in that clippin' to show Hamlin what 's in wind."

"That 's just what I 'm afeered of—that piece of paper. D'ye mind that first time we talked to the bos'n, over the suppertable? D'ye recollect why it was he called a halt on the get-away-what his reasons was?"

"Yes," said Rick; "'e wanted to make sure this cruise was goin' to be all danger an' no profit."

"Well, ther y' are, boy. D' ye think fur one blink this clippin' 's goin' t' do that fur him? No sir, by cripes, it ain't! That Hamlin will look at them ciphers and that there dollar sign ahead of 'em, an' he 'll be plumb dazzled. Don't ye believe he 'll trust M'Guire to land that gold an' get away somehow? Don't ye see he 'll be willin' t' take a chance, anyways, with all that gold in sight-ruther than shove off without a red cent in a ten-foot skiff bound fur the coast of nowhere? Would you, if you was Hamlin?"

Knowing Hamlin as he did, Rick was bound to admit that the chances of the

bos'n's willingness to quit would now be slimmer than ever. He looked down silently at a white jelly-fish undulating slowly past his feet.

"No," Ban Hoag went on, "we ain't got one skyhoot of evidence that 'll do anything but make the bos'n want to stick. An' when I says bos'n, y' understand I means Dutchy too. That ornery-eyed sculpin 'd stick his haid in a barrel o' hot tar, if Gabe'd only pass him the word."

A little breeze came in from the westward. Rick heard the rippling grow louder, felt the schooner swing off on her course again.

"Any 'ope that us could get away alone?" he asked Ban.

"I had the midnight watch last night," returned Hoag, "an' fur the hull bloomin' watch, that milk-and-water graybeard set on the after-hatch coamin', watchin' me. Daid with sleep he was-but he stuck it out an' went on hisself at four. Get away? Nix."

Another pause, while Rick longed desperately to be aboard a big freighter that was plowing slowly by them some two miles distant.

"Well, then, what be there left?" Ban considered this judicially. Rick marveled at the poise of this young beach-comber, who could sit idly swinging his bare legs, with his freedom, possibly his life, hanging in the balance. Right at this minute M'Guire might be reaching into that coat pocket. Ban Hoag looked up.

"Well," he said slowly, "I'll tell ye what I've thought. 'T ain't much-but I guess it 's better than waiting here fur the cutter to catch us, or some destroyer. Right off, we got t' put that wallet back. Ye could do that to-night maybe, after supper when ye go down fur the dishes, while the skipper 's on deck to stretch his laigs. Ye kin leave it on his table, an' he 'll likely think he dropped it there hisself, an' nothing said.

"But this here 's what I ben thinkin'. If we could git a line on his plans,-if we could hear him talkin' to the mate an' arrangin' with him how the thing 's to be done,-like as not we'd find out whether or not he 's loony. We'd get holt of some things that might I ain't sayin' they would that might convince Hamlin he 's a fool to wait whiles they 's a chance fur to get away. O' course the ship 'll have a guard, an' she 'll have one will make M'Guire's six pea-shooters look like busted hopes. An' she 'll have a man on watch in the radio shack wit' a speakin'tube to the bridge at his ear, ready to send

word over the hull ocean they 's pirates at large an' gettin' frisky. Now what I wants to know is just this-how 's M'Guire think he 's goin' to get over them little difficulties? They ain't a chance in a million he can. An' if we can get to hear him talk, why it stands to reason we 'll have somethin' will make Gabe Hamlin's hair creep an' Dutchy take a runnin' dive fur that skiff."

"How is us goin' to get there, to hear all this?" asked Rick.

"Simple enough, if ye 've got the nerve, boy. I say 'you,' fur I ain't allowed down aft an' might easy queer the deal. Here's how: Dutchy 's on the wheel from eight bells till midnight; then Gabe relieves him. Any time after eight ye go down there. Tell Dutchy, as ye pass him, that ye 're goin' after dishes, or anything ye please he'll believe ye. Ye 'll have the wallet with ye. Now see here. Either the skipper an' Manuel 'll be in the cabin, in which case ye slips into one of them rooms, they ain't no light in the passage,- or else they'll be in one of the rooms, an' then ye heads fur the cabin. Anyhow, ye sneaks in an' gets rid of that wallet, leavin' it in the likeliest place possible, where M'Guire might have dropped it. Then, Ricky bird, ye lays low-into a locker, under the table, anywheres. Ye lay low an' ye listens sharp. Them bulkheads is paper. An' ye gets the dope if they 's any dope to get an' I 'm layin' there is.

"Meantime, I'll wake Hamlin an' tell him the hull story, how the thing looks fishy an' how 's ye 're after the details. I'll have him fixed-that 's my job, an' it ain't so much softer 'n yours. Even I'll pass the word to Dutchy--maybe get some feed an' a dory compass aboard the skiff. Now when they turns in down aft, you sneaks out again with your story. Five minutes' quick talkin' 'll swing the bos'n, an' Dutchy 'll like to break his neck fur fear he 'll get left behind. We'll ease into that there skiff jest as slick, an' we 'll haul away fur Cape Sable an' there y' are!"

Rick sat for some minutes, deep in thought. "What if they don't talk?"

"We 're cooked coots."
"What if they cotch me?"
Ban Hoag looked up, at that.

"They ain't no question of 'what if's,' Rick. This here, as I sees it, is our last chance. The odds is even we win out. But as I says before it takes nerve. Let's see what 'd ye tell me yer father's business was?" It was a challenge, implied rather than

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