Jimmie promptly.
"Well, I've always had a kind a suspicion myself that mebbe he had just fainted. But I like to figure it out that I destroyed one of my country's enemies that day, with a leetle help from my friend here."
While Yeager was joyously fabricating this yarn Blythe had been writing on the back of an envelope. This he now shoved quietly across to me.
He's as well-plucked as they make them, Jack—and straight as a string. Want to make him a proposition to join us?
Those were the lines he had penciled on the envelope. Beneath them I wrote two words: "Suits me."
Jimmie's mother had consented to let him go on with us. Now I took him away to get some necessary wearing apparel, leaving Blythe to make a proposition to Yeager.
"Your mother says I'm in full charge of you. That means I'm to lick you whenever you need it," I told Jimmie, for I had already discovered that my young sleuth needed considerable repressing from time to time.
"Yes, sir. I'll do whatever you say," agreed Young America, who was long since over his seasickness and was again eager for the voyage.
The Englishman nodded when I saw him an hour later.
"Tom's in with us."
"He understands this ain't a pleasure excursion, doesn't he?" I asked.
"Folks take their pleasure different, Mr. Sedgwick," drawled the cowman. "I shouldn't wonder but I might enjoy this little cruise even if it gets lively."
"My opinion is that it may get as lively as one of your own broncos," I explained.
"I'll certainly hope for the worst," he commented.
I turned Jimmie over to my friends and spent the afternoon with a college classmate who was doing newspaper work on the Herald. In looking up a third man who also had belonged to our fraternity, time slipped away faster than we had noticed. It was getting along toward sunset when I separated from my friends to take the interurban for San Pedro at the big electric station. Before my car reached the port, dusk was falling.
Whistling as I went, I walked briskly down the hill toward the wharf. As I passed an alley my name was called. I stopped in my stride and turned. Then a jagged bolt of fire seared my brain. My knees sagged. I groped in the darkness, staggering as I moved. About that time I must have lost consciousness.
When I came to myself I was lying in the alley and a man was going through my clothes. A second man directed him from behind a revolver leveled at my head. Both of them were masked.
"I tell you it ain't on him," the first man was saying.
"We want to make dead sure of that, mate," the other answered.
"If he's got it the damned thing is sewed beneath his skin," retorted the first speaker.
"He's coming to. We'll take his papers and his pocketbook and set sail," the leader decided.
I could hear their retreating footsteps echo down the alley and was quite sensible of the situation without being able to rise, or even cry out. For five minutes perhaps I lay there before I was sufficiently master of myself to get up. This I did very uncertainly, a little at a time, for my head was still spinning like a top. Putting my hand to the back of it I was surprised to discover that my palm was red with blood.
As I staggered down to the wharf I dare say the few people who met me concluded I was a drunken sailor. The Argos was lying at the opposite side of the slip, but two of our men were waiting for me with a boat. One of them was the boatswain Caine, the other a deckhand by the name of Johnson.
"Split me, but Mr. Sedgwick has been hurt. What is it, sir? Did you fall?" the boatswain asked.
"Waylaid and knocked in the head," I answered, sinking down into the stern on account of a sudden attack of dizziness.
Caine was tying up my head with a handkerchief when the mists cleared again from my brain.
"All right, sir. A nasty crack, but you'll be better soon. I've sent Johnson up to have a lookout for the guys that done it," the boatswain told me cheerily.
"No use. They've gone to cover long since. Call him back and let's get across to the ship."
"Yes, sir. That will be better."
He called, and presently Johnson came back.
"Seen anything of the scoundrels, Johnson?" demanded Caine.
"Not a thing."
I had been readjusting the handkerchief, but I happened to look up unexpectedly. My glance caught a flash of meaning that passed between the two. It seemed to hint at a triumphant mockery of my plight.
"Caine is a deep-sea brute, mean-hearted enough to be pleased at what has happened," I thought peevishly. Later I learned how wide of the mark my interpretation of that look had been.
A chorus of welcome greeted me as I passed up the gangway to the deck of the Argos. One voice came clear to me from the rest. It had in it the sweet drawl of the South.
"You're late again, Mr. Sedgwick. And—what's the matter with your head?"
"Nothing worth mentioning, Miss Wallace. Captain Bothwell has been trying to find what is inside of it. I think he found sawdust."
"You mean——"
"Knocked in the head as I came down to the wharf. Serves me right for being asleep at the switch. Think I'll run down to my room and wash the blood off."
Yeager offered to examine the wound. He had had some experience in broken heads among the boys at his ranch, he said.
"Perhaps I could dress the hurt. I had a year's training as a nurse," suggested Miss Wallace, a little shyly.
"Mr. Yeager is out of a job," I announced promptly.
The girl blushed faintly.
"We'll work together, Mr. Yeager."
She made so deft a surgeon that I was sorry when her cool, firm fingers had finished with the bandages. Nevertheless, I had a nasty headache and was glad to get to bed after drinking a cup of tea and eating a slice of toast.
Chapter X.
Another Stowaway
Southward ho! Before the trade winds we scudded day after day, past Catalina Island and San Diego, past Santa Margarita lying like a fog bank on the offing, out into the warm sunshine of the tropical Pacific.
We promised ourselves that after the treasure had been lifted and we were headed again for the Golden Gate, our sails should have a chance to show what they could do alone, but now Blythe was using all his power to drive the Argos forward.
What plans Bothwell might have we did not know, but we were taking no chances
