GEORGE did not go to the club that night. He went straight home and sent Farintosh out to buy all the evening papers and Farintosh returned with a bundle of everything from the Evening Sun to the Polk Street Pikers’ Messenger. Every paper had the news, under all sorts of scare headlines. Some of these headlines referred to Fisher and some to himself; through all the notices ran a gentle and breezy humour, and in them all, with one exception, Joe Barrett had his advertisement and walked protected from laughter as Shadrac from flame.

The one exception was the Polk Street Piker, a free spoken organ that generally kept to ward politics. The Piker, whilst allowing that Rat Trap Fisher had swelled head and had better stick to rodents, was frankly libellous about Barrett, said the whole thing was a fake got up by Barrett to help his sale of damaged goods then on, said a business must be pretty rocky to adopt such means, said that it was likely the whole Dutchman business was a business fake.

George read this horrible libel with a chill at his heart, for he knew that Hennessy, the editor of the Piker, was a led captain and creature of Barrett’s. No one of any account read the Piker, but everyone of any account would read the abject apology of the Piker sure to be published in a day or two in every newspaper in California, together with editorial comments and a full statement about the Fisher Expedition supplied by Scudder. The thing would probably reach New York and London. With Vanderdecken as engine and Barrett as driver and stoker, there was no knowing where it might not reach or how long it might not keep running, and he, George du Cane, was tied to the tail of it. He was already in the blaze of the limelight and at that moment men in the clubs, people at dinner parties, people in restaurants and people in cars were talking of him. The fact of his wealth would give him a little place, all his own, in this show. There was only one way of escape—justification. “We’ve gotta get the Dutchman.” Hank’s words came back to him. If they did not get the Dutchman, it would be much better not to come back to San Francisco. George had a fine feeling for Pacific Coast temperament; leaving that alone, half frozen Icelanders would see the point and the joke of a much advertised amateur expedition such as theirs returning empty handed.

He went to bed early but he could not sleep for a long time. It was all very well talking about getting the Dutchman, but how were they to get him? When the getting of him had been only a matter of sport, the thing seemed fairly easy; now that it was a matter of dire necessity, it seemed next to impossible. A nightmare task like hunting for a lost needle in Kearney Street.

He jumped out of bed, fetched an atlas, and, taking it back to bed with him, looked up the California coast, running his eye along from San Francisco to Cape San Lucas, exploring the sea from the Channel Islands to Guadaloupe and from Guadaloupe to the Tres Marias Islands. Somewhere in that vast stretch of sea, somewhere on that line of coast that ran from the Golden Gate to Cancer, they had to find a man who most certainly did not want to be found by searchers. He went to sleep on the thought and awoke to it.

Farintosh was entering the room; he was carrying a bundle of morning papers.

“Pull up the blind,” said George.

Propped on the pillows, he opened the first paper to hand expecting to see his name in double leaded type. Not a word. In all the paper not a word of him or Hank or the Dutchman or the expedition. The next paper was the same and the next. The great San Francisco dailies and the little San Francisco dailies had treated the matter with the most absolute contempt. George felt curiously flat, he even looked at the dates of the papers to make sure there was no mistake and that Farintosh had not by some accident brought him yesterday’s press.

He had dreaded seeing his name and now he was disappointed because it was not there. Human nature is a funny thing.

He rose, bathed, dressed and came down to breakfast, but still the depression clung. He felt small and of little account, he felt weak and irritable. What was wrong with him? He had tasted Publicity, that is all. Publicity, the wine of the Barretts, is also the wine of the poets; its fascination is universal and of whatever brand it is, from abusive to laudatory, it is always Publicity. Even the pillory, I expect, had its compensations in the old days, and to be recognized with a bad egg or a dead cat was, at all events, to be recognised.

And what a blaze-up that was last night, with every paper screaming round the bon-fire,—and now this frost—why, that alone was in the nature of an insult.

Suddenly and in the act of pouring himself out a second cup of coffee, his mind cleared and his energy returned. “We’ve gotta get the Dutchman.” Hank’s words had come back to him. “And by God we will,” said he.

He finished his breakfast, rang for the car and started for the wharves. The deck of the Wear Jack was empty, he dropped down to the cabin and there was Hank surrounded with newspapers. Hank had evidently purchased largely last night as well as this morning.

“Well,” said George lightly, “there’s not a word in the morning papers and that’s a good thing.”

Hank grunted.

“That’s Barrett,” said he. “He’s cut the news off plunk. Why, a blaze in the morning papers would have been out by to-night; as it is every man from Pacific Avenue to Polk Street is saying, ‘Why, there ain’t no news about Hank.’ Barrett’s being ’phoned to death at the present minute asking what it all means. People will be talking all day, wanting news of the business and inventing lies to fill the gaps, till it’ll get about that the Dutchman’s been caught by Joe Barrett an’s being exhibited at his stores. By to-night all the ’phones will be humming with lies and all the South Coast papers shouting for information. Why, Bud, where were you born not to know that advertising isn’t printing stuff in the papers but making men talk. One big rumour, if you set it going, bumbling away like thunder in the foot hills, is worth all the printed stuff from here to Nome. We’re fair handicapped. If I was advertising liver pills, I’d be joyful, but I’m not.”

“Think it will queer our pitch?”

“Well, you don’t go duck-shooting with a brass band, do you? But there’s no use in talking, we’re on the slide and we’ll have to slither, and brass band or no, I’m going to get him. Come on, we’ve gotta get to work.”

He had been at work since six o’clock, it seemed, on the ratlines, and he was now overhauling all the standing rigging. That done, they attacked the running.

In the middle of these operations it began to dawn on them that they were observed. Sometimes there was quite a little group on the wharf watching and criticising. George noticed it first.

“How the devil have they got to know the whereabouts of the boat?” asked George. “The papers said nothing about Sullivan’s Wharf.”

“It’s Jake,” said Hank. “He’ll have been all over the wharves talking; take a pull on that halyard. Lord, these blocks will never do, I’ll have to go hunt in the sail-room to see if I can’t turn out some better. What’s the time? Getting on for one? Well, I’ve got some grub down below and I vote we have a bite, and after that, if you don’t mind, will you skip ashore to the club and see if there’s any letters for me. I’m expecting a business letter from N’ York about a patent I’ve got an interest in.”

“Right,” said George.

The galley of the Wear Jack was well fitted up. Jake had done his cooking there and had left half a can of kerosene behind him. Hank had got eggs and a great chunk of bacon from somewhere out of the blue, and there was the remains of last night’s German sausage. In a few minutes the frying pan was shouting over a Primus stove and Hank, in his shirt sleeves, was directing George. There was a let-down table in the galley and plates and knives and forks in a locker.

“I’ve overhauled the crockery and table and bed linen,” said Hank. “Did it last night. There’s enough on board for a family—pass me your plate. We’ll have a Chink for cook.”

“How about the crew?”

“Time enough about them—maybe we’ll have Chinks.”

To George, pondering as he ate, suddenly came the fact that Vanderdecken—the Dutchman—Dutch Pete, or whatever his name might be, certainly had behind him a crew of the same colour as himself, coupled with the fact that a crew of Chinks wouldn’t be of the same fighting colour as Vanderdecken’s lot.

He said so.

“Oh, it won’t come to fighting,” said Hank. “If it did I can hit a dollar with an automatic at twenty-five paces once a second, and I’ll learn you to do the same—but it won’t. We’ve got to take that chap with our wits, not with guns, though they’ll be useful maybe for bluff. Did y’ ever see strategy and tactics combined in the concrete?”

“No,” said George.

“Then you’ve never seen my rat trap,” said Hank.

An hour later George returned from his visit to the club with two letters for Hank. One was the expected letter from New York; the other, which bore only the San Francisco post-mark, was addressed to R. T. Fisher, and ran:

“That’s the bill-mackerel,” said Hank. “Did you ever see a mackerel? Well, it’s always headed by a couple or so of freak mackerel. Chaps with bills like ducks. This is the first of the shoal of chaps that’ll be wanting to come along, with us—you’ll see.”