THEY came alongside the Wear Jack just as the fires of sunset began to pale beyond the peak of San Nicolas.

“Come down below, boys,” said Candon.

They followed him to the cabin, where they took their seats, whilst he filled and lit a pipe. Then, with the pipe in his mouth, he sat with his arms resting on the table and his eyes fixed straight before him.

George and the rat trap inventor spoke not a word. They had come to recognise B. C. as the better man in a lot of ways, and they had, unconsciously or sub-consciously, chosen him for their leader in this business that very plainly meant life or death. They were about to attack a hornets’ nest, every hornet man-size and armed with a little hatchet instead of a sting. They had no side arms, nothing but the Luggers. On the leader everything would depend and they felt they could depend on Candon.

“We’ve got an hour and a half before we need stir,” suddenly spoke B. C., “and I’ve got the plan of how to work this business all laid out in my head. Maybe you’ll leave it at that for I’ve taken notice that too much talking muddles things. You’re willing to take my word to go when the time comes and follow me?”

“Yes,” said Hank.

Candon slipped the old Waltham he wore from its chain and laid it on the table before him.

“That being so,” said he, “I want half an hour’s talk with you two on something that’s got nothing to do with this business. Don’t put in any questions or say a word till I get through. For the last three days I’ve been keeping my head shut against my better feelings, and only for the fact that the whole three of us may be laid out before morning, I’d have gone on, maybe, keeping it shut against my will, so to say, for you are two of the whitest men I’ve ever fell in with. Boys, I’ve let you down cruel. I promised you the Dutchman and you shall have him and I promised to lead you to where he’d stowed his takings and that promise holds. All the same, I’ve not been straight with you. I’ve got to make things straight, right away or bust, that’s how I feel. Well, here’s the start. We’re after a man by the name of Vanderdecken; that’s not his name, the tom-fool newspapers put it on him, but let it hold for a minute while I tell you. This fellow was no Dutchman; American born he was, of decent parents, but born wild and took his hook to sea when he wasn’t more’n fourteen. Now seeing we’re hunting him I want to give you his character’s far as I can get it and show you maybe he’s not such a shark as people have made out and was born for something better than the inside of a penitentiary where he’s sure going when we have him lugged back to ’Frisco.

“So, I’m telling you, he hadn’t been at sea more’n a year when he saved two men’s lives from drowning and he hadn’t been more’n three years when he got a berth as fourth officer aboard a Cape Horner. After that he rose steady, educating himself in sea practice and land ways, reading everything he could lay his claws on. Maybe it would have been better if he’d kept his eyes shut and worked along blind like most chaps. But he couldn’t stop thinking. I reckon thinking ruins more men than drink. The world seemed all upside down to him with the rich bugs a-top same as the fleas on a dog’s back.”

“So they are,” said Hank. “Heave ahead.”

“Well,” went on the other, “he rose, not having any use for liquor and being a good practical sea-man, till he got his master’s ticket and command of a full rigged packet in the Shireman line, then he lost his ship through no fault of his and got fired. The Shiremans had a down on him over stores he’d condemned as not fit for dogs, let alone able seamen, and they’d got wind he was a socialist, and they crabbed him all over the shipping companies’ offices. Y’know they’re all hand in glove with their secret reports and so on, and Vanderdecken couldn’t go into a company’s office unless it was to be shown out. Having to eat he went back to the foc’sle—that was in Liverpool, and worked his way to ’Frisco. From there he got to Nome and struck it rich in the Klondyke and got robbed. Then he began to float up and down through more traverses than I’ve time to tell you of till the Big War came and he heard of the Lusitania. That drove him clean bughouse and he got across the pond and joined up with the British in the submarine fight and got blown up in drifters till he was nearly deaf. Then back he came to ’Frisco, which was his port of choice, and more’n a year ago, he joins up with McGinnis in working the Heart of Ireland on all sorts of jobs down the coast, shark fishing, sea scraping and contraband. He was a pretty sick man, was Vanderdecken, with the world and the way it had used him, but it wasn’t till prohibition came along that he rose. The hull place went dry and they chucked the liquor down the drains in Santa Barbara, all that wasn’t hid away in rich men’s cellars. Vanderdecken wasn’t a drinking man, but one day at Santa Barbara he saw a lot of money bugs in white ducks popping champagne corks on a yacht and that blew him up. He went to Pat McGinnis and said he, ‘Look here, Pat, I’ve got a notion, let’s lay for a yacht and collar their drink and chuck it overboard.’ Pat didn’t seem to see the use of that, nor how it would bring him profit, but he turned it over in his thick head and the idea came to him of holding a yacht up and robbing it. He worked up the idea and put it before Vanderdecken who fell in with it like a fool, on the condition that the drink should be hove over. Vanderdecken wasn’t after plunder, but he’d gone bughouse on getting even with the champagne guys, and he had to fall in with the other and pretend he was. Then, when everything was fixed up, Pat got cold feet, not from virtue but fright, and nothing would have been done if Vanderdecken hadn’t taken hold of the business and gingered the chaps up. He took command of the whole business and then the fun began, and when it began Vanderdecken found himself as keen on taking the valuables as on dousing the drink. But there wasn’t much in it. D’you know for all the hullaballoo that’s been raised, only three yachts were raided, that’s a fact. It was a business that wouldn’t bear much repeating and only one haul was really lucky, for the fellow had his wife aboard and all her diamonds and jewels; anyhow, taking it all together, the plunder didn’t amount to more’n ten or fifteen thousand dollars leaving the jewels aside, and they might be worth ten thousand. No knowing till they were sold. But there was a lot of fizz and claret sent to hell, but you never heard of that. The yacht owners kept that dark, they didn’t want to be laughed at for one thing, and another, the rich folk are mortally afraid of the poor folk suddenly rising and batting them over the head on the drink question, and I’ve just been thinking, boys, that when Vanderdecken’s led back to ’Frisco, there’ll be no penitentiary for him lest the rich man’s cellar business should be brought too much to notice, and the guys who are poor and dry may say, ‘Let’s do what Vanderdecken had the guts to do’. However, after the last holdup, the Heart of Ireland made for the Bay of Whales and Vanderdecken and McGinnis cached the takings, and Vanderdecken changed the cache unknown to McGinnis. Getting towards ’Frisco, Vanderdecken showed his hand by hinting, like a fool, that the stolen boodle ought to be returned to its owners. That roused McGinnis’ hair and the bristles on the hull crowd. They thought they were going to be done. They let Vanderdecken ashore, but a man went with him to watch him and the first thing Vanderdecken heard was that you two were going out in a schooner to hunt for him. He knew he’d never get away from ’Frisco and McGinnis without a knife in his back, so, giving the chap that was with him the slip, he hoofed it for Sullivan’s wharf, and dropped aboard the Wear Jack. Boys, I’m Vanderdecken!”