“H-m-m, must have lots of confidence in themselves if they can use a check.”
“Now gentlemen,” said Captain Anderson, “the best I can do is to set you ashore. I must get under way immediately. I’m sorry, but I have my other passengers to think of.”
Mr. Willing acknowledged the justice of this.
“Give us ten minutes to get some things together and a boat to set us ashore then,” he said.
The captain consented, and Dick and the two men hastened to their cabins, where they gathered what few belongings they could.
“We’ll have the captain dispose of the rest in Frisco,” said the colonel. “We’ll get them when we get there.”
This the captain agreed to do, and ten minutes later the three were rushing shoreward in the steamer’s powerful gasoline launch. Immediately they clambered out, the launch put back to the ship.
“Reckon we had better go straight to the consulate, colonel,” said Mr. Willing.
“Right. But how are we going to find it?”
“I’ll try some of these natives. Some of ’em must speak English.”