Captain Image grunted. "Then I wish you'd asked me for advice first. But perhaps you haven't clinched the deal, and can back out of it still. If you'll take the tip from an old Coaster like me, you have nothing to do with it. His old Dutch factory's only worth scrap price."
"That's all I've given for it."
"And when you do get the oil out of it that's stored there, if it hasn't been looted whilst he's been away pleasuring down the creeks in his canoe, where are you? No better than here. Your trade will be dead. The King of Okky's stopped all the roads."
"Now, I'm just going to give you a little geographical surprise. Have you got a map?"
Captain Image indicated the drawers beneath the chart table. "Coast charts, of course, which include the river mouths, but I should pile up the old packet in a week if I relied on them. I'm my own pilot for the most part, Miss Kate, and that's why with God's Providence and a sound use of drugs I've managed to work successfully on the coast all these years."
"Well, if you haven't got a map of the back country here in your stock, I carry a very accurate one in my head, and if you'll give me a paper and a pencil, I'll draw out something that will surprise you."
The girl leaned over the chart table and began to draw, and Captain Image sat back on his camp stool and nursed a knee and frankly admired her. He did not in the least believe in this Mokki venture, and had not the smallest intention of breaking in upon his usual routine by going there. But he had (so he told himself) a distinct eye for the beautiful and the romantic, and he found his ideals in these matters very considerably filled by Miss Kate O'Neill, her dress, and her occupations.
"There," she said at last, and handed him the sketch.
Captain Image looked at it, laughed, and shook his head. He had all of a sailor's intolerance for the amateur map-drawer. Moreover, he had traded in part of the Oil Rivers for twenty years, and if he did not know the back country personally, he heard it spoken of in the factories and in steamer smoke-rooms as matter of intimate knowledge almost daily.
"Well, Captain, don't just shake your head and laugh. Let me have your criticisms."