“How should I know?” says the man.
Catty stood a minute looking at the man, and then he kind of studied the sky and peered at the sand and waggled his head. “Pretty slick,” says he, and his voice was sort of admiring. “This man House isn’t anybody’s fool, is he. I like to see a man with brains, even if he is a pirate. Well, Mr. Guard, we’ll be getting along now, but you can get word to your boss that we’ll be back.”
“I’ll be right here waitin’ for you,” says the man, with a grin.
“But,” says Catty, “you won’t see us.”
“I won’t, eh?... Jest try it once.”
There wasn’t any use standing there arguing, so we got into our dink again and rowed back. We passed close to the big yacht that came in while we were on our way out, and she was a dandy. I’ll bet she cost close to a million dollars, and she had a crew of real sailors in sailor’s clothes and everything. I’ll bet there were twenty men aboard her.
“If that is really reinforcements to Mr. House,” says I, “I guess our chances have gone glimmering.”
“Never give up till the last rooster dies,” says Catty.
Pretty soon we were aboard the Albatross again, and we got down Lloyd’s Register and looked up the new yacht. Her name was the Dawn, and she was a hundred and fifty feet long, with some kind of engines built in Philadelphia in 1913, and her owner was Jonas P. Dunn, of New York! I looked at Catty and Catty looked at me. Jonas P. Dunn! The big boss himself.
“Guess he thought Mr. House wasn’t doing his best,” says I, “so he came up to take charge.”