She folded the map and stowed it inside her blouse. “I’ll take you to it,” she said.
“You?” exclaimed Elliott. “You couldn’t.”
“You can’t find it without my help, it seems. I will give you this map when our boat is out of sight of land—the boat in which we go to find the wreck. You will have to take me with you.”
Bennett looked closely at the girl, and smiled quietly.
“But, great heavens! you don’t know what you’re asking,” cried Elliott. “You don’t know what sort of a rough crew we’ll ship. It may come to fighting.”
“I’m not afraid. And you know I can shoot.”
“It’s simply out of the question,” Elliott said, decisively. “You must stay here or go back to Lincoln. You’ll give us the map, and we’ll bring back your share for you. You can trust us, I hope?”
“It isn’t that I’m afraid. But I have no friends now nor money. No one knows anything of me; what does it matter what I do? And I can’t stay here. I think I should die if I had to stay in San Francisco. I must do something—I don’t care what. Oh, set it down as a girl’s foolish freak—anything you like!” she exclaimed, passionately. “But I go with your expedition, or it goes without the map.”
Elliott looked helplessly at Bennett, who said nothing. Then a new idea struck him.
“But we’re too late anyhow. Those other fellows have a month’s start, and they will certainly search all the islands within two or three hundred miles.”