“The place is pretty clean now,” said T. C. “Maybe some of you will get at where the food’s stowed and find out what we can have to eat. I’m going along to the galley to get the fire on.”
CHAPTER XXXV
SANTANDER ROCK
THE wind held steady all that day and half the following night, then it died to a tepid breeze just sufficient to keep steerage way on the schooner.
Hank was the first up in the morning, relieving George at the wheel.
After supper, on the night before, they had made a plan, based on the fact that there were provisions on board enough for a three months’ cruise for four people. This plan was simple enough. They would put out far to avoid the Islands and any bother of complications. Hank’s idea was to strike a course nor’west to a point midway between Honolulu and San Francisco, and then make directly for the city of the Golden Gate. They would tell Tyrebuck the truth, but it would be no sin to delude the gaping public with a Hank constructed yarn, sure that McGinnis or his relations would never dispute it. The only bother was that Tyrebuck would want his ten thousand dollars. If the Wear Jack had been wrecked, all would have been well, for the insurance people would have paid, but they had just lost her, as a person might lose a horse or a motor car.
“Of course,” said Hank, “there was no agreement with him. Who’d have ever imagined such a thing as our losing her like that? All the same, I’ve got to pay old man Tyrebuck, it’s a debt of honour. I’ll have to mortgage the trap that’s all.”
“I’ll go half,” said George.
“No, you won’t. I was the borrower, this expedition was mine. If I’d got the twenty-five thousand reward, I’d have stuck to it.”