“Then I guess you’re not very rich, are you?” said Anthony pityingly. “My papa, he’s twice as rich as all of you put together. He’s a judge, and my mother has money in her own right and so have I and so has Antha. And we’ll get more yet when my grandfather dies. I could buy a dozen war canoes if I wanted them, but I don’t want them. I’m going to have a yacht, a steam yacht, so all I have 38 to do is sit on the deck and tell the captain to hustle and put on more speed. That’s the life!”
“It may be the life for you, but not for me,” replied the Captain, throwing stones into the water to relieve his feelings.
Not long after a series of agonized shrieks brought them running from all directions to see Antha racing along the path to the tents in mortal terror, with Sandhelo after her as hard as he could go. She had come across him as he was grazing, and he, seeing a cracker in her hand, had reached out his nose for it, and opened his mouth wide. Thinking he wanted to eat her up, she fled, screaming, while he, still intent on the cracker, followed determinedly. It took an hour’s persuasion, and the combined efforts of all the Winnebagos, to assure her that Sandhelo was not a vicious animal with cannibal tendencies. Even then she would not go within ten feet of him.
Meanwhile, Mr. Evans, showing Judge Dalrymple around the island, came upon the little mineral spring and told him how it had been the means of his coming into possession of the island.
“So that little trickle was all the excuse the famous Minerva Mineral Spring Company had for incorporating and selling stock to the public,” said the judge thoughtfully.
“Yes,” said Mr. Evans, “the whole thing seems to have been a dishonest scheme from the first. But it was handled so cleverly that a great many people 39 were deceived. I was one of the latter, for I lent that company the money to go into business. But, as represented to me, the thing seemed a perfectly good enterprise–they even had signed statements as to the number of bottles the spring would produce yearly. But when the stock had been sold to a large number of unsuspecting people the company suddenly went out of business and then the truth about the spring was discovered. In the lawsuits which followed I was given the island, so I am not so badly off as the people who bought stock and got nothing out of it. I am genuinely sorry for them and feel almost guilty when I think that I furnished the money to start the enterprise, even if I did it in good faith.
“You seem to know a good deal about the case. Do you happen to be acquainted with anyone who lost money in it?”
“I was one of the heaviest stockholders,” said the judge drily.
Mr. Evans whistled.
“But you must not think that I am blaming you for it,” the judge continued hastily, as he saw the distressed look on Mr. Evans’ face. “Besides,” he added, “the service you rendered me by taking my children and myself off the yacht the other day makes me many times your debtor. Let us say no more about the other matter.”