To Holstrom and Sidney,—With two partners working against me, I claim the partnership is broken. After this I’ll work on my own hook, and I’ll have a man who is a real diver, not a dub; and I warn you not to bother me in any way.
“Partnership broken!” yelled the captain. “And how do you suppose he has broken it? He sneaked away in the night. He took Ike and four of my crew and the best life-boat. But that ain’t the worst. He took the gold—all of it! Took the twenty thousand. He had the key to the safe.”
“Why did you let him have the key to the safe?”
“Because he howled around that he ought to have some office as a partner, and wanted to be treasurer. He has trimmed us for twenty thousand, and he’ll use that money to fit out another expedition. He has done us good and proper, and there ain’t anything sensible we can do about it.”
I reflected a few moments, and decided that, considering the kind of a project we were working on, we could not afford to chase Keedy and howl. In the opinion of certain persons interested in that wreck, we might appear as thieves, ourselves, if the thing became known in Frisco.
I tried to say something to Captain Holstrom about being well rid of Keedy, but I do not think he heard me. He was too busy stamping about and swearing. That was truly a dark-blue morning on the Zizania.
They were certainly weary and hopeless days which tagged on after that. I kept going down, for I hoped to meet up with another obliging undertow. But San Apusa Bar did not seem to be a popular resort for undertows.
In about ten days we got another hard jolt. A little schooner came swashing up in the lee of the Zizania, and a boat was rowed off to us. The two men who leaped over the rail introduced themselves as Mexican customs officers for the district off which we lay, and they wore the uniform to prove their identity. It had been reported to them, they said, that we were seeking treasure from the wreck of the Golden Gate, and they told us we must stop such business at once and sail away or we should lay ourselves liable to arrest and imprisonment. They had a lot to tell us about what the law was, but I have forgotten. Maybe they were giving us straight law, and maybe they were not. Neither Holstrom nor I knew.
The captain did know men if he did not know law—and he was a man who had mighty keen sense for a crook’s trail, having had a lot of experience with crooks on the water-front. He rubbed his red knob of a nose for some time, and listened. Then he invited the customs men into his sanctuary of the wheel-house, and called me along with them.
“I know all about who has been talking this over with you, gents,” he told them. “I reckoned he would make down the coast in that life-boat he stole from me. He stole that boat, he stole my men, he stole what else he could lay his hands on here. He is a yaller-faced faro-dealer. He never told the truth, he never dealt square cards, he has always cut a corner on every man he had business with. I don’t want to see you fooled. I’m the captain of this steamer. You can see I’m something of a man. This is my partner, and you can look at him and see that he is no crook. I’m going to get right to the point, gents. Do you want to do business with a square man or a crook? You might as well be open with me. Men have to live down here in Mexico. I know all about this customs business along the coast. You’ve got to do business to live.”