"Well, we're after skulls. Leith has told the Professor about some ancient boneyard that he knows of, and he's dragging old Herndon down there."
"I cannot see the crime now," I said. "I've gone after skulls before to-day. I brought a hundred of them up to Vavau for a German scientist last year. He was taking them home to European museums to prove that the Polynesians of ten centuries back had bigger brains than the niggers of to-day."
"Yes, I know that," gurgled Holman; "but Leith—oh, damn it! I can't get you to understand! He pulled the Professor into this deal, and the old man is as green as grass. Herndon supplied the money and all that, and he's that much of a silly old doodlebug that this fellow is buncoing him out of his good gold."
"Yes," I muttered; "and what do his daughters say?"
"Say?" cried the youngster. "They can say nothing that will do any good when they are talking to a madman. He sees Fame coming down the pike, and he's blind to all the tricks of that devil. It's a fact, Verslun! Leith is after the old man's cash—and after Edith Herndon as well."
I stood and looked at the youngster. His boyish face was aflame with indignation, and any suspicions I had regarding his good intentions were swept away immediately.
"After Edith Herndon?" I repeated slowly.
"Yes!" he gasped. "Oh, I knew you didn't like the big, sallow brute. Miss Barbara told me how you turned him down cold when he wanted you to repeat that yarn to satisfy his curiosity. He's a bad egg, do you hear? He's out for trouble, and we're going to run into it head on before we finish the trip. Only for the girls I would have stayed ashore at Levuka."
"And the captain?" I questioned.
"We don't know about him," he snapped. "He's Leith's captain. I mean Leith put him in his job when the Professor chartered the yacht. Anyhow, he doesn't say enough to let any one know which side of the fence he is on. He has only learned to say yes and no, and he is mighty particular about the number of times he will use those words."