“I think your first work should be to go on shore with the interpreter to have this money changed,” Ned said when Vance had found a bag in which to deposit the coin. “There must be plenty of places here where you can sell it, and we ought to know the value of it.”
“I’ll do that, and afterward send machinists on board to see in what condition the engine is. We can engage a crew the day before we are ready to leave.”
Vance was eager to make one of the shore party, and Ned insisted that there was no reason why he should not go.
“There is nothing to be done here,” he said, “an’ I reckon one is enough to attend to the loafin’; but if that fellow don’t come pretty soon there’ll be no goin’ ashore for any of us. It will be dark in an hour, an’ you want daylight for it if you’re thinkin’ of buyin’ anything.”
Ned had hardly ceased speaking when the interpreter came alongside in an apparently new boat, this last fact being sufficient to explain to the boys who he was.
Judging from his face one would have said he was a Cuban; but he spoke English so well that it seemed certain he must have been born in the United States.
He presented himself very politely, almost too much so, Ned thought, and although not one of the party could have told the reason why, all felt a certain distrust of the man.
He explained that the officer of the port, probably meaning a sort of harbor master, sent him, and that the official had said that his wages were to be two American dollars per day.
The boat, he said, was cheap at $30, but he had only brought it out on approval, consequently they were at liberty to return it if not satisfactory.
“We will talk about that when we come back,” Roy said curtly. “Just now it is necessary to go on shore at once. We have some Mexican money which we want to turn into such coins as pass current here.”