"Thought there wasn't no more slaves, eh?" inquired Mr. Barr amiably, swallowing his coffee with a noise like water running out of a bath tub, "wall, that's because yer young. When yer git older you'll larn that there's money in everything here's a demand for, and there's just as big a demand for slaves on some rubber plantations I could tell yer of as there ever was in the old days of the South—and more money in 'em on account of its being more dangerouser."
"Do you mean to say that there is slave-running now?" asked Mr. Beasley, while both Frank and Harry wondered and Lathrop looked uncomfortable.
"Sure I do," chirped Mr. Barr, "but no more for me. There's too many British gunboats and 'Merican gunboats and Dutch gunboats and what not about now to make it comfortable or healthy. No, I've retired from that business—but there's money in it," he concluded with a regretful sigh.
Immediately Mr. Barr had concluded his breakfast—and with his apparently slim accommodations it was a wonder to the boys where he put it all—he snapped, with a flinty glint of his small pig-like eyes:
"Now, let's git down to business. You boys want ter make a bit of money?"
"'To be sure we do," replied Frank, "but we don't want to make any that isn't honest money."
"We'll, there's no accounting for boys nowadays," sighed Mr. Barr, "however, you needn't worry about this money—there'll be plenty of it and it'll all be good honest coin."
"What do you wish us to do?" demanded Frank.
"Just this: Mr. Beasley here and me is in on a deal in ivory. That is, we were, but the big cache we had hoarded up in the Kuroworo Mountains in the Bambara country has been stolen by a rival trader, an Arab named Muley-Hassan. We know where he's hidden it and we know, too, that he won't dare to bring it out till he thinks that we aren't watching him. Now the time is ripe for a big deal in Ivory. There is a shortage in the market. Prices will go up sky high. If we get it out in time we'll make a barrel of coin, but if we don't we stand to lose heavily."
Mr. Beasley gave a groan; to the boys' amazement he seemed to be about to collapse. Lathrop too looked ill and anxious. Old Barr paid no attention, however, but went on.