It was some hours later that Captain Nelsen of the smart coasting schooner, "Nettie Nelsen," perceived, being pulled toward him from the shore, a small row boat. He recognized it as one of those that were for hire and wondered whom the two passengers in the stern might be. He could not imagine who could be coming off to his vessel while the smart motor boat, which he had noticed come in that morning, had dropped anchor some distance off, and not in the direction in which the shore boat was being pulled.
Captain Nelsen was in a mood in which he would have welcomed any interruption to his own thoughts. Trade was bad for coasting schooners. Steam craft had taken most of it from the wind-propelled vessels, and it was only at small, unfrequented ports like Santa Inez that he could hope to pick up a cargo. But there was no redwood, no hides, and no produce of any kind awaiting transportation at the old mission town when the "Nettie Nelsen" dropped anchor there that morning. And this had proved the last straw which broke the back of Captain Nelsen's fortunes. His crew, which had only remained with him in the hopes of obtaining a cargo and thus getting the means of liquidating their overdue wages, had deserted in a body when they discovered that there was no prospect of the "Nettie Nelsen's" holds being filled at Santa Inez.
The desertion had not been mutinous. The men admired Captain Nelsen and were sorry for him. They had simply informed him that they could work the ship no longer without pay, and had gone ashore in a body, to seek their fortunes elsewhere. Thus Captain Nelsen was left alone on his schooner, with his thoughts for company—and very poor company he found them, too.
Naturally, the desertion of the schooner had become the cause of considerable talk on shore, and when Colonel Morello and Dayton, after a careful reconnaisance, had arrived at the wharf and hired a boat for transport to the schooner, one of the first things they heard from their garrulous boatman was of the strange state of things on board the deserted craft. They had exchanged delighted glances as they heard. Surely fortune was favoring them with her smiles once more after having frowned on them so long.
And so it proved. Captain Nelsen was in no mood to haggle over the matter of chartering his schooner. Colonel Morello secured it for the sum of five hundred dollars. There was one serious drawback, however, according to his way of thinking, about the arrangements. Captain Nelsen insisted on being allowed to navigate his own vessel. He had owned and sailed her for thirty years, he said, and keen as were his necessities he would rather let her rot than place her in the hands of strangers.
And so Colonel Morello had to make the best of matters, and agree to carry Captain Nelsen as his skipper. As for the simple-minded captain, he watched the shore boat departing, when negotiations were completed, with a keen access of joy such as he had not known for some weeks.
"Five hundred dollars," he thought to himself. "Why, it will make Nettie and the children hold up their heads again. Oh, I'm in luck! It isn't every day that a down-and-out skipper has a chance of chartering his ship to a party of scientists on a research expedition to the Marquesas."
By which it will be seen that Colonel Morello had not exactly represented his party in their true light to the guileless seaman, who was as unsuspecting as most sailors are. Indeed, after he and Dayton had left the boat at the wharf they began to chuckle over the skipper's simplicity. It was almost dark, so that they did not use so much care to escape observation as they had on their way to the beach.
"Only one thing sticks in my craw," growled Dayton, "and that is that you gave that old barnacle five hundred dollars."
"I had to," protested the colonel. "I don't think he'd have struck a bargain otherwise. Said his wife and children needed the money badly and that he would have to buy extra fittings for the schooner for such a long voyage as we contemplate."